At Montauk Point, Long Island, NY – circa 1972.

This is why you were born: to silence me.

Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn

to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

I improvised; I never remembered.

Now it’s your turn to be driven;

you’re the one who demands to know . . .

Mother and Child, Louise Glück in The Seven Ages [recommended]

And he …

He was a old soul

with new story, zero

at bone and marrow

adhering to Conrad’s dictum

with little shocks and surprises

in every sentence of his book

wearing Truth as his dermis

seeking tears, not blood

And he, like all good art,

marked me for the better.

© 2018 photo and poem, Jamie Dedes

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Our children often surprise us and always delight us.  Write a poem about one of your children or other child in your life.

Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them.

All poems on theme are published on the following Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, December 3 by 8 p.m. Pacific.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.

ABOUT

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

 The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

20 Comments

  1. Clare And The Summer Of ’76

    It was a speedy birth that early
    August night after the Midwife
    checked your heartbeat
    and a Doctor rushed to my side.

    He delivered you with forceps
    and unlooped the cord
    coiled tightly around your neck.
    You cried in less than a minute,

    stopped only when I cwtched you
    in the crook of my arm,
    kissed your blood-freckled face.
    Then I cried too; in a family

    of brunettes, you wore a cap
    of woven gold as though
    the sun-spun summer of ’76
    had filtered through my skin

    day by day and beamed
    at you in your warm-water cradle,
    reflected the light you still offer,
    Clare, living the name you own.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. :: gay pyjamas ::

    my daughter says

    that pyjamas are cool

    on every one,

    and she wishes

    she could wear them

    all the days.

    as i plod around

    this morning,

    mine a gay tartan,

    i tend to agree.

    perhaps that why

    they wore them in china

    a long time.

    awoke arms high,

    a little happier,

    since the doc

    said i was not broken too bad,

    and since the taps stopped running.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. I am unsure if this was received – sorry if a duplicate

    Time Frames

    I carried him for nine months and strangers said
    ‘It will be over before you know it’-
    the bulge that kept me slightly off
    balance for the last trudging month

    until labor started with the pangs and contractions –
    but nothing short in that process even
    as nurses assured
    ‘it will be over before you know it’.

    Wrapped him in blankets of blue and pink stripes
    and then the going home outfit of white and blue,
    to begin real motherhood
    of crying afternoons
    and sleepless nights,
    well meaning friends who assured
    ‘this will be over before you know it’.

    Wet diapers, wet beds and my wet shirts,
    and those who had been here ahead whispering
    ‘It will be over before you know it’.

    Then rocking and hugging and sweet times
    and grandmas saying ‘hold on to this,
    it will be over before you know it’.

    Crawling, climbing, chewing everything
    walking, talking, playing,
    toddler to young boy
    preschool to kindergarten
    ‘Help me’ turns to ‘I can do it’
    ‘Pick me up’ to ‘Let me down’
    ‘Come with me’ to ‘You stay here’
    ‘Look at me’ to ‘Leave me alone’.
    And he walks away with his backpack loaded
    so self assured
    and boards the bus
    Turning to wave and happy to go
    to first grade, then middle school, then
    high school

    Then driving himself off to college and a future.
    I watch and wonder why someone
    didn’t tell me

    it would be over before I knew it?
    deb y felio

    Liked by 4 people

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  6. 3 Haiku and a Tanka

    ordinary day
    the slow unfolding
    of butterfly wings
    —
    the nest
    louder than usual
    youngest child
    —
    11th birthday
    the tenderness
    of a sapling
    —
    unwrapping
    the day
    with laughter
    my child
    turns two

    Billy Antonio
    Laoac, Philippines

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  7. “A Moonlight Sonata”
    (Raanana, April 24, 2016)

    The moon slid down through my open window
    On a slippery ramp of pale light
    Strangely silent for a child
    Falling toward his father’s arms
    But then the moon was not a child,
    The child had grown older,
    And I am just an old man
    Rocking in the moonlight.
    Words when they have no ears waiting for them
    When they are not the words that wanted to be heard
    Are swallowed by the vast silence
    Like drowned sailors
    But your words would have had my ears
    And the world I’d have given to hear them.
    My suitcase is in the trunk of the cab
    You hug me hard
    I kiss your forehead and tell you to write
    But you’re too young to know the value of words,
    You only know the value of grace and loveliness.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. “A Riddle”
    (Raanana, January 17, 2014″

    Don’t have much history,
    I’m only four days old.
    To most of you my name’s a mystery.

