Poetry + Writing

December’s Writing Contest

As you all know, I like to have a contest every month. I want to engage you all, my wonderful readers.
Last month, the contest was easy, all you had to do was leave me a comment to win a half-tee.
This morning Lori Cruze was chosen as #5 on random.org. She is going to be sooo excited.
Congrats Lori. Thanks for being a reader and a friend. 
Now, when are you going to give me something free? Huh?
This month I am going to do something a little different. I guess your chances of winning will be pretty high because I don’t expect too many people to participate.

I’m hosting a writing contest.
I used to love Scribbit’s writing contests
before Michelle went a-wall.
I even got an honorable mention once.
It was one of my most proud moments.

Anyhow, I have always loved sappy Christmas stories.
I know that the stories are everywhere and everyone has their own that should be told.
So now it’s your chance.
Write down your story,
post it somewhere online, 
and leave me a comment on this post
with your name and story url.
The contest will end on December 20th
and I will announce the winner
shortly before or after Christmas.
It depends on my wrapping situation.
I will get a friend to help me choose the winner.
The amount of tears shed while reading your story
will determine the winner.
Trust me, this won’t be hard,
I cry at everything
and I will choose an equally emotional friend
to help me pick the winner.
If you win,
you will be sent our own copy of my favorite Christmas story
You will also have some mean bragging rights.
Like I will stick the word WINNER
on the above jpeg
and you can post it on your blog.
Let me take this moment to thank all those who made my own Christmas stories possible.
You forever live in our hearts.
I hope this year will be our year to start
paying it forward.
And I thank God for that.

An Empty Well

I throw quarters in
but there is no splash.
I make my wish
as it clunks at the bottom.

I go elsewhere for water and wishes
because the well is empty.
I start making my wishes
for the well to fill
and keep dropping dimes.

I know someday the well
may be full of money
but then I will buy water
and make my greatest wish true.

Wells were made for wishes and water.

Meet Me At Mid-Day My Dear.

Another poem for the love of my life.
Feel free to eavesdrop or ignore.

  Funny sidenote:
LG does not have a poetic bone in his body.
I was just translating this poem for him.
He says, “where our bodies can entwine, what does that mean?”
Then I showed him entwined fingers
while asking him if I needed to pull out a dictionary.

He says, “Our bodies entwine every night.”
I said, I know.
Don’t you get it?
All this whole poem is saying
is
Come home at lunch time and have sex with me.

Now, after barely browsing the poem the first time
all the sudden he is interested and even excited about it.
Men!
I work on this poem for an hour
and all he even hears is the last three words of my explanation of it.
sex with me.

He is now trying to fight me off the computer so he
can read the poem with an all new perspective.

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I am best at bed-time,
you at waking dawn.
When my energy is greatest,
yours snores at your dreams.
The sun rises to your heartbeat,
while mine is perfectly at rest.
Meet me at Mid-Day my dear
when our bodies can entwine.
You are such a thinker,
and I just dream away.
You understand the abstracts,
 I, only concretes.
Gravity draws you closer,
and magnetizes me to you.
Meet me at Mid-Day my dear
when our minds collaborate.
You are tall and strong.
I just tremble in your arms.
Masculinity is regal,
femininity divine.
You talk of now and later.
I reminisce of past.
Meet me at Mid-Day my dear
where marriage is ours.
You struggle to express
what I communicate in excess.
You make me feel complete
as your hidden feelings fill my thoughts.
I know you love me dear,
and you know I always want you near.
Meet me at Mid-Day my dear
where our hearts are as one.
Defeat afflicts my torment,
I hope you understand.
Instead of advising or fixing,
you hold my hand and cry.
Knowing that you share my anguish,
is all I need to try again.
Meet me at Mid-day my dear,
so we can endure together.
Wednesday is my favorite
but any day will do.
The sun at its highest
or better yet, with rain.
Before or after lunch,
but definitely in bed.
Meet me at mid-day my dear,
where our love unites.

Hole in One

Dear LeGrand,
I want you to know that I count every one of my memories with you as sacred.
I wouldn’t be whole without them
and I don’t ever want to live without you.

