Soul Sunday

Fortune for the Day“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

Good morning, my dear friends and readers. I hope that you are well today. New readers, Sundays are dedicated to poetry here at Adulting-Second Half. Please share your poems in the Comments. Soul Sunday, has quickly become my most popular, “read” day on the blog. That tells me that poetry moves many souls, in many ways. Share your poems, friends. When you share your poems, I think that you share your most intimate, less “crafted” self. And that is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world.

Here is my poem for the day:

Cleaning Out the Garage

There’s a heap of our family life,

Unceremoniously dumped on the curb of the drive.

A litany of sports played by the kids,

starting with small plastic bats, moving on to helmets.

Helmets for everything – bike riding, lacrosse, softball.

Old suitcases, cracked and weathered with age and wear,

But once the housers of our treasures and trinkets as they witnessed,

The grand adventures of our chaotic family vacations.

The suitcases are piled on top of the piles and piles and piles of rags.

Rags, that once started out as the nice, fresh, new towels,

Only to brought out for guests, but after years of use,

Relegated to the rag pile in the garage, best used to wipe down cars.

No one has taken the electric scooter yet,

The in-line skates are past their prime.

The bike baskets are charming, but faded and crumbly.

It takes a great deal of fortitude to clean out the garage.

Most especially, emotional fortitude.

A small piece of my heart is faintly beating,

Underneath the heap of our family life, lying by the road.

4 thoughts on “Soul Sunday”

  1. Nicely done!

    I can see everything just as you’ve described it.

    Reminds me I need to start my Spring Cleaning.

  2. Indiana

    A muddy
    squishy Spring
    r
    a
    ins…se
    e
    ping
    from the rusty
    downspout
    to a barrel
    below
    to collect
    today
    and help the sweet corn
    g
    r
    o
    w…up green and tall
    in the kitchen garden
    out back.

    It grows
    like the weeds grew
    around the weathered red barn.
    (just like them kids did)

    So fast…you hardly noticed
    till they’s grown
    and gone.

    There’s lines in the
    chipped white paint
    up the door-frame
    And Mother’s
    hieroglyphs besides them.
    which looks a lot like names and inches
    but really says
    LOVE

    (…look closer…)

    The purple crocus
    are up…and the yellow daffodils sway
    in the breezy March wind
    And the World smells like
    damp dirt and earthworms
    in Indiana in Spring.

    Summer here
    is lazy.

    With red and white
    Herefords
    laying in a clump beneath
    a large burr oak
    in the field.

    Tails swishing maddeningly u in
    at the flies b zz g
    e
    v e yw h
    r
    er e
    And tiny sugar ants
    parade along the kitchen counters
    (the…ants…go…marching…one…by….one)
    and heaven only knows how they manage
    to get in the honey jar
    but they
    do.

    “And just look at them beans, will ya.”

    Cicadas drone
    from the tree tops
    till Grandpa done turn’t his
    Miracle Ear
    completely off

    And them kids
    race down gravel backroads
    drifting on the curves
    and a rooster tail of dust
    hangs air like was NASCAR.
    in the it

    “I reckon h’its time to oil tha front
    again”
    Uncle Jim
    agrees…before spittin’ Mail Pouch
    at an Army green
    grasshopper.
    (who was mindin’ his own damned business)

    And a watermelon
    cracked…green…red and luscious
    in a farmhouse a mile down the road
    but you can smell it
    like it was settin’
    right here on this
    old concrete
    well cap.
    Like whiffin’ bacon
    or hotcakes and maple syrup
    or fried chicken
    in the Indiana Summer air.

    The air is heavy with corn pollen
    ‘maters and green beans
    filling every available
    inch of counterspace
    and Lord no…we don’t need
    anymore zucchini,
    Betty.

    And from his chair
    Grandpa silently nods and adds

    “ever”

    And suddenly
    just when you get so hot
    that your fixin’ tah melt
    like your cousin Joe’s orange
    Push-Up
    did all over his nice clean bibs.

    Fall Arrives.

    Just like some old Gypsy woman
    sauntering in
    outrageous
    wearin’ velvet and silk
    red and gold and orange
    jes’ swishin’ round her feet.

    And the sky is so blue
    if you painted it that way
    why,
    it wouldn’t look real.
    They’d think you was makin’ stuff up
    (…they would…)

    And the combines chugging
    from dawn to dusk
    and even later
    still
    thanks to
    Mr. Johnny Deere
    (and headlights)

    And red graintrucks
    piled so high with corn
    and beans
    and after the rain the blower
    done run all night.

    And there’s bean suppers
    and chili cook-offs
    and the fish fry
    ‘ cause Fall in Indiana means
    Eatin’: A Sportin’ Event.

    And the hayfields is
    brung in by sweatin’ men and boys
    and you kin tell the new’uns
    by their short sleeves an
    itchy arms.

    “Bet they won’t do THAT again”
    snorts Uncle Leroy

    (…here Son…have a glass of sweet tea…)

    And Uncle Ed just shakes his head.

    Grandma always said he had ears
    that stood out from his head
    just like the doors on Bob’s ’57 Chevy.

    And the whole fambly takes hands
    around the table
    and gives Thanks
    (to the Lawd that is)
    for another year
    for another good crop
    for all this fine food
    but mostly for each other.

    And a chill begins to sneak into the evenings
    and the sunset is spectacular in reds and golds
    bit of rainbow
    set on either side of the sun

    And Bobby Ray says them are called sun-dawgs

    but Mr. Reed
    who taught us
    Science down at the school
    says they are ice crystals
    way up high…reflectin’ the sun
    an he should know
    bein’
    college educated and all

    Pretty soon
    them ice crystals ain’t up so high
    anymore, though.

    They are
    f
    a
    l
    li
    ng
    and piling
    right up around
    the trees and the barn
    drifting across the county roads until they

    just disappear.
    in a pile of snow.

    And the whole world smells like woodsmoke
    and bread baking
    and Grandpa’s pipe

    As we drag in

    the
    fir tree
    that we cut
    for the holidays
    and

    the
    house smells just like
    pine tree
    and cookies baking
    and peppermint
    and Grandma peeling oranges.

    and it’s
    Christmas in Indiana.

    1. Carla, that is your best, most creative poem, yet! I love the use of letters to represent rain and ice cycles – very, very descriptive and beautiful!

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