    I’m the promise of the Promised Land,
    I’m the crown on top the tree
    Whose roots embrace the sea and sand.

    I’m the fullness which you’ll never faze,
    There’s nothing you can add or yearn,
    These are all the things my name conveys
    In a tongue I’ve yet to learn.

    My face will launch a thousand rhymes
    And maybe I’ll write some of them myself.
    My future’s bright-eyed, ‘tween the lines.

    If my riddle makes you kneel
    Don’t lose heart,
    My name is Klil.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. “Phantom Limbs”
    (Raanana, March 28, 2014)

    He felt ambiguated
    Yes, he thought, that might be the word.
    His unbounded happiness had saddened him.
    After all, it was bounded
    By the foreshortening of his life
    From his perspective.
    His wide unwieldy wings ached
    To enfold his young granddaughter
    Whose hair smelt of fresh wheat on a summer hillock.
    He wanted to take her in his arms,
    His heavy wings thrumping the air
    Until slowly rising above the treetops
    One with the cobalt sky
    They’d soar and swoop
    Over quilted fields and shadowed valleys,
    Then back for tea and hoops
    And lessons.
    Back at home
    Sometime during the night,
    Or was it when he woke?
    His wings were gone
    But the ache remained
    Like phantom limbs.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  10. “Ori”
    (Raanana, June 22, 2018)

    You sit on my shoulders
    And I hold your chubby legs
    In my calloused hands.
    “Look, Saba, a flag!”
    “Take care, Oriki, the branches are low,”
    I say. He ducks his head
    And I duck my knees.
    “Look, Saba, the moon!”
    And I think my light is weightless
    On my shoulders
    Like walking on the moon.

    Notes:
    1. “Saba” means “Grampa” in Hebrew.
    2. “Ori” is a name meaning “my light” in Hebrew and “Oriki” is a diminutive of “Ori”.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  11. “Little Flame”
    (Raanana, March 25, 2018)

    I cupped my hands around your little flame
    Protecting it from susurrating air
    So finite against the infinity of night
    Until you rise above the eastern mountains
    And light the skies with your burnished rays.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  12. “Ellah and the Terebinth”
    (Isaiah 6:13
    Raanana, March 18, 2018)

    Just five days old such big hopes
    Rest on such tiny shoulders,
    Little Ellah, are you a goddess
    Or a terebinth tree?
    Your name means both these things.
    Maybe you’re the goddess of the terebinth,
    The holy seed foretold in Isaiah’s prophecy:
    No matter what befalls us,
    Like a terebinth that has been felled
    Above its grounded roots
    We shall grow back,
    Stronger
    Taller
    Sweeter.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  13. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my second response:

    Why So So Hard

    Mam?

    – I were brung up with pillows
    – Pillows are soft Mam.
    – Not held over your mouth, love.

    – I were given cake.
    – Cake’s sweet, Mam.
    – Not made of seasalt and road grit, love.

    – I were cuddled.
    – That’s what I like, Mam
    – Till I couldn’t breathe, love.

    – I were bring up reight.
    – You’re bleeding me, Mam.
    – How it should be, love.

    Liked by 2 people

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  14. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my first response:

    Bairns Are Old Codgers

    Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
    my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.
    Later we will take her to the memory cafe 
    where she’ll remember her past lives.
    “Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
    A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.
    “Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega. 
    “Heavy”, of the hammer…
    A kitchen servant in a big house. 
    “Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…
    I’m all giddy at tumble down
    slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

    (From my “A World Where” (Nixes Mate, 2017))

    Liked by 4 people

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Thank you!