I swung the club
and off it sailed.
So far away,
it was hard to eye.

But it only took you
for me to see
that my shot
was off by a mile.

In the woods,
we went and searched,
and laughed
until we cried.

We suck,
we lamented.
My game was so bad.
Irrelevant.

Our par didn’t matter
we were intoxicated
just you and me
experiencing a first.

We shot ball after ball
and finally got one
over the river
instead of in it.

Years ago,
we were on that course
in St George
and I will never forget.

Your smile
and your laugh
and your patience
and your love.

When reflecting
I know for certain
I got the most important
hole in one.

I love you LeGrand. Happy Birthday.
I can’t wait to have many many more firsts with you.

We grow


With you, I grow.
Side by side.
You’re just a sap.
I am too.
Different kinds.

You flourish in the sun and rain.
And I watch.

You dance.
You cry.
You smile.
You laugh.
I watch.

I laugh.
I smile.
I cry.
I dance.
And I flourish.
Without knowing it.
Because I am always watching you.

You are my pride and joy.
Sprouted from my seed.
My best buddy.
Smart.

Beautiful.
Fun.
You got my best leaves.
And your dad’s roots and branches.
Your branches
are what I love best.
Because they fly in the wind.
I blinked.
And you went from a twig
to a full grown tree.
And now I feel small.
Smaller than ever
Because you are
such a greater tree than me.

You are strong.
Straight.
Courageous.
You are my joy.
And my light.

I grew
while watching you grow.
But your growth is
so much greater
than mine.
And that makes me feel
like a sap.
All over again.
Both kinds.

You are my joy.
I keep watching.
And waiting.
Until someday
you will have a sapling of your own.
And then my growth
will become even greater.

Because it will
not just be mine.
But yours.
And your sap’s.
And we will all grow together.
Until we have a forest.

And our joy
will be one.
You and me,
we will be done growing.
But our saplings
we will watch.
Together.

And we will feel
so small.
As small as a seed.
But as small
as we feel,
we will know that
we have great power.
Power as huge as a forest.

Because there will be
so many saplings.

And we will watch.
And smile.
And laugh.
And dance.
And cry.

And grow.
Together.
Forever.

I love you Abigail. My darling darling young woman. You are such a joy to me. And I am so proud to be your mom and your friend.

For the Moms

I was asked to write a poem about mothers. I am not sure what is going to be done with the poem. It’s not my greatest work. It’s for my church back in Tennessee. I didn’t have a lot of time, and I really have to be in the mood for poetry. I hope that somehow my main feeling is communicated: I have been mothered by many many women. Some are really my moms and some were friends and some were total strangers.

I will never forget the day that I left the local library bawling. That morning I had just received some shocking and awful news. I decided to take the kids to the library to get my mind off of things. Of course, my two children had other ideas. My baby was a monster that day. They say that our small children respond to our emotions, and I think she was responding perfectly. A man came across the library and pretty much told me I was an awful mother. It was the straw that broke the momma’s back. I gathered the monster, her sister, and tried my best to keep it together until I got outside. I broke halfway to the door.

Another mother had seen the whole thing go down. She ran out to greet me at my car. I had locked the kids in their seats and sat at my steering wheel bawling uncontrollably. I couldn’t even muster the strength to drive back home and even if I could, I couldn’t see well enough to drive. She had the audacity to knock on my window. I sheepishly rolled my window down, and explained that I was having an awful day. She asked me if she could pray for me, and I said, “Oh, that is so sweet, please do.” As a Mormon, I thought that meant she would go back to her car, bow her head and say a silent prayer, but as a relatively new Southerner, I had a lesson comin’ to me. She stood in place and started pleading with the Lord on my behalf. I don’t remember most of what she said except for one line, “Jesus, this woman is obviously having a really hard time, and she has children to take care of, please comfort her so she can do whatever it is that she needs to.”

