Originally it was a drive thru quickie just 3 for $1 cookies and a free ice water with tax equals $1.06 McDonald's run. We were only 68 miles or 51 minutes from the nearest refrigerator. At $0.39 per cookie I anticipated satisfaction and pride. We're talking an 11 cent savings.
Then like mini crazy fast food ninja junkies they convinced me we needed two grilled chicken wraps plain, a small fry, apple dippers hold the carmel (quite unhealthy don't you agree?), two small vanilla cones please make them seriously small wow they're like monsterously towering over these sadly weak cones and THEN basically forced me/convinced me I needed a crispy honey mustard chicken wrap okay and a hamburger extra pickles and onions. And an ice water. Please.
After shucking $12.83 on absolute crap I watched my 11 cents go out the pick-up window and wondered if good intentions burn calories.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
My Mother's Day 2011
Breakfast and coffee before
I could open both eyes.
A homemade card. Handwritten words.
Just for me.
Sunday worship as a family.
Songs and prayer.
God's love. A real faith.
Understanding what it means
to be a mother.
Understanding that I do not know what it means
to lose a mother.
Or to be a mother who cannot
beyond her control
become one.
Or to be a mother
without her child near or even,
alive.
Lunch sitting down.
Using real utensils instead of
my own ten.
Eating the last bite
without guilt.
Splurging on a sweet mocha cappuccino.
Meandering through a bookstore.
Remembering what it's like
to meander through a bookstore.
Listening with delight to others speak
on white paper.
Take out in a clean house.
Two kids chasing nothing but
space in a basement.
Who say "I love you" because
I taught them how.
God, giving me those two reasons
to celebrate today. To remember:
celebrate them everyday.
A husband who loves me as
his wife. As their mother.
Who loves me enough to tell me.
I could open both eyes.
A homemade card. Handwritten words.
Just for me.
Sunday worship as a family.
Songs and prayer.
God's love. A real faith.
Understanding what it means
to be a mother.
Understanding that I do not know what it means
to lose a mother.
Or to be a mother who cannot
beyond her control
become one.
Or to be a mother
without her child near or even,
alive.
Lunch sitting down.
Using real utensils instead of
my own ten.
Eating the last bite
without guilt.
Splurging on a sweet mocha cappuccino.
Meandering through a bookstore.
Remembering what it's like
to meander through a bookstore.
Listening with delight to others speak
on white paper.
Take out in a clean house.
Two kids chasing nothing but
space in a basement.
Who say "I love you" because
I taught them how.
God, giving me those two reasons
to celebrate today. To remember:
celebrate them everyday.
A husband who loves me as
his wife. As their mother.
Who loves me enough to tell me.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Ode to Springfield
In Springfield, Illinois there is somewhere, a patch of grass
no bigger than me.
Across the road, a low field beyond a glancing reach.
To anyone, its worth is wind. Memorable as traveling sand.
A midwest grain, no bigger than one ordinary city.
Yet beneath lies remarkable dirt.
Beautiful as Lauterbrunnen. Rich as Ettelbruck.
Container of life and passing shadows.
Entire destinies asked to come and lay and rest awhile.
In two years that small patch gave its all to me.
A soft place to fall. To stand.
To grow its own life and mine by rains of hard tears and by night,
a quiet voice saying home and pointing me exactly where I was.
Saying go and pointing me exactly where I am going.
Inside I'll keep its grain, just one
to remember God's sand and all that I left.
My traveling footprint beneath.
And behind, so much held and spoken
between that small patch and me.
no bigger than me.
Across the road, a low field beyond a glancing reach.
To anyone, its worth is wind. Memorable as traveling sand.
A midwest grain, no bigger than one ordinary city.
Yet beneath lies remarkable dirt.
Beautiful as Lauterbrunnen. Rich as Ettelbruck.
Container of life and passing shadows.
Entire destinies asked to come and lay and rest awhile.
In two years that small patch gave its all to me.
A soft place to fall. To stand.
To grow its own life and mine by rains of hard tears and by night,
a quiet voice saying home and pointing me exactly where I was.
Saying go and pointing me exactly where I am going.
Inside I'll keep its grain, just one
to remember God's sand and all that I left.
My traveling footprint beneath.
And behind, so much held and spoken
between that small patch and me.
it all depends
Inside that photograph
Earth in lights
North Korea black.
A total death.
But in other parts
Stares to stars, and romance
Light from above
And night below.
Earth in lights
North Korea black.
A total death.
But in other parts
Stares to stars, and romance
Light from above
And night below.
Monday, May 2, 2011
After Dinner Family Room
Two thousand battery operated scattered plastic dollars
Every shape and function
Bats and nets and balls of all sizes yet
Daddy's back, his broad warmth
Horsecollar tugs to keep him
Filled to stars and silly laughter
Deep from toes singing
Magic of an after dinner family room
Heavy on Superman spinning
Four funny wheels like he'd last forever except
Drawing down
Her waiting lap
Mesmerized by sight and anxious
Close and not long but just right
Amidst mess to rest
Tired and twinkling, all of them
Sleepy, full as night.
