A new published poem plus

 I’m pleased that the Story Circle Journal has published my new poem, “Writing My Truths” in response to their submission topic Silence. I certainly recommend my women writer friends to look into joining the Story Circle Network: for women with stories to tell. This group has been very supportive of my work.

Here’s a little description from its website:

The Story Circle Network is an international not-for-profit membership organization made up of women who want to document their lives and explore their personal stories through journaling, memoir, autobiography, personal essays, poetry, drama, and mixed-media.

Writing My Truths

I have a new room.

I write in there alone.

I sit at my draftsman table,

looking out the bay window

to the garden.

I see the trunks

of the three palm trees,

the small cement pond,

and the ferns swinging

their leaves behind it.

Sometimes a bird comes

by for a drink,

surfing along the top

of the pool.

Yet, I don’t open the window

to hear its song.

I want to hear

the songs my son

once played before he died.

They are my muse.

His memory

lets my soul

listen to the words

in my head. It allows me

to put my fingers

on the keyboard

and write my truths

in silence.

And since this is a poetry post, here’s one I wrote when my husband was three weeks post hip replacement surgery. He’s now going on nine weeks and continually improving.

Hip Hip Hooray

Just over

three weeks ago

my husband’s hip was

replaced by titanium and plastic.

But you’d never know

anything that violent –

sawing and hammering

a long rod

into his femur

to replace the old

with the new –

ever happened.

He goes for walks

without a walker or cane,

the home health nurse

has bid him adieu,

and now back to work,

he drives himself.

The trainer at the gym

puts him through his paces

twice a week,

and he only needs Advil

in small doses

to quell occasional pain.

A wide streak of black and blue

from his butt to his foot

is all that’s left.