Do you know that it is six years later and I am still dealing with this major trial in my life. And often, very often I hear the words to that prayer and feel at peace. I wish I could somehow tell that mother, wherever she is, that she has been an angel in my life. But really, aren’t all mothers angels? I think God gets so much of his work done through women with mother hearts. How grateful I am to be one who can succor and to also be one who is succored.

Mothers.
They give birth to babies.
Cradle, not just their own.
A woman’s heart is so large
It’s too big to be alone.
Mothers.
Sometimes are single.
Or have never housed a full womb.
But they still hold hands and hug,
And cry over grave and tomb.
Mothers.
Love and teach.
To everyone they know.
Their children, or mine,
They can’t help but help them grow.
Mothers.
Don’t exclude.
They love one and all.
Because they can’t help it.
They know peace is their call.
Mothers.
I have many.
Lots are far away,
Yet I carry them in my heart,
To get me through each day.
Mothers.
I hear them.
Encouraging my frown.
They laugh with me a lot
And cure me when I’m down.
Mothers.
They are also known as
Sister, daughter, friend.
They are women who I love.
God, to me, did send.
Mothers.
They are busy
Righting the world’s wrongs.
I will, with them, in awe,
Kneel in His eternal throngs.
Mothers.
Work miracles.
In lives old and new.
Because they know how to love.
And succor me and you.
Mothers.
They inspire.
Each person on the earth.
All good things start with them.
Without them, where’s our worth?


Who You Are

Another poem (kind of) for LG. 
Don’t expect any of you to make it all the way through. 
And LG may hope that you don’t, as it gives away all his secrets.
Heck, LG may not even make it through this one.
It’s a doozie.

Who you are
To me.

You are choice between diet mountain dew or A&W rootbeer.
And an empty bag of BBQ chips.
You are love that is better than ice-cream.
You are sunrise, sunrise,
I can see it in your eyes.

You are kisses all around.
You are always kind.
But never kind enough to yourself.
You are sometimes down.
And sometimes crazy.
But I am the only one that knows that.

You are the guy

with great teeth
and you don’t even have to floss.

You are the man
who I love by my side
in the bed,
on the trail,
and
at the movies.

You are amazing calves
that can still dunk
any day.
And a bad ankle
that keeps you
grounded.

You are a little boy
I want to hug.

You are let it be
and sunshine on my shoulders.

You are fall leaves,
and rain on the metal eave,
open windows
to let in the sound.
You are the one
who holds me
in a Southern Storm
or watches in awe
the Western lightening
scrawl across the sky.

You are a child of God
who deserves unconditional love.

You are a mighty man
who holds the priesthood of God
and can move mountains.

You are the equivalent of a PHD,
even though you say you aren’t
and that you think PHD’s are stupid.

You are all tough
and swerve to hit the squirrels
and say you are gonna get rid of
that damn dog
and I catch you 
scratching and loving
the pet
and cuddling with the cat
while simultaneously
trying to shoot the crows
and you are a wonder to me
because I know you can handle
all the heartaches that I can’t.
And you can bury the pets
without shedding a tear,
yet you remain gentle.
You are a living paradox.
And you love smelly candles
and massages
yet wear the same old ratty T-shirt
because you don’t want to be a
metro-sexual
but a truly heterosexual
manly man.
Which you are.
But you love smelly candles.
And fondue.
You are in the wink of an eye

and Mormon Tabernacle choir.
And listening to you
listen to music
is like a spiritual experience.
Listening to you talk to your kids
about music
is like heaven to my soul.

And I haven’t even got started
about how sexy it is
when you play the piano
or quote Robert Frost.

You are dirty blonde,
and a toehead,
and mostly bald.
Your stubble up top
makes my hands tremble.

You are a fast typer
and a fast thinker
and fast with your
jokes.
And that’s about all you do fast.
Unless we count when you fidget.

You are a slow kisser.
A slow driver
and a slow reader,
but not to me.
To me,
you read the fastest.

You have perfect timing.
And against all odds
you have learned to be a good gift giver
which means everything.

You are a blinker
and a concentrator
and either do
one or the other.

