Day the Sixth--Deep

Today I'm doing a Poetweet. It has to be complete in 140 characters (including spaces) and need not rhyme. Here's my stab at it:

Deep

The iceberg slid sinuously by,

silvery sculpted ribbons raising 

jagged crags to slice the sky.

Breathless, I watched it slide past. 

Or did it?

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

You can find out what a Poetweet is, here. There's even a contest you can enter.

My Big Brother's Feet

Day the Sixth is a Sunday so I have proffered my poem early. It's a couplet poem.

My Big Brother's Feet

They fit in her hands, with toes so small

So wrinkly and tiny and precious, and all.

Too soon they took wing as babe turned to boy

He ran about learning and serving with joy

He walked to the temple to teach the men there

Wise past his years, He was His Father's heir

Out to the desert, a forty day fast

His feet cracked and bleeding, he weathered the blast

He walked to the seaside, the fishers to meet

Gathering followers street after street

He healed the sick and brought back the dead

He calmed the foul waters, the Good Word to spread

Walking and walking, he traveled the land

Loving His people, and off'ring a hand

He walked upon water, His faith proven sure

And beckoned to Peter to come, not demure

Followed the sower, the reaper, the poor

He healed the leper, the blind and the sore

Mary, who loved Him, brought ointment and care

And she washed them with tears, and dried with her hair

Feet muddy and cracked and bruis-ed for others

Worn out in the service of sisters and brothers

Too soon he was climbing that hill to the gate

To a moonlit garden, a refuge from hate

To pay for our sins, He retreated to pray

And sweat drops of blood on that long-fated day

His steps led to leaders who hated His grace

They whipped Him and argued and spat on His face

Those marvelous feet climbed the Hill of the Skull

Burdened with cross and a thorn crown so cruel

They nailed His feet to the wood of the cross

In ag'ny He bore it, the pain and the loss

His friends took Him down from that dreadful tree

And wrapped Him, entombed Him, so carefully

"Mary," He said, in the garden place

She didn't remember the planes of His face

He went to His Father, His footsteps so sweet

Bringing resurrection to all He would meet

Now we must follow in Jesus' footprints

Back to Our Father and His Peaceful Prince

Those footsteps are big, so demanding to fill

But it's worth it to make it back up the long hill

Back to Our Father, I'll follow Him there

Alive in His footsteps, He and I, we're a pair.

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

Haiku to You- be-doo

Day the Fifth--National Poetry Month--Haiku

Today I'm doing a haiku.

Saguaro Skyscraper

You who scratch the sky

With your spiny arms upraised

Haven to the lost

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

 

If you'd like to know more about haiku, check here for an explanation.

It's TRIPLETS!!!

The poetic kind...:oI
Every April I join in the April Poetry month thing, so here goes Day the Third:

PEEPS 

 Every Easter 'he' brings me Peeps

He stuffs them in by heaps and heaps

I'd rather throw them under Jeeps

Their sug'ry bodies make me bulge

If I but think I might indulge

I'd rather eat a pound of fulge.

 Fudge...:o)

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you want to know more about triplet poetry, try here.

Day the Second

It's the Second day of Poetry Month and I'm doing an I Wish But I am Fill-in-the-blank poem:

 I WISH

I wish I could travel the wide, wonderful world

Like a raindrop in the wind.

I dream of seeing the velvety green glades of Ireland and the rocky crags of Switzerland, the crowded streets of India and the caverns of China. 

 I am waiting only for the chance once more to experience it all in delicate filigree and grand detail.

I used to think I only wanted to stay home and take care of my family in that little house in the sun.

But now I know I'd rather take them with me out into the bright vastness and sometimes-empty stretches.

I seem to have itchy feet aching to find untraveled places and eyes longing to see the next incredible beauty, the uncommon cache of wonder, the unnoticed.

But I'm really wondering if it'll ever happen.

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you'd like to know more about Fill-in-the-blank poems, go here.

