Poetry Day

One cousin messaged on our chat this morning; Today I'd like to invite everyone to write a little poem on any topic. Must be two lines or more....

Here's what I wrote first:

Colby and I are home today;
He got bit by the coyote-trapping-fray.
I'm teaching him knots and stitches too
As he stretches the hide and heals the few
Little holes in the luscious fluff.
I could bury my head in the fluffy stuff.
But coyote fur? I back away...
A mother's job is hard some days...

And then later this:

Keep 'em coming. Write, she said.
And so she stopped and scratched her head.
Should she write about how much she'd consumed?
Of coffee; hot, flavoured and bloomed?
Or should she write of her laundry room?
Where pile upon pile of laundry loom?
Sheets from company, blankets from sick,
The piles are growing, but not so quick,
As the few weeks when the fevers and colds
Spread like spots on grandfather toad?
And underneath the loads and piles
She finds the sewing spread miles and miles.
The quilt she started in twenty-nineteen,
Cuddled up close to her old machine,
The box for home-ec class piled high,
The teachers box is sitting nearby,
The denim patches are neatly stacked,
Inside a box for Wyatt to attack.
Shh, it's his, but don't breathe a word.
He thinks a boy shouldn't quilt. He's heard.
But can't stop here. Piled in the back
Are pens, paper cutter, a drawing stack,
Empty cartridges, paper weights,
Birthday cards from last year's dates,
A family motto, a quilting book,
Kleenex boxes, a vinyl hook,
The paper shredder, mighty full,
Scraps of satin and crepe and wool,
A sewing box, a serger - old,
Pins and thread  and scissors gold,
Mat and cutter, ruler too.
Oh, the things she finds, it's quite a view.
But on she must press, the work can't wait,
Thanks for listening for five minutes straight.

I would love to post some of the others poems. It has been a rich day!

Quiet

Welcome, January. Welcome, 2020. Welcome, new year.

It has been quite the January, so far. We had a lovely Christmas. And then we came home and had sickness. The kind of sickness where everyone is down for a week with fever and chills and aches and colds. And we've overlapped somewhat but it has really been a long drawn-out affair, which has launched 2020 as one of the most remarkably stay-at-home, relaxing years. I'd like to focus on the scent of homemade brown bread wafting through the house, the hours and hours of reading stories (welcome to the Melendy quartet) together as a family and playing game after game of Cover Your Donkey (as Sasha likes to call it).

Slow waltz. That's us, foggy-brained, hoarse-voiced, each at our own pace of rest and relaxation.

And lest we forget to impart important details, we must add that we've had very little school and many days of -50ish windchill. A walk across the yard holds coughing fits and chilled fingers.

And then the day that Pat felt himself getting progressively worse and joining the ranks of sick, Zach played hockey and scored a ten-stitch scar on his temple. It was late in the evening. Those things always make all-night ER trips. Colby came with me to bring him in and the wait was phenomenally long. I found out later they were keeping him for a six-hour watch because it was a head trauma. When it was finally time for stitches I fled the room, Colby fled the room and the doctor had to get Zach to press the call button for help because she had a surface bleed which filled his ear and sprayed her shirt. We came home in the wee hours, relieved, exhausted, and one with a serious headache.

We have so much to be grateful for.

Back to my word. Quiet. I'm in a writing group with three lovely ladies and our topic for January was 'your word for the year'. I pondered and thought. Self-denial? Most definitely needed. Joy? That's what I want. Hope? Always. I had this idea going through my mind. I've been on this journey for a while now of deepening/strengthening/growing in self-denial and quietness. When Karen suggested quiet I knew that explained what I was trying to say. The word quiet can have so much more self-denial and grace than the word self-denial. And quiet to me means a quiet heart, a quiet spirit but not necessarily being quiet and not saying anything, which for me could be more rebellious than anything.

Quiet.

So beautiful; like the snow-flakes drifting down outside my window, like the sound of my little boy breathing hard as he sleeps his fever and sore throat away, like the concentration on Zach's face as he does one more lesson in math.

Quiet.

So self-denied; like the man of the house arising early and heading out the door on the coldest day of the year, operating at 70% as he quietly stated to me, willing to give anything for his family.

Quiet.

So gifted. So humble. So gracious. Like our teachers at school, giving their time and selves again and again and again.

I want to be this.

I long to grow in Jesus, in quietness and in strength. For in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.