You are the guy
who reads kids’ books
and plays video games
to bond with your kids.
Or they do it
to bond with you.
Not sure which
would be more accurate.
You totally own it
when I catch you laughing
at
The Wizards of Waverly Place
or Ponyo.
And you are proud of it.
And that makes me proud.
Because you are the best dad.
The best.
Anywhere.
You are the maker upper of games
that you like to play
with your buddies
in the front yard.
You are goof-ball
and I am one of the only
privileged ones to know 
that side of you.
And I love it when
you let others
see the part of you
that is fun and carefree.
You are a strong strong spirit
who fights every day.
And loves your God
and your Savior.
You are an amazing
teacher
that can explain
the most
complex
things to
a person
of any age
or
IQ.
You are the forgetter
of where you left your wallet.
And the loser of
at least 7 weddding bands.
One for every other year
just to keep things
new
fresh
and
exciting.
You are the best district leader
to the bold kisser
to the man I married.
And you were so handsome.
And still are.
You are my Matt Damon.
You are the handler of taxes.
And computers
and TV’s
and DVD players
and anything
with a cable.

You are hiding
away your change
so you can one day
buy an I-pad,
which you may want 
even more than that newest phone.
You are
the lover of
electronics.
All
electronics.
Even the remote control watch.

You are the disliker

of make-up,
and girls in immodest clothes,
and boys
who like your girls.

You are asleep
by 10 p.m.
and a snorer all night
on your back or side
but never on your stomach
and up at the 
beep of the alarm clock.
Up and at ’em.
It never seizes to amaze me.
Until I hear
the shower running
for at least a 1/2 hour.
Every morning.
And then I realize
why you are happy 
to get up early.
So you can sit in the bathtub
while the water runs
over you
waking you up.
You are the lover
of a hot breakfast
and rarely complain
that you didn’t marry
your mom
but instead a woman
who would
only cook for you
in the morning
on your birthday
or on Father’s Day
or when we have company.
You are the 
I can do without dessert
kind of person
but bring on 
the wings.
You are the man who is still
waiting for his BBQ grill out back
and his honeymoon
and his Cadillac
and his dreams to come true.
Yet you are usually content.
And worry about giving more to
your family,
then you take for yourself.
And that is such a turn on.
It makes me want to give you
that flat screen T.V.
that you still can only dream about.
You are the misser
of Atari
and your own
Pop A Shot
and
the days when
things were simpler and
your game boy
was in pristine condition
and you knew where
all the games were
at all times.
Instead of having to look
through the couch cushions for them.
You are the player of
Pretty Pretty Princess.
and completely honest
when you say you don’t 
need a son.
You have the patience of Job,
which makes you the best dad.
But it also makes your life hard.
Because I guess God knows you 
can handle hard stuff.
You are a hater of 
sand in your craw.
And mean girls.
And injustice.
And you are
just like me
and always on the side
of the underdog.
You are a perfectionist
even though you won’t admit it.
You are an avoider
of things emotional
or overwhelming
or out of your expertise
because you are perfectionist.
You are a jumper off roofs
and you are the man
who could only
stand or lay on his back
for a whole year
of law school,
but you never gave up.
And you still help people
move their furniture
even though you’ve had a disk
surgically repaired.
You are an appreciator of foods,
and always up for
trying something new
and the hole in the wall spot.
And never order the same thing twice
unless it’s
chicken fried steak.
Or that salad
that your age
has forced upon you.

You are always anxious
about change
and you don’t like uncertainty.

You are empathetic
and loving
and overly accommodating
to everyone but yourself.

You are a guy
who can lose 50 pounds
in two months
when you put your mind to it.

You are the kid
who thinks that there
is always something
better on the other side.

Your weakness does not define you
as neither does your strength.
What defines you
is you.
And I want you to know
that more than anything
this me
wants that you
to see you
as I see you.

You are self conscience
and self deprecating
and I want you to see
who you are
to me
and
who you are to Him

so you can
see who you really are.

Because who you are
is so much better
than who you know.

Tennessee Bridge

Please excuse my boo-hooing. This is going to be a very sentimental post.

I’m already crying and I haven’t even started writing yet. I’m a mess.

