photo by Deborah Tosun Kilday

March 2, 2025
I read today.

The water is higher today

I don’t believe it rained hard last night.


small painted turtle pokes its head

through the bended year-old reeds.

 

Collections of old thoughts pile up inside

like the grasses and sticks of muskrat’s home.

 

Weighted down by leftover seeds

held back by mumbles of sorrow.

 

Small painted turtle drops back down,

hides its head from the over burden.

 

Wood ducks bob, but nest high in trees.

Caution, a product of several generations.

 

Held back by mumbles, an occasional scream

woven together in this endless stream.

 

The water is higher today. 


photo by Karen of Ethan



Today was 1st Sunday Open Mic.  We've changed our Human Error Publishing open mic from 3rd Tuesdays to 1st Sunday because Sunday afternoon is more amenable to all of getting older folks.   The average age was a little higher today, but on the other hand we all are always so glad we are there.   Readings are good, listeners are good and today we even had a little food.   


I think i was so aware of our ages today because our last Writers Read was a group of youth readers and the average age in that audience was quite a bit younger.  I think  I have to find a way to get them to co-mingle with each other.   The youth were so vibrant with new ideas or new ways of expressing old ideas and the adults are getting so good at their craft.  The quality of the readings have improved over the past 4 years.  I find it wonderful to watch.  We do learn from listening to each other.



I read three poems that I have been working on recently and had never read before.  All three were different formats.   I've been playing with format.  It's a useful exercise.   I think I need to begin to build my new manuscript.  


Deborah Tosun Kilday
photo by Lindy 



Wish me luck with getting my car back tomorrow.  I think I need to go back to life, but I really want to hold onto the rhythm that I have adopted these past couple of weeks.  



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  January 3, 2025 The Complexity (what I refer to as the texture) of Life This is a photo of Michael Whiton, eldest child of Jean O. Whiton.  If you knew our mother, you know whose eyes he inherited.  Picture was taken by Linda Boardman.        I did not take pictures today, nor was my brain very able.  So tonight you get a poem I wrote 25 years ago that is more spirited than I could write tonight. I Believe in Color   I believe in red the changing forever-ness of red.  A pure rich red: cotton tee shirt red, berries on the bushes in the dead of  New England winters, cherries in June next to a slab of ripe brie. Magenta, a little redder than wine, blood as it begins to dry, the curtains I always wanted, floor length heavy velvet. Orange red on the skins of a tangelo; blood oranges in a light blue porcelain bowl on a small table near stark white walls. Dusty rose of an old flannel duvet, the height of fashion in 1980. I believe i...
Read more
Image
January  4, 2025 Michael E. Whiton  June 30, 1944 - January 4, 2025     I always talk about patterns, it is my researcher's brain.  This morning I texted with my niece, Grace, and asked her what her 12 year old was really into. She told me math.  He plays the flute in his school band.  I had an epiphany when the 2 things got put together.  To grow up with music as a constant all through your childhood you are exposed to patterns.  You become aware of what can follow what.  My 3 year old great niece makes up little songs, repetitive musical patterns.  Her father repeats them or adds to them.  She already knows how to put notes together.  That's math.  That's what Liam does.        So what does all that have to do with Michael's leaving us on this plain today.  Well, one pattern is that we all seem to be good with babies.   When Mike was 21, Jason was born.  He was good to babies....
Read more
Image
  January 2, 2025 Time is both too soon and too late.   Just keeps slipping.     I believe it was 1996 or 7 when I flew out to Bainbridge Island to see my brother, Mike.  He was very ill and my Mom was worried and wanted me to go assess the situation, which I did, probably in not such a diplomatic way.  He really was ill.  His liver was failing and he wasn't getting put on the transplant list, yet.  I've never quite understand the whys and the wherefores of all that.  But for the next 4 or so years he maintained, so sick, sometimes optimistic, sometimes beaten, but he made it to a liver transplant in August 2000 in Worchester.       24 years ago, holy shit.  EJ's entire life, a third of mine; and again he kept living, kept listening to music and trying to be kind and never regaining any reliable health.   His story is fascinating, and I'll tell it sometime, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to ...
Read more