Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Haiku/Poetry

April 7, 2018

April Spring

sorting quickly
a robin selects fresh twigs
worthy of her nest

cold gusts
send Spring warmth flying –
a starling whistles

blanketed
beneath wildflowers
Spring takes root

I wrote each of these this past week, on different days following a chilly walk outdoors. This morning tiny snowflakes were whirling around for a bit before disappearing. Yesterday D and I walked in the late afternoon leaning into cold gusts.

This winter was the most difficult we’ve had in years. So cold, icy, windy and messy with snow that I couldn’t get out and about as much as I did last winter. Which isn’t great for my mood or my sense of being part of the world around me.

All I want is to see people, give and take a smile or two, maybe stop and talk a bit, admire all the dogs that don’t belong to me, watch children racing around in the street and on the playground, get my miles and hills done, dodge a few cars, listen to robins, tufted titmice, chickadees, cardinals, woodpeckers and flycatchers, then come home to our cat and a warm house.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 April 2018
Photo of Claytonia virginica (spring beauty) found at nature.com

7 Comments
April 3, 2018

sounds of silence

not even
the refrigerator
hums tonight

a clock
ticks seconds away
barely audible

in my ear
the soft buzz of silence
fills the air

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 April 2018
Photo  of installation art found at dripart.com

10 Comments
April 2, 2018

Gumdrops, Spring and Dr. King

Like gumdrops
Filling a candy jar
Seconds of daylight
Pile up helter skelter
Cheery gold and lavender
Green, purple and red
Steal the show
From winter’s icy grip
One precious drop at a time

Snow and sleet this morning; sun promised this afternoon. Crocus and forsythia bloom no matter what falls from the sky. Relentlessly, they’re taking back their space and sending winter packing.

On 4 April 1968, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. I can’t think of another religious or political leader who has, in my lifetime, spoken truth to power as effectively as he did. Not once, but many times over.

Dr. King’s approach offers an alternative to Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again. Dr. King’s option is about hope for our future, though not because we’ll all be Great in the Trumpian way.

Instead, like the silent approach of spring, we’ll join others to steal the show from our long national winter of discontent. It will take no more and no less than small acts of nonviolent hope, listening as we’ve never listened before, and one courageous vote at a time.

We don’t have to wait until we’re part of an army or national movement to do what needs doing. Nor are we promised rose gardens or fame in return for our service. Instead, we’re promised the soul-satisfying, dangerous work of living and speaking truth to overweening, soul-destroying power.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 April 2018
Photo found on pinterest.com

7 Comments
March 31, 2018

Life flew south last winter

Life flew south last winter
Though I’m looking for its return
In vain I imagine it on
A southern beach somewhere
Soaking in rays of warmth
For this spring-starved season
Plus stories of birds and beasts
To lighten my waning energy
Sleeping day and night

Waking from a dream I search for
Resurrection of bones and sinews
With sight and sound and the mind
I used to have but find instead a
Stranger has taken up my space
Demanding attention as the radio
Drones on about life out there
Though I no longer visit
Or entertain at home

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 31 March 2018
Photo of Baltic Sea Club found at pixabay.com

9 Comments
March 29, 2018

On this side of death

On this side of death
Life seems far away
Cold and unforgiving
A half-remembered song
Of dreamers now turned
A certain age still pushing
The limits of what body
And soul can take without
Warning or a notice in
The mail reminding us
The deadline for renewal
Is approaching

This morning the calendar
Says Spring is in the air
Yet all I see are fog and the
Stubborn snow of Winter
Still frozen on the ground
Hanging on for dear life
Reluctant to cede even
Half an inch of space to
Birds announcing it’s time
For warmth and loveliness
In the face of barrenness
And last Fall’s rot

Cars rush by outside
Perhaps they know what
I don’t know about what’s
Happening and where to
Find it when wheels are
Greased and running smooth
No hiccups or tremors
Or faintness of muscles and
Limbs aiming to make it
From one room to the next
Without colliding into
One’s own precarious
Body and soul

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 March 2018
Photo of the Gazebo at Longwood Gardens found at tripadvisor.com

8 Comments
March 26, 2018

peach-pink sunrise

peach-pink sunrise
paints bare spring tree-tops
warm flame

No, this isn’t what it looked like outside my bedroom window Sunday morning. But the colors are at least close. The flaming tree-top effect happened quickly before going back to regular fringy brownish tree-tops. A spectacular way to begin the week.

All except for this: Our old house is reverberating this morning with drills and hammers and the sound of men going up and down to the attic–carpenters and electricians. The modest makeover should be done in a few days. Phew…..

Happy Monday!

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 March 2018
Photo found at theaccidentalpeach.wordpress.com

5 Comments
March 25, 2018

hands clasped tight

hands clasped tight
behind Dad’s broad back
head resting face forward
on Dad’s right shoulder
the young man exits
held in Dad’s strong arms

~~seen yesterday in the beauty shop

The young teenager had just had a haircut. Both parents were there. Mom did the talking; Dad did the heavy lifting, bodies face to face; their son’s feet and legs dangled limp. The shop was full of women of all ages; huge mirrors covered nearly every inch of wall space. Multiple witnesses to courage and perseverance against all odds.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 March 2018

4 Comments
March 24, 2018

restless wind

I.
restless wind
whips through ice-cold air
branches bow and scrape

II.
pale  green buds
reach for the sky
defiant

I saw this from my kitchen window, though not on the same day. The first was a week ago; the second was yesterday. All things considered, I’d rather be a pale  green bud defiantly reaching for the sky, than a branch bowing and scraping before restless wind.

There’s a lot of restless wind in the White House these days. Comings and goings. Bowings and scrapings. Tweets and retweets. Fed by an overload of anxiety, frustration, rage and intrigue.

Given the direction of the latest eruptions, I’m sorely tempted to give up hope. Not hope for a great conversion–though that would be welcome. But hope that we’ll make it through the next three years without destroying ourselves and others.

Yet I still have hope. Like those pale green lilac buds and against all odds, I’m committed to doing what I’m meant to do, no matter what’s on the ground or in the air. Those tiny buds point defiantly to a higher Power that calls forth life, not death and destruction.

I want to be one of them, defying a religion or politics of despair and retribution. And without losing my roots in the messiness of this world that God loves so much.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 March 2018
Photo of lilac buds found at videoblocks.com

7 Comments
March 20, 2018

grim and determined

grim and determined
she waits outside the closed door
peering straight ahead
and leaning on her walker
hands wrapped in weathered gloves

~~observed this morning in a waiting room

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 March 2018

4 Comments
March 19, 2018

rising far above

rising far above
earth’s chilling chaos
the sun smiles warmly. . .

inviting me to bask in its light
instead of teetering on the brink
almost but not quite addicted
to insurgent adrenalin
coursing through veins and heart

chaos begets chaos of similar
proportions while inhumanity
goes for the jugular of decency
draining me of common bonds
erased by more urgent notifications

arriving by the millisecond
I emit gasps of horror about
this or that gross inhumanity
perpetrated against him or her
or us or them here or over there

breakdowns firings and hackings
poisonings fake smiles and killings
threaten to deliver our undone humanity
to the evil we deplore yet cannot
banish from titillated eyes and ears

rising far above
earth’s chilling chaos
the sun smiles warmly. . .
inviting me to bask
in its healing light

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 March 2018
Photo by David Henke, found at suburbanphiladelphiarealestatenews.com
Sunrise over the Delaware River on Easter Sunday 2011

7 Comments