Tag Archives: Family

Ode to May

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Monday Morning Musings:

Ode to May

May days are bookended in songs
of robin and mockingbird
falling over us like catkins,
pollinating our souls.

In our blooming, we hear
the germination of star-sound,
taste Earth’s turning colors and blue sky,
after the rain

feel roots swallow and river breathe,
we reach toward our own star. The reaching
our constant, every why growing like dandelions,
smalls suns in a universe of green.

The grey and rainy days have made everything green, especially as we have had brilliant sunshine in between. For all who celebrated Mother’s Day yesterday, I hope it was lovely. We went to my sister’s as usual. This time the weather cooperated, and it was a perfect day to sit outside for an all-afternoon brunch. Friday afternoon, our daughter met us at a winery, and we had a pleasant time talking and sipping a Cabernet. Saturday night, we ate homemade pizza and drank a red blend.

Merril’s Movie/TV Club: I finally got to see The Quiet Girl, the first Irish-language film nominated for an Oscar. It was playing here when some of my friends in Ireland and the UK were raving about it. Then when it finally was, I missed it. So, I was pleased to be able to stream it. It’s a Merril-movie, definitely not an action film. Beautifully filmed. Cáit is a girl who seldom speaks, and the adults around her mostly talk at people, rather than to them. I’d rather not see so much, but here’s the trailer.

We finished the Netflix show, Rough Diamonds, which we both enjoyed. It was an interesting mix of life in an Antwerp’s religious Jewish community and a more action, heist type of show.

Saturday and Sunday night, fans disappointed at not getting tickets to see Taylor Swift in Philadelphia could have camped out in our neighborhood to hear the concert. We’ve never experienced that before. I can’t imagine how loud it was at the venue! I’m glad it was cool enough, so we could close our windows.

Flower Kitchens

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One of my mom’s paintings hanging in my kitchen.

Flower Kitchens

My mother’s kitchen
had daisy chains of contact paper,
and the walls were the yellow
of dandelions smiling with all their teeth.

I painted my kitchen yellow, too
the color of Van Gogh’s sunflowers,
and siblings, children added to the bouquet—
like the sunshine embedded in Provençal cloth.

Perhaps our flower kitchens
are most like the daffodils in my garden–
happy flowers in many sunny hues,
strewn like laughter
in a meadow of memory.

For Sarah’s prompt of yellow on dVerse

A Week in April

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Monday Morning Musings:

A Week in April

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”
–Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

“Alas, poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself. . .
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy.”
–William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”

Yo-Yos and Birds

This is a yo-yo week,
temperatures and emotions
bounce up and down.
Michigan and Wisconsin rise,
Tennessee falls—and in Florida,
the swamp creatures reign.
Books are banned, and women die.
We could be wearing stars again. But–
you won’t flinch till they come for you.

The poet’s sighs, the playwright’s lines
place withering Death amongst the blooms–
they catch the light and scatter on the ground.
To every season, love reborn, and so, too, evil,
Recurrent plagues not marked. We wait for miracles.

Now the robins sing and call the sun,
we watch the eagles in their nest,
and geese that honk and hiss, paddle and fly.
The crows ground us—
pairing, gossiping, they work together
to chase the predators away. When we go low,
they go high.

Epilogue: The Three Fates Huddle in the Kitchen Beside the Dirty Holiday Dishes

And is it bad we laughed
about turning our parents’ ashes into stone—
how comforting the testimonials,
placed under pillows or on the shelf
no one would ever be alone,
we chortle, even as we think . . . well. . .maybe.

Dessert. More wine. “L’chaim.” We drink.

My husband and I marked the first night of Passover on Wednesday night with sparkling rosé at dinner, as we did a mini, condensed Seder.

Our older child was here for a few days. On Friday, our daughter came over, and they wrote the annual Passover play together. This time they decided to use Chat GPT by feeding it with characteristics of all of us involved, and which they then revised. A wonderful effort as always. Let’s just say you wouldn’t go to our family Seder if you want to experience a typical Seder. But we do have fun! Our daughter-in-line FaceTimed us for the play. We put out glasses for Elijah and Miriam, and then we decided to put one out for my mom, too, because she liked wine. (“Give me whatever is dry.”) In case you don’t know, we are supposed to drink four glasses of wine during the Seder; however, we never get through the whole Seder. We forgot to open the door for Elijah, but my sister accidentally found the Afikomen. There was also an epic game of making plague frogs hop into a water glass.

We use the matzoh covers that our kids made when they were little kids. This year, we included a tiny house that poet-artist Claudia McGill made and made a plague Passover it. I ran outside to take a photo of the beautiful sunset that night, too.

We watched the Joni Mitchell Gershwin Prize program with our older child, and it was SO good. Highly recommended—great performances and very moving, too. They also had her artwork on display.

Poetry month is a busy time. As well as writing, I’m still catching up on comments and writing.

Long, Winter Dreams

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Monday Morning Musings:

Long Winter Dreams

The sun is a specter,
a pale wraith without
the heat of its golden youth,

its white-bearded head haloed
with wreathes of clouds
that feather

the skeletons of trees
backlit on the winter stage,
waiting for spring’s curtain call.