When my father in law e-mailed this photo, he had appropriately named it “looking west”.
 Maybe I should also get him to send me the other side entitled “looking east”
 as I am sure there will always be a part of me that will do both.

In 2003, LG and I, with our three little daughters crossed over this bridge for the first time as a family. The girls were so young: 4,2, and newborn. We had come across the country for law-school and Grandma Gold’s empty house was a perfect place for us to crash while we house hunted (an hour and a half away) in Knoxville. It was two doors down from my in-laws, which is about a mile beyond this bridge. We didn’t know it at the time, but we started a tradition. It had been a long trip, where we learned all sorts of car sanity games. We challenged Abigail to a Tennessee Bridge off. She must suck in all the air support she could and holler “Tennessee Bridge” as we drove over. She should not stop hollering until we safely reached the side closer to grammy’s house.

Well, here we are, almost eight years later. LG’s employment is going to drag us back to where we came from. We can’t complain. It’s a great job. We love Utah and we know it’s what God wants us to do, but it is very emotional…especially for a big sap like me.
My mother in law just posted a picture of the bridge on facebook and said they are closing it down. They have built a bigger and better bridge off  to the other side. All I can do is cry. And reminisce. And scream, “Nothing can be bigger or better.”
So many trips and holler contests are flying through my brain. Abigail is 4, then 5 then 11, ever increasing in volume and intensity. Sophia was 2 and couldn’t quite pronounce the words, but still hollered right along with her sister and now she quite possible has some of the best breathe control. Bella was probably just crying that first trip across, but her volume was likely as loud as it is today, even though the words now come out loud and clear: TENNESSEEEEE BRRRIIIIIIIDDDDDDGGGGE. 
Sometimes the girls were in soccer uniforms or church dresses. Sometimes the car was loaded down with winter gear and Christmas presents. Or food that we didn’t want to go bad in our fridge at home. Sometimes we had a cat with us and a dog. But never both the cat or the dog. Thank goodness. Sometimes they were in bathing suits and we may have even had the occasional birthday suit in there. I can smell the homemade loaves of bread that Faye sent home with us and the Thanksgiving leftovers. I am blinded by the black of most of the nights when we were headed back home while I calculated which caffeinated soda I would purchase at the corner gas station just beyond the bridge. The kids would already be falling asleep and wouldn’t even notice the bridge.
LG and I got really good at driving across that bridge super slow while the kids’ faces turned bright red and finally gave in to the need for oxygen. A parent has to do what they have to do for the occasional win. We would have to remind ourselves not to slow down if it was at night and the girls weren’t paying attention. The girls have now turned their attention to teaching baby Caroline the tradition.
I am not sure how many times LG told me of his trips to the little market close to the bridge while we drove by. “I always got my gas there when I was a teenager.” “Dad and I used to stop there for worms when we would go fishing.” “We used to drive our bikes down here when we were kids”, to which I would reply, “Are you kidding me? This highway is frightening.” The response would always follow, “Yeah Alice, I’ve told you a million times, we would take the back-roads; they are so much safer.” I would laugh inside because I don’t think that there are really any safe back-roads in the whole state of Tennessee; I have personally puked while trying them out in the car. That’s when I started driving everywhere so I could avoid car sickness.
But back to the bridge. They are tearing it down. They are tearing down a piece of our family. And I can’t stop crying, but I guess it is kind of fitting since we have to move forward. We can’t stay here forever.But even if we aren’t going to be Tennessee residents and even if we aren’t going to get to visit grammy and papa as often, we now know that at least a piece of each of our hearts will forever be floating down the great Holston River. I think I can hear it as it faintly rolls along to the tune of Tenneeesssssseeeee Briiiddddgee.
wah wah wah.

I choose you

I choose you.

Every day.
I choose you.
No matter how poor.
I choose you.
As I always have.
I choose you.
No matter how broken.
I choose you.
As I always will.
I choose you.
No matter how hard.
I choose you.
I have to.
I choose you.
No matter how wrong.

I choose you.

