Maine Girl

Jack Spratt Redux

dmcglauflin — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:49:25 +0000

Jack Spratt could eat no fat
My husband rolls his eyes
That lucky guy! For one day he should try
My litany of allergies out for size
No beef, no lamb, nor nuts at that
Some fruits are even in cahoots

His wife could eat no lean
No fat, no lean, no meat for me at all
A born-again vegetarian quite contrarian
Deaf to hormone-plumped carnivores’ call
I have my whey with curd and bean
My tongue derides all pesticides

And so between the two of them
They licked the platter clean
This blending needs another ending
For our tainted, food-savvy scene
And so between the two of them
They went vegan, organic, and green

_______________________
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, May 2013. All rights reserved

My “share” on Poem in Your Pocket Day

dmcglauflin — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:11:07 +0000

Here’s the first poem I fell in love with and the one I want to share with you here on National Poem in Your Pocket Day. Enjoy!

To Make a Prairie
by Emily Dickinson (1755)

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Record a Poem to Celebrate National Poetry Month

dmcglauflin — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:25:28 +0000

April is National Poetry Month! Celebrate your literary heritage by recording and sharing your favorite poem on Soundcloud through the Poetry Foundation’s record-a-poem project.

Doing Cancer (in loving memory of Jeanne Conover)

dmcglauflin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:35:27 +0000

In the beginning, the white-frocked horseman of her apocalypse
Eyes averted, blurts she has pancreatic cancer in store
She rocks, absorbs our reeling shock then, pensive, quips
A curious “Well, I’ve never done cancer before.”

Fumbling with forms and facts in cheerless waiting rooms
She regales us with tales from her career as a Navy wife
Three cherished years in postwar Japan she relives and subsumes
In incurably merry memories of a zestfully lived life

In the middle, emerging greyly from another grueling test
The hospital directory’s alien “-ology’s” and “-atrics”
Cause her to chuckle as she reads, pretending not to rest
“I’m so glad I’ll get to die someplace exotic!”

A winner in a losing battle, no cause she saw for why-ning
Resolute she rallied for a family trip to New York City
Boosted by a Broadway play, a tour and some fine dining
Nearing escape velocity from death’s gravity

In the end, the ruinous thief was something mercifully other
Something sudden and biliary that we did not expect
A stealthy ninja stroke that clove the waning moon of mother
The surgeon tried but could not mend the vile duct

In hospice care, no tying tubes or talk of chemo any more
Little talk at all, the less said now she knew the better
Haiku pointing at a transcendent shore
Haiku pointing
Pointing

___________________________
Copyright Deborah A. McGlauflin, January 2013. All rights reserved.

Falling

dmcglauflin — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:24:06 +0000

Seven times down
Grateful I have only two
Wobbly ankles, knees and hips
And one nagging back
Each in painful turn decries and vies
Body awareness by missteps
The rising is in the falling

Eight times up
Aha! This body’s not just a taxi
For my unmindful mind, not so at all
I’m both Story and Soma
Breathe and sense and feel
The present fully embodied
Or missed in mind’s mist
_______________________________
Copyright Deborah A. McGlauflin. All rights reserved. January 11, 2013.

Eye of the Storm

dmcglauflin — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:49:15 +0000

Wind wails, fraught with ice
White on gray the roiling bay
Gulls remain, silent

______________________
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, December 26, 2012. All rights reserved.

Lamentation

dmcglauflin — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:06:13 +0000

Not meant to beat for only me
My captive heart now shatters
Its shards slip through my boney cage
Made plural by sad matters

Outlaw compassion on the run
Last seen winging north and true
To where the twenty-six are missed
Where grief is thick and blue

Now circling ’round the school like crows
A flock of lamentation
Our broken hearts converge to mend
A small town and a nation
_______________________
Copyright Deborah McGlauflin, December 2012. All rights reserved.

Contemplating the Ballot

dmcglauflin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:53:45 +0000

In the end, it’s not the end
Of the causes and conditions that brought us here
Of the dizzying fizz of wisdom and folly
Our hearts pump like mollusks
By ancient bivalve habits we’re compelled
Sifting barren clouds of mud
Opening and closing to ourselves
And to each other

I insert my voter card. Click!
The choice, all mine, revealed
In an empty white screened moment
Before the obscuring names appear
Today’s choice the same as yesterday’s
The same as tomorrow’s:
To subsist in cold and sluggish depths
Or heed the unshelled yearning

Goners

dmcglauflin — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:23:28 +0000

Autumnal exit
Woods and feeders
Left and bereft
Of song and flutter
The leaves rasp
“Gone.
Gone beyond.”

Here’s how we go
A hazy fade
A slurry of echoes
Last feather of thought
The long dream flies
Gone.
Utterly beyond.

Vowing Vast Compassion

dmcglauflin — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:01:22 +0000

Drive-through reminder
“Billions served” in neon blazed
Super-sized resolve!