Now we remember summer
in our wine, and gather light around us,
echo ancient tales in newer versions
like sundial to clock
hours that pass and return

differently and the same,
like families, love,
and the river’s flow.

And so, it goes. The food, wine, sweets,
the hugs and kisses, the putting on of hats
and coats, the remembering of ghosts of before
and after

in our long, winter dreams,
the fiddler turns notes into stars—
and diamond glitter falls
so that we shine. Each of us, all.

Not much outdoor walking this past week with the recent weather. We did get to celebrate with family, and even though older child and their wife’s train was first cancelled and then the rebooked one had several delays, they eventually made it here. I hope all of you are safe and warm.

On the way to 30th St. Station on Christmas Eve

The Constancy of Autumn

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Monday Morning Musings:

The Constancy of Autumn

“Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;”
–from John Keats, “To Autumn”

Sunrise
Sunrise, Delaware River, September

Now the dragons come, sending their fiery breath
Into the cerulean sky, last gasps,
a vibrant show before their long, winter sleep.

Now squirrels skip and scurry
to find and bury their treasure,
eagles soar from shore to shore,

white-feathered heads glowing above the river blue,
where herons and egrets in shallow water wade
still in shadow, then with broad wings wide, glide

to other shoals. While blue jays gather
in raucous meetings throughout the day—
yelling at hawks, asking summer to stay—but

Blue Jay with shade of green

Apples and Honey, both local and delicious

now the apples come—red or golden-green,
the colors of both fall and spring, tart and sweet
as life, well-balanced, though seldom neat.

Now t-shirts are covered by sweaters,
above, azure turns grey, but bright a spray of yellow
in bee-swallowed goldenrod, and violet aster.

Golden rod and aster at dawn.

Now we are in transition, in-between,
summer has ended, winter not yet come
but we remember what has been

the roses of summer and the fruit,
their essence captured in honey and wine–
with time,

the memories and promises,
like late spring’s bird-dawn chatter—
everything connected, everything matters,

the constant of love’s endurance
glowing brilliant as the light
of ancient long-dead stars, so bright,
still guiding us from afar.

Where the light comes through—early morning, Delaware River.

We celebrated the first night of Rosh Hashanah last night. It makes so much more sense to celebrate the new year in early autumn as summer fades into fall than tacked on to the end of winter holidays on the first of January. Of course, no one has asked me. It was wonderful to celebrate with family, and while we missed not having everyone there, the smaller group meant we could all sit at one table and converse together. We toasted the memory of my aunt Sima, whose recipe for challah cannot be surpassed. It’s the one I always use.

Some photos from last night

Present in Beauty

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Monday Morning Afternoon Musings:

Present in Beauty

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 48

“In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again”
–from “Walking in Beauty”: Closing Prayer from the Navajo Way Blessing Ceremony

Storm Clouds

After the storm

First, a billowy sea of clouds,
then thunder, crash crash crashing–
shock and awe from the heavens,
ending in a hush,
the cat yawns.

History moves on,
I sleep and my hair turns grey.

Now this place, a speck, a blink
in the eye of the universe, does it matter
to the stars or time? Yet
here I walk—beauty before me, and all around.

Heron, deer, and ospreys converge.
The sky is the blue of wishes, the sun an apricot
I can almost taste—like the most luscious wine
I drink-in the daybreak, my soul cool and composed,
I savor this moment, knowing it is evanescent,
a sparkling bubble, no less beautiful
as it passes into memory,
the past another universe, an umbrella
to open for protection, or to cast shade when needed.
Bird-dawn has given way to cricket sunrise,
summer light has slanted—autumn on its way,
I adjust my sight line.

This sunrise! Sunrise over the Delaware.

A late musings today. It’s been a busy week, and I’m finishing some work. I used Jane’s Random Words. We celebrated what would have been my dad’s 103 birthday with Chinese food on Tuesday, and our friends insisted we have a toast to him. (Wonderful friends!) We had more hot and humid weather, then one night with some thunderstorms, and then perfect weather over the weekend. We met our daughter and son-in-law at a new winery on Saturday. Stokelan Winery is a beautiful place. The Stokelan House dates from about 1853. We sat outside. I liked all of the wines, but I didn’t love any of them. Since it’s a new place, they’re still working out some issues. It’s a distance for us to travel, so we probably won’t go back there for a while, but it was still a lovely afternoon.

Toast to Dad and Stokelan Winery

We watched the TV show Dark Winds. It’s based on the series of novels by Tony Hillerman, which take place on Navajo land. It seemed like a good series to watch this week because my dad enjoyed Hillerman’s books. Once my father wrote him a letter, and Mr. Hillerman replied. Although Tony Hillerman was not Native American, much of the cast, the writers, and crew are. A character recites the lines above in the final episode.

For My Parents

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Odilon Redon, Orpheus

For My Parents

Light,
red, hot pink, and cool blue
reflected, refracted
from then to beyond

where casting shadows
like parents on children, larger than life
neither existing without the other,

at least not as they were.