I must.
I choose you.
No matter how long,
I have to wait for your success,
or your happiness, or your comfort, or your perfection.
I choose you.
And because I do,
nothing else matters.
When I choose you,
I am a success.
I am happy.
I am at peace.
And I am perfectly whole.

It was red.

It was red. It was perfect. And the story goes something like this:

The anticipation of Mother’s Day was slowly putting my husband over the edge. How the man ever buys a satisfactory gift for me with all that intense pressure, I will never know.

On Saturday morning I chuckled inside as he begrudgingly announced that he had some business to tend to and would be home shortly. As he dragged himself out the door, I hollered out, for the twentieth time that week, my short list of things that he could buy for me. I try to help him out like that. That’s what mothers are supposed to do and I wouldn’t want to shirk my responsibility so close to the holiday, would I?

Less than ten minutes later, he walked in with a good size box under arm. It was all wrapped up. What in the world? He confessed; he had gone to work to pick up the gift that he had really purchased several weeks back. He had been acting worried for two weeks just to increase the surprise.

I gasped for air. Had he really bought me a gift two weeks in advance? I must be getting more special by the minute. Or was I just better looking when I was 8 months pregnant with number three? He never buys Christmas gifts until Christmas Eve; he learned quickly to put off the torture as long as possible. Wow. I couldn’t have been more speechless if I had won the Grammy for mothering.

I was in a trance. I sat and I unwrapped. I felt like the luckiest mother alive. And let’s keep this between me and you, I was taking my time because I was a bit worried about what he may have picked out all on his own. Ideas were flowing freely into my skeptical brain. What if it was horrid? How would I play it off? The worry lasted for just a second. The picture on the box stole away all of my spousal anxiety and mistrust.

My jaw dropped. If the box was correct, he had purchased my coveted Kitchen Aid mixer. I can’t even tell you how many times it was on the long list of gifts to buy! It was the gift at the bottom for another day when we had more funding. It was a gift of such magnitude that it was never on the list that I typically yelled to him while he stomped out the door. How could he have remembered?

When I started to tear up, it was a little more emotion than he was ready for. He quickly explained, “I hope this gift lasts you for the next three years because you probably won’t be getting anything else for a while.” We would all become law school orphans soon enough.

The gift couldn’t have been any more phenomenal. Except maybe if it was a new couch. That is still on the long list. I tore into the box; I couldn’t wait to make some homemade rolls; I would finally be free of the torturous duty of kneading. I made a vow, the man would never hear me complain again.

But, wait! What color is that? It’s not the same as the picture on the box? It’s not the plain old white model. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. My eyes did not deceive me. My man had given me the moon and the stars just as promised in those old fairytales. My new mixer was a mixer with a purpose; it made a statement as grand as mine.

My new mixer was the color of my personality. My new mixer was my favorite color that I had never dared to declare. It was red. It was perfect. It was the color that I always described like this, “I don’t have a favorite color. I love them all. How could anyone declare a favorite color? All of the colors are beautiful in their own way. Oh, if I had to choose one? Well, I really do love the color red. It would be at the top of my list.”

I am sure that LG has given me great Mother’s Day gifts over the last ten years, but I can’t for the life of me, think of one. How could he top perfection? And not because it was from the long list, but because it was red. He had chosen my favorite color. And it was beautiful. And if his 8 month pregnant wife wasn’t beautiful, you could have never convinced her of it. Her husband had reached perfection in the gift giving department. And he did it just for her.

And I am now proud to exclaim my favorite color. When people ask, “What’s your favorite color?” I proudly reply. “It’s red. My husband chose it for me. It was a mixer. It was red. It was perfect.”

Now honey, don’t be getting any crazy ideas. A red couch would simply not do the trick for my upcoming birthday. Please keep the couch at the bottom of the long list and don’t EVER try to pick me out a couch, o.k.? Really, I want a say in the couch department. I am serious.

Oh, and I love you. And, I love red. And, I love my red mixer. But, I won’t love a red couch. Got that?

I will be submitting this to Scribbit’s September Write Away Contest. Just for fun. And as my way of saying thanks for the topic.