Leftovers

Leftovers, a photo by Sparky2* on Flickr.

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving with family ... and as a family we've survived some scary times and continue to be grateful for so very much. This year has been unsusually hectic and busy so I didn't have time to write a gratitude poem, take photos for posting with my good wishes for you all and didn't have time to make my mom's traditional Applesauce cake - always the shining star of our Thanksgiving dinner and a necessity for heralding the holiday season.

However ... when it had just hit me that I hadn't made that special cake I got a call from my youngest daughter, Kelly ... "Mom, I still have a half of Nonnie's last Applesauce cake in the freezer; should I bring it?" So the tradition continued without that dreaded misstep. :-)

I enoyed many leftovers this morning: the last of the the fall pumpkins and squashes mixed in with apples and Clementines, the last of the flowers that graced the Thanksgiving table and the last of the yummy cake. It seems only fitting that I share it all with you and this leftover Thanksgiving poem written years ago.

I personally had much, much to be thankful for this year... I hope you all did as well, and had a wonderful love-filled holiday.

Pilgrims

We make our journey home
each year to pick clean
the Thanksgiving turkey
and rattle family bones.

We know our roles
play them well,
shrink or swell to fit
our place at table,
our spot in photographs,
our corner.

I wander about the overflowing house
to an empty room and a seat by the window.
Voices fade, the moment surreal,
I strain to see and feel
the ghosts that swirl among
the bronzed leaves of autumns past.

They're all here.
They come to me, chilled
I will them to stay
warm themselves by the fire
that burns in the heart of a family.

Copyright ©2000 Susan M. Kennedy

Love + Laughter + Joy + Noise = Lukas

I heard somewhere that little boys are mostly noise with dirt on it.  lol!  That sounds about right to me!  What a treasure this noisemaker is!



If a rose blooms and there is no one there to see, does it smell as sweet?

The house behind us is vacant ... I'm afraid under sad circumstances. But while we were playing around I noticed over the fence top the most beautiful roses, clematis, tulip vine. It saddens me to know that there is no one there to enjoy their fragrance with morning coffee or tell them secrets as they trim spent blooms. Maybe I will sneak a few shots through the fence to welcome a new neighbor should one come soon.

My Leonardo

One of Zachary's historical heroes is Leonardo da Vinci. He studied and researched him over the summer - and even built a model orthinopter. You can imagine how thrilled he was to have the honor of portraying da Vinci in his school's recent Multi Cultural Living Museum. He researched period clothing and we scoured Goodwill with happy results ... he wrote his own dialogue, perfected his accent and performed with style and gusto! A touch of a "button" brought each player to life to recite (he says it "felt like about 100 times" throughout the evening.) Leonardo would have been as proud as we were, I'm sure. :-)

Summer hesitating, reluctant to go ...

And I find myself torn between rushing it into fall and holding on ...


and then there is a magic moment when the sun slants just so, the temperatures dip slightly and there is something special on the wind - and I feel as if I've been kissed by autumn and open my heart in welcome.

The poetry of earth is never dead:

The poetry of earth is never dead:, a photo by Sparky2* on Flickr.

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket
by John Keats


The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

Home Again!

Queen Sophie Bell is nearly 16 years old.  She's persnickity and grumpy and shows affection to only 3-4 people - "tolerates" another small handful and runs, hides or growls at most all others.  To be honest, Sophie is not really very "catlike" ... has a more doggish  personality.  But we have a special bond.  At a particularly low point in my life I went to the animal shelter and was immediately adopted by her when she jumped up on my shoulder, curled into my neck with her nose pressed against my cheek and serenaded me with the loudest purr I'd ever heard.  She's spiritually nursed me through many a hard time since ... maybe because I know I was chosen BY her to be here FOR her and she challenges me to do so on a daily basis!  I couldn't bear to let her down; it's not an option so she tells me! LOL!

Sophie has always been very skittish outdoors ... doesn't go out alone and doesn't stray far from her exit door, preferring that it stay open for a quick entrance if she gets frightened.  That's why we were so alarmed when she went missing a few weeks ago.  We replayed every scene of family going in or out when she could have slipped out unnoticed -- and there were a few. We searched the attic because we'd had a repairman up there (although she's never seemed the least bit curious about what's up there)We searched every inch of space inside the house and out ... all of her favorite hidey  holes - fearing the worst because of her advanced age -- that she had simply reached her time and passed away in her sleep.

After three days my hopes were dimming and I was fearful each time I thought of a new area of the house to search.  After five days I was beginning to allow myself just the tiniest bit of grieving ... just wishing I could find her and put her to rest.  Yet I couldn't give up completely;  it didn't stop me from looking for her - slowing down as I drove through the neighborhood, calling for her each night when it got quiet enough for me to hear if she responded.

On the seventh night, after the "kitty-kitty, here Sophie" calling ritual I went to bed and was awakened after midnight by my daughter calling, "Mom, come quick, Sophie's HOME!"  And there she was, peering in the back door window, the same as her norm (from the other side of the door).

Where she was during that long week we'll likely never know.  She's such a scaredy-cat that I can't fathom her being out in the big world alone.  And she's such a particular piggy about her food and being fed on schedule that I'm thinking someone must have thought her a stray and taken her in -- maybe until they'd had enough of her persnickity cat self and tossed her back out to us again!  ;-)  Regardless, it's such a huge weight off my heart to know she's safe and home again - and purring in my ear.


The Cat's Song
 
Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother's forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I'll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.
My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

           ~ Marge Piercy `

 

The Puddle Walker ... Our Ritual of Fall

The Puddle Walker ... Our Ritual of Fall, a photo by Sparky2* on Flickr.

Finally ... it was brisk, cool ... just rained.  Even at 2 1/2 he felt the call .. to the puddles.  That's my boy .... ;-)