Every shape and function
Bats and nets and balls of all sizes yet
Daddy's back, his broad warmth
Horsecollar tugs to keep him
Filled to stars and silly laughter
Deep from toes singing
Magic of an after dinner family room
Heavy on Superman spinning
Four funny wheels like he'd last forever except
Drawing down
Her waiting lap
Mesmerized by sight and anxious
Close and not long but just right
Amidst mess to rest
Tired and twinkling, all of them
Sleepy, full as night.
Rewriting Through the Pinhole
She said, Your writing is getting better. And I thought, Dang. Why'd you have to go and say that.
I chewed it on Saturday
Not like a compliment presently stated but as a question hurdling me back to that question I've always wondered and now
I'm questioning everything.
It's not her fault that I'm made of glass that I crumple into a ball
By one earnest attempt of -
Look at how far you've come!
From that writing genesis,
My first trembling paperthin skin poem.
I'm too fond of her to rip her up completely.
It's been 30 years for crying out loud.
But in the beginning I shredded her
In newborn ink and have been thinking all this time:
Whoa-ey, wow, That's powerful stuff!
But. Am I really?
My friend's passing comment gave me permission to reconsider
What I've already questioned:
Should I certainly, yes, certainly
Reshred that shredded poem and throw myself a quick
Confetti night celebration of quiet failure to
Rewrite and rewrite, again?
The meaning's there beyond the words.
If only I had someone to invite.
You see, I don't know where to begin to unearth
My buried self, faltering backward back to
A pinhole in the ground where I hid
And laid an unsure girl down low to rest. Shall I find
those painful bones and break them again to tell her that she must
Try again?
Meanwhile on Friday,
I followed a minivan mother literally a soccer mom, her daughter on
My daughter's soccer team following the game.
That is, before I was running behind
Very late and holding everyone down with
An apology stuck to my eyes.
I just made sure not to let my honesty stare straight into theirs,
That painful three word confessional speech of
I'm so sorry.
Instead, I stood in one neutral spot on the sidelines and her,
Standing on my same sideline
Safely thinking we were all the same kind of same sided people.
Yes we are! I cheered for us all, myself included, a rare
Mental exclamation! To be part of something bigger than me.
I was feeling pretty good right where I stood
Pretending I could win by watching.
But after the game she burned rubber ahead, and me,
Trying to catch up to her
Illinois license plate, that one she earned after she
Decided with a bright feather pen upon DMV lines
To wear a moving proclamation on her frontside
And on her backside
To protuberantly e-nun-ci-a-te
Who she is. POETS 4
She states in bold everywhere she goes.
One intimidating minivan eyebrow raised
Better than I, and leaving me to cower behind her whoa-ey wow ability to
Shout herself with an alphabetical combination followed by
4 times something I could never ink blot on my "Hello My Name Is" tag
That I have a tendency to stick to the bottom of my shirt sleeve
So no one can read what I've written.
I'm just the simple mark questioning her statement even though
I wish sometimes I wouldn't
Ask so many questions.
But there in front, Chrysler Town and Country shook her finger
A thousand beautiful miles long.
Say yourself out loud! Yes! Say yourself out loud!
I say why
When I am safer hitched behind a person who can drive exactly what
I cannot.
But I let her go.
Pressed down on my heart and broke.
Rolled to a slow stop and lost her. She, writing through her green, green light.
And me, red to still.
Through my 6th Street glass road
I looked to the side where I no longer stood
To try and find my poem, the girl through the pinhole
Who needs me to pry open my car door
And cheer her back up. Her silence rising from
Way down there. But I was feeling sick.
Not from the motion.
But from stillness.
I fixed my eyes ahead.
And beyond the words I read a sign of courage
To dash my instinct to climb out of me and crawl away from the scene
Because
I am carrying precious cargo I need to get somewhere
And though I don't know what's inside I know that I must remain
To play this game and to cry when I lose
And even if I win.
If you can imagine that.
And maybe I am better now than who I was and
That's what my friend was cheering in my ear
From the sideline of my life.
Go, she pointed, not with her finger but with her heart
Not permitting me but prohibiting me
From vanishing into that paperthin skin side of me
That side of me that says I need to say I'm sorry every time I sputter
Inch by nervous inch ahead toward the next red light up there
My pinhole poem growing smaller from
Flickering green light intersections where I can either
Keep apologizing for every last word I've written
Or just grow a pair and write the next word.
The one that kicks me in the gut and pulls my soul by a string.
And, I meant soccer balls, by the way.
Maybe I'm not a minivan
but okay, I'll do it. State without a mark of question
Okay maybe still with doubt
That I might actually be on the field and no longer on the sideline.
My daughter is my daughter and her daughter is her daughter and there's
Enough poets 4 all of us to love.
She said, Your writing is getting better
To tell me
Regardless if I am POETS 5 or POETS 5 hundred thousand and 5
I can live with my own alpha-numeric combination of uncertainty
To say what I need to say beneath my unsure plate of armor
This one here that I wear without vanity
Not on the frontside of me
Or the backside of me
But italicized with humility
On the 6 point font inside of me
That I must certainly, yes, certainly
Rip her up and
try again.
