Category Archives: happy

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Stone heart

My mind is done and unsurprised. My heart a stubborn rock.
My heart does not give up: loves where it loves. It doesn’t care
about reality or whether it is derided or mocked.
My mind moves on and kicks my heart, wondering where
this tenacity stems from. My heart is done with tears.
It agrees to new friends and joys in dance.
When my mind says forget, my heart jumps and steers
my body into a warrior fighting stance.
My mind is cynical and laughs and derides my heart.
I let them fight back and forth every day.
I cannot reach an end unless I start
to honor my feelings, the heart must hold sway.
My mind moves on, ignoring what you do.
Yet my stubborn heart remains a friend, strong and true.

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catch

Catch

What bucket can catch this light and color?
None, I think, and then I think I am wrong.
A bucket lowered and set in the water,
Turquoise and blue and black, a song.
Lift the bucket and the turquoise is gone.
Reflected light, a dance on on the riffles.
It’s like the happiness for which we long.
Caught for a moment, containment stifles
the reflection of joy in our face and hearts.
The face that lights from music or dance
or a moment touched by another’s art.
Let joy come and go, take the chance.
The light on the water will be gone at night.
Joy wants to be free and not held too tight.

I heard the band The Winetree last September in Ohio.

Sonnet 17.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bucket.

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Celebrate

I took this last May. Let’s celebrate with watermelon balloons hanging from the ceiling! They are red like the Valentines though they are green too. I thought they were awfully cheerful and rather unexpected.

Happily, these are not suspected spy balloons and do not need to be shot down.

Meanwhile, a zoo has gotten creative about ex partners. For a small fee, they will name a cockroach or a carrot after your ex and feed it to a zoo animal. I hope they don’t get indigestion. That really is delightfully silly and creative.

There are still people found alive in earthquake rubble: more prayers and let’s celebrate that.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: celebrate! Welcome to our newest prompter, Perpetua.

And here is a celebratory song:

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I think of you as dead

I think of you as dead.
Love is not dead, not mine for you.
This is not respectful to those
truly dead. Yet you are dead to me
in that you lie and say forever.
Torched and ashes, now it’s never
and the real you is dead to me.
I love the you that made a different choice,
that loved me back. He holds my hand
and walks with me and laughs with me
daily. And there is nothing you can do
to stop him and me. If anyone asks, you are dead
to me, dead forever, and I will love
whoever my heart chooses, for all time.

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I found the chalcedony nodule on Indian Island yesterday.

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Dance card

When we danced at Glen Echo in the 1980s, there was dance etiquette. We did not have dance cards. Instead, we would see someone we wanted to dance with, sometimes while we were dancing with someone else. One finger meant next dance, two meant the one after that. If both were taken, a head shake. No one could remember beyond two so the etiquette was not to make promises beyond two dances!

Dance card

We finally meet again at a live band dance. I have not seen him since August. It is January.

“Hello!” says T. “Where have you been?”

“That is a great question!” I say very cheerfully.

He is looking at me.

“Oh, what a great song!” as the next song starts. I tap my foot.

He narrows his eyes a little, but replies “Shall we dance?”

We dance really well together. We have danced off and on for nearly twenty years. I asked someone for his last name just a week ago. I may have known in the past, but I had forgotten. It doesn’t really sound familiar. I do know he worked for years in counseling.

The band is loud so not conducive to talking much. The dance ends and he twirls me to a close embrace. He walks me back to the tables.

“You have not been at dances much.”

I blink at him. “You said your dance card was full.” I say.

“What?”

I sigh, trying not to exaggerate too much. “You asked me personal questions. Then at the next dance you tell me that you have a woman for every night of the year.” I flutter my lashes down. “I do hope you mean dancing.”

He is silent, absorbing this.

I am channeling my Tidewater Belle mother-out-law. “Ah am sure you are very busy.” I look modestly down at my lap, glancing across his lap as I lower my eyes. .

“Hmmm.” he says.

“Ah was so amazed that you had a woman for every night of the year that I could hardly bear to go to dance.”

I look through my lashes. He is studying me.

I smile sweetly. “Perhaps you could let me know if your dance card clears a little. Mind you, dancing only. Ah can be a little old fashioned about some things.”

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The story is fiction. The photograph is from my wedding, 1989. He’s hamming for the audience again. I do not know who took this!