poem prompts

Back home again, on the laptop, feeling refreshed from two wonderful returning-home-to-Tucson events:

1. Before coming home and unpacking, Mark and I walked around the Sweetwater Wetlands area and it was so lovely. I highly recommend a visit to it while the cottonwoods and desert willows are still draped in gold and green. Mid afternoon sun shines softly on the reeds and cattails and ducks abound on the ponds. Birders more gifted in sightings that we were saw Ibis and other winged creatures. We gazed at the stillness of a turtle who should be in hibernation this time of year, but, with the warmness of this December winter, was sunbathing on a log emeshed in short reeds. He sat there with his tail and left leg hanging over the log, eyes blinking in, what I call, amazement at his extended autumnal life.

2. After unpacking and quickly distilling the local paper and NY Times Sunday edition, we went to Catalina Methodist Church for their annual Christmas Concert. A thirty-piece orchestra accompanied the adult and child chorus. We laughed at a three year old girl who waved her arms under her red vestment collar in rhythm to the conductor and at an energetic young boy bouncing on the steps. The adult chorus was wonderful, sweating from their brows after singing High Renaissance contrapuntal music, traditional Christmas carols with contemporary arrangements and the secular melody of "White Christmas". Amazing orchestra who pulled out a big sound with Tchaikofsy's (sp?) "Waltz of the Flowers" from "The Nutcracker Suite." I tested my blood pressure half way through the concert and I was in a Zen-like state of 60 beats per minute.

So, on to the poetry, prompted on 12/8 and 12/10

Prompt form Writer's Digest--generalized group, people, animals, things

I just read about my favorite big city--
San Francisco, where
Instead of a "club crawl" from bar to brewery
as we do on the dustry streets of Tucson,
They stroll from bookstore to bookstore,
buying beer with a shot of whisky
or a coffee with expresso.
In all places, they read books, old and new,
alone or to each other.
They leave a just-read book on the table
as they go to the next bookstore.
And someone else picks up the book
to start their own journey
through the warmly touched pages.
In this way--in San Francisco,
books connect strangers and friends,
readers and writers,
And the newspaper article never mentioned
a Kindle or a Nook.
So, wherever you are:
buy a book
and pass
it
on.

12/10 from Writer's Digest prompt: "on the run"

I remember listening to
"Band on the Run" as we
were driving to Mission Bay
in San Diego.

Our son was a little guy,
sitting in the back of the car,
sandled feet bouncing
against his car seat.

We were singing and watching
the kites high in the sky,
searching for a parking space
close to the grassy knoll so
we could picnic.

Out of the car,
our son went flying with his feet
pounding agains the soft grass--
quite a treat for a desert boy.

His blue eyes looked up
as the kites, lifted,
soaring beyond the harbor,
almost out the the ocean,
still tethered to the ground.

Back then, his dreams were as high
as the kites, and our dreams soared
for him, too.

Twenty-five years later,
the ground has shifted
below his feet and ours.
Kites are a memory most days:
It's about paying bills,
keeping our expectations low,
tightly held to earth.

But the string can unwind
with our imaginings.
We don't have to choose
to only hope that he doesn't fly away again.

He, and we, can choose to
let the wind lift us up high,
trusting that we will stay grounded
with each other.