Bits of De(light)

not-quite Journaling, 77

succulents--
green bits of delight
grown for joy

10/20/2024: Life is rather rough, at the moment. So, when Rosemary invited us to find inspiration in “things [we] delight in, which make [us] feel blessed and glad to be alive in spite of all the bad”, my soul and skull filled with vibrant images of tiny plants in tiny pots. I enjoy mini-gardening (especially when I’m sad or anxious or angry or hurting…). It’s green therapy! I love selecting the perfect tiny planters: a cracked finger bowl (see image above), a chipped teacup, a ½ ounce shot glass (that used to be a wee candle jar). There are more things (and people) that make me feel grateful to be alive, but today I’m choosing tiny plants and tiny pots. 

What about you? What “things you delight in, which make you feel blessed and glad to be alive in spite of all the bad”? 

 

 10/24/2024: Because some days (years?), one must get the energy to fight (and thrive) from unlikely sources (emotions?) available to one. Yes, by “one” I mean me (and you too, if you wish). 

 

a green treat
to warm my tastebuds
until spring

10/29/2024: Tonight is supposed to bring our first below freezing day of the season. So, I harvested the last of the tomatoes. A bit late for tomatoes, I know. But the unseasonably warm temperatures have been blooming and fruiting all sorts of things. Really, my sunflowers and gloriosa daisies are still blooming too. I wonder if they’ll be all frosty tomorrow… readying themselves for the Winter Solstice. 

What’s nature being up in your bit of the world?  

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #155: May Bite!)

Food for Flesh and Soul

not-quite Journaling, 76 

The blossoming is done
for you, they told her...
spring is gone;
summer went cold;
autumn will fall
at winter’s feet. 

But she ignored them--
wild nature is always
too wild to quit blooming 

on anyone’s command.

 

10/20/2024: I think “a terrible beauty” should be added to the definition of Climate Change. I can’t believe how many things are still blooming this late in the season. According to the forecast, it’s supposed to be 80 °F in New York City on Halloween. Makes me want to cook my traditional All Hallows’ Eve pumpkin chili outside, on a fire pit… The thought of a big cauldron bubbling over flames and coals, woodsmoke and spices and storytelling scenting the air, takes me back to the best years of my childhood *happy sigh*. 

 

If life skins off de-
light, I shall wear
midnight as a suit. 

11/10/2024: This poem bit was my response, when asked to illustrate my feelings on the election results (and what said results might mean for a chronically ill, veteran, immigrant, woman of Afro-Caribbean descent). After reading the poem, someone said they “admired and envied [my] grace and lack of pain”. At first, I thought the person was being sarcastic. When I realized they were serious, my brain and I spent some long seconds stunned by the idea of anyone being so blind… Then, I proceeded to completely lose it—loudly, descriptively, and at length: 

I shouted something (probably slightly unintelligible) about metaphors. Then I Magaly-explained that being skinned alive would involve pain, that choosing to stand up when soles and knees and palms are raw from being flayed would be pure agony, that wearing anything on freshly exposed muscles and bones would be torture, that doing any of these things would require taking sadness, rage, disappointment, will, and the almost-corpse of hope… and reshaping all that terrible energy into armor to keep my heart (and other people’s skulls) from being crushed under my pain.  

I am angry. I am sad. I am in pain. And I am not feeling particularly graceful at the moment. But “this too shall pass”. 

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #152: Holding Your Breath)

Not Her Heart

So many hearts keep falling
for the tainted silver in his tongue,
for the spit that dazes reasoning
before sinking teeth into flesh. 

Not her heart-- 

she recognizes the fakery
oozing out of the sick,
sick shine in his eyes; 

she sees him sign more contracts
with blood of the shackled sheep,
of the choice-robbed,
of the enthralled... 

she wonders
if any of them would ever see
the muck that sticks to his bones,
the worms living in the hollows
that should’ve housed a soul; 

will they ever
sense the incubus
under the wealth-made halo,
or has he sucked all the marrow
out of their futures and wits?

– I wrote the first version of this poem in another November, some years ago. Feeling the need to revisit the topic makes me so very nervous. Sigh.

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #151: “a box full of darkness”)