I chewed it on Saturday
Not like a compliment presently stated but as a question hurdling me back to that question I've always wondered and now
I'm questioning everything.
It's not her fault that I'm made of glass that I crumple into a ball
By one earnest attempt of -
Look at how far you've come!
From that writing genesis,
My first trembling paperthin skin poem.
I'm too fond of her to rip her up completely.
It's been 30 years for crying out loud.
But in the beginning I shredded her
In newborn ink and have been thinking all this time:
Whoa-ey, wow, That's powerful stuff!
But. Am I really?
My friend's passing comment gave me permission to reconsider
What I've already questioned:
Should I certainly, yes, certainly
Reshred that shredded poem and throw myself a quick
Confetti night celebration of quiet failure to
Rewrite and rewrite, again?
The meaning's there beyond the words.
If only I had someone to invite.
You see, I don't know where to begin to unearth
My buried self, faltering backward back to
A pinhole in the ground where I hid
And laid an unsure girl down low to rest. Shall I find
those painful bones and break them again to tell her that she must
Try again?
Meanwhile on Friday,
I followed a minivan mother literally a soccer mom, her daughter on
My daughter's soccer team following the game.
That is, before I was running behind
Very late and holding everyone down with
An apology stuck to my eyes.
I just made sure not to let my honesty stare straight into theirs,
That painful three word confessional speech of
I'm so sorry.
Instead, I stood in one neutral spot on the sidelines and her,
Standing on my same sideline
Safely thinking we were all the same kind of same sided people.
Yes we are! I cheered for us all, myself included, a rare
Mental exclamation! To be part of something bigger than me.
I was feeling pretty good right where I stood
Pretending I could win by watching.
But after the game she burned rubber ahead, and me,
Trying to catch up to her
Illinois license plate, that one she earned after she
Decided with a bright feather pen upon DMV lines
To wear a moving proclamation on her frontside
And on her backside
To protuberantly e-nun-ci-a-te
Who she is. POETS 4
She states in bold everywhere she goes.
One intimidating minivan eyebrow raised
Better than I, and leaving me to cower behind her whoa-ey wow ability to
Shout herself with an alphabetical combination followed by
4 times something I could never ink blot on my "Hello My Name Is" tag
That I have a tendency to stick to the bottom of my shirt sleeve
So no one can read what I've written.
I'm just the simple mark questioning her statement even though
I wish sometimes I wouldn't
Ask so many questions.
But there in front, Chrysler Town and Country shook her finger
A thousand beautiful miles long.
Say yourself out loud! Yes! Say yourself out loud!
I say why
When I am safer hitched behind a person who can drive exactly what
I cannot.
But I let her go.
Pressed down on my heart and broke.
Rolled to a slow stop and lost her. She, writing through her green, green light.
And me, red to still.
Through my 6th Street glass road
I looked to the side where I no longer stood
To try and find my poem, the girl through the pinhole
Who needs me to pry open my car door
And cheer her back up. Her silence rising from
Way down there. But I was feeling sick.
Not from the motion.
But from stillness.
I fixed my eyes ahead.
And beyond the words I read a sign of courage
To dash my instinct to climb out of me and crawl away from the scene
Because
I am carrying precious cargo I need to get somewhere
And though I don't know what's inside I know that I must remain
To play this game and to cry when I lose
And even if I win.
If you can imagine that.
And maybe I am better now than who I was and
That's what my friend was cheering in my ear
From the sideline of my life.
Go, she pointed, not with her finger but with her heart
Not permitting me but prohibiting me
From vanishing into that paperthin skin side of me
That side of me that says I need to say I'm sorry every time I sputter
Inch by nervous inch ahead toward the next red light up there
My pinhole poem growing smaller from
Flickering green light intersections where I can either
Keep apologizing for every last word I've written
Or just grow a pair and write the next word.
The one that kicks me in the gut and pulls my soul by a string.
And, I meant soccer balls, by the way.
Maybe I'm not a minivan
but okay, I'll do it. State without a mark of question
Okay maybe still with doubt
That I might actually be on the field and no longer on the sideline.
My daughter is my daughter and her daughter is her daughter and there's
Enough poets 4 all of us to love.
She said, Your writing is getting better
To tell me
Regardless if I am POETS 5 or POETS 5 hundred thousand and 5
I can live with my own alpha-numeric combination of uncertainty
To say what I need to say beneath my unsure plate of armor
This one here that I wear without vanity
Not on the frontside of me
Or the backside of me
But italicized with humility
On the 6 point font inside of me
That I must certainly, yes, certainly
Rip her up and
try again.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
dry river
Rocks effacing through riverbed sand.
Weaving down a desert stretch.
Dry as 10,000 miles of land.
Parched, waiting for prayer to fall
A memory of water cupped inside hands
That centuries before baptized them.
Weaving down a desert stretch.
Dry as 10,000 miles of land.
Parched, waiting for prayer to fall
A memory of water cupped inside hands
That centuries before baptized them.
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