Tag des Erstes

National Poetry Writing Month kicks off with my first poem:

I am this
Yes, that’s me look and you’ll see
My hair is not green, short, or currently curled.
My eyes work fairly well if I'm wearing my red glasses.
My arms (as in coat of) are: Or, a seme of annulets vert, sable, a swan rising, wings addorsed, a bordure dovetailed, vert.
My hands are still talented, though they look like a dry lake bed--pocked with tanned spots and lines and scars.
My heart longs for love, understanding, and valuation. It belongs to my sweet husband and wonderful children.
I’m lucky to have traveled a little before I stagnated, to have seen comets and eclipses and gypsies and jewels, to have danced a queen, to have played a pirate and sung a survivor. I am lucky to have graduated twice and well. I am lucky to have grown up in the fields and forests, to have held snakes, spiders, llamas and many more. I'm lucky to have climbed in Switzerland, snorkeled in Alaska, waded in Mexico, worshiped in Austria, played in Greece, celebrated in Germany, picked up hitchhikers in Yugoslavia, complained through Czechoslovakia, beached in Denmark, eaten in East Germany, trained through Luxembourg, and canoed in Canada.
I never dreamed I'd be an author, or anything but a ballerina, though here I am with ink on my fingers and wisps of lives in my head.
My friends are as varied as wildflowers. Some smell good, others, don't. But they're all beautiful in some way.
I live in the Earth's oven, waiting to jump out when someone opens the door.
I hope I get to finish. "What?" you ask. "Everything," I say.
I dream of making it to the end well, with my sanity intact, with my clothing washed white of sins and mistakes, with talents to show for it all, and with the love of family and friends trailing in banners floating behind me in the winds of the universe. I dream of kneeling at His feet and offering it all up to Him. I dream of His welcoming arms.
It’s all clear as can be
That’s positively, absolutely me
© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

If you'd like to learn about more Fill-in-the-blank poetry, go here.

Bird Fashion Show

Just so you know, none of these birds match the paragraph.

I think I've always had a thing about the wee birdeens--watching them, making up stories about them, talking about them, reproducing their calls, feeding them, finding their eggs, teasing them, eating them. I just don't hang around with binoculars and a bird book and catalog them.

I even have several posts on here about birds. Eagles, hawks, chickadees, doves, mockingbirds, possibly peacocks, and the ones who hide dog food in our jeans on the clothesline (cactus wrens) figure in somewhere in past blog posts. I'm not sure what's so appealing about watching and listening to them other than that it's soothing, like watching tropical fish.

What? You don't carry your duck 

on your head?

This subject came to mind because I was out hanging clothes at 1am and there was a mockingbird, newly returned to the neighborhood, out there singing away. He reminded me of a drunken Irishman singing one of those endless drinking songs, each verse different. Some people hate them, because they don't have a filter. They'll sing in the middle of the night right outside your window and keep you awake for hours imitating car alarms and ambulance sirens among a zillion other things. I love them for their creativity.

I love hawks and eagles for their raptor sharpness and sleek grace. They kept me company while I ran in the park I used to run in. It was always fun to watch them go from hopping around on the ground, to that maiden flight from the trees when they launched all raggedly knocking branches off, to that singing glide up to the park lights to take their thrones.

Watching the chickadees who have inhabited our birdhouse for generations (sometimes three a year) reminds me of raising kids by how they squabble over what they think is theirs when it's been someone else's while they were away growing up. Those little things can get vicious!

There are the trailer trash birds like the doves who are so stupid they'll build their nests in palm trees among other places. The first decent wind knocks their nests right out of the downward-tilted fronds. We've nursed several baby doves back to life after they plunge to the ground. We have one right now who always builds her nest in our hanging planter and freaks out if we open our front door precipitously. The thing is, she's loyal. She won't budge from her eggs (unless they're smashed on the ground, that is) for anything. She just plants her feathery butt right there next to our door and gives us the evil eye if we dare go in or outside.

I love to tease the cactus wrens by reproducing their calls. And they tease me back by filling the jeans on the clothesline with dog food chunks. It took me a while to figure that one out. I kept blaming my husband's old roommates, who, strangely, still seemed to be following us around to various places of abode to play their tricks on us.

The Gambel quails are scurrying across the road pretty much every time they see a car go by. I think it's a prerequisite of being a quail. You must take your whole family in a heart-stopping sprint across the road every time you see a vehicle approaching, regardless of speed. Maybe it's how they weed out the slow kids.

Well. So it's the first day of spring, which means the birds are back in droves. The gem-like humming birds are dive bombing the aloe vera stalks. There are conferences of fluffed out birds congregating on every power or phone line. They sing in the daylight and the dead of night.

I'm thankful for birds. They cheer me, entertain me, and fill me with wonder. And now, I think I'll go put one of their children in my pancakes.