I think if
my father
if my mother—

all the questions I never asked.

If they are light–never gone,
the breath of stars, infinitesimal and infinite
a never-ending melody of dream colors, heard
and almost remembered.

Both of my parents were born in August. I’ve been thinking about them, and of course, the Oracle knows. And extra ifs for Derrick.

I’m sharing this with dVerse, Open Link Night.

Well, Here We Are–it’s August Again

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Monday Morning Musings:

Well, Here We Are, It’s August Again

Every day opens with possibility,
every story flows from what if,
each second is a mysterious connection
from what was to what is

Sunrise Clouds

next passes, too, in a stream like
the luscious light of the sun,
outside of time,
both ancient and new

Sunrise Reflections— worlds collide in light and color , Merril D. Smith, 2022

like memories,
the past remembered is reborn,

perhaps re-written, or embroidered upon,
added stitches to a tapestry, patches placed
over the tears in the fabric,

until we can’t tell what was the original
and what was added,

and so, we guess, living between shadows,

and walking down paths
we imagine, we ask, “what if?”
and “what happened next?”

This is fiction and science,
this is every story ever told,
our fates and faults, “not in our stars,”*
and we, not star-crossed—yet,
dependent on them for our existence,

each of us carrying traces of stardust,
holding an infinitesimal speck of before time–
and each of us an answer to what happened next.

Ceres Park
Ceres Park

This past week we had high heat and humidity and normal summer heat with less humidity. Elsewhere there have been huge wildfires and floods. We got a little bit of rain, but not enough.
While we wait to see if our nation is destroyed by authoritarian rule and our Earth dies, we go on living.
My daughter and I visited Kennedy Cellars in Hammonton, NJ for some mother-daughter bonding time. My husband kindly served as DD while we sampled wine flights and nibbled at the delicious cheese board. It was a very hot day, but bearable in the shade, as we really didn’t want to sit inside in the small space with rising Covid numbers.

Kennedy Cellars

On Saturday with the lower humidity my husband and I took a morning walk in Ceres Park in Mantua/Pitman, NJ. It was very quiet and peaceful, except one section of the trail goes under an overpass, but even there the light was beautiful. Then later in the afternoon, we visited Auburn Road Winery for wine and pizza.

Ceres Park

One night this week, we watched a play from our video backlog. It was The Merry Wives, performed last August when plays in Central Park in NYC were permitted again and televised this past spring. Perhaps Shakespeare purists would not approve, but I think it was just what we needed. It was a streamlined version of The Merry Wives of Windsor set in Harlem. Shakespeare’s plays were of the moment and appealed to common people as well as the educated and aristocracy, so I think of this as sort of the same thing. Here’s how it looked. If you have PBS Passport you may still be able to stream it.

We’re also watching For All Mankind (Apple TV), a series based around what if the Soviet Union landed on the Moon first? In this series, it changes history, and each change changes something else.

These two shows gave me the idea for my musings. Also, both of my parents, now gone, were born in August, which has me thinking of August, what was, what is, what might have been. . .

I’m hosting dVerse Haibun Monday today, so I will be back later.

*”The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
–William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Passover and Poetry

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Passover and Poetry

Early Morning Reflections on the River

Monday Morning Musings:

“And when our children tell our story. . .
They’ll tell the story of tonight. . .

Raise a glass to freedom
Something they can never take away”
–Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Raise a Glass to Freedom,” Hamilton

This past week of cooking and cleaning
of family and friendship
of war and words,
of stories and rhyme–

the tides of the river
the flight of a crow
the raising of glasses
the flow of time

We celebrated the launch of River Ghosts at William Heritage Winery

as we walk and talk and sing
the love we bring
to the table

even as we miss absent faces
we find traces

amidst syllables we utter
through the clutter

of the everyday.

What we say in tears and laughter—
flies on heart-wings from here to here-after,

becoming another story—added light–
to all the stories of tonight.

I’m sorry if I’m overwhelming with photos in this post. Friday night was the start of Passover. Our older child is here, and we celebrated “our” book River Ghosts being out in the world. (They designed the stunning cover art.) We had some summer-like days this week and some beautiful spring days. We’ve also had thunderstorms, heavy rain—and this morning, I had to turn the heat back on.

On Passover, we are commanded to tell the story of the Exodus as part of the seder. Let’s just say, we are not traditional. My talented children wrote this year’s Passover play—the best one ever—over glasses of wine Friday night and coffee on Saturday morning. Where do they get this last-minute writing under pressure thing?

My siblings could not be with us on Passover, but it was still wonderful to have my children here and my sister-niece and her family. This was our first Passover together since the pandemic. Today is the two-year anniversary of my mom’s death.

Christmas, 2021: Still Plagued

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Monday Morning Musings:

Christmas, 2021

Winter Solstice

We celebrate in the long dark days—
in the after–recalling what was—
and almost remembering

how we embraced
without care.

But in the lingering kiss of night,
the air whispers secrets,

and dreams float from fiddle strings
taking form–nutcrackers, marzipan castles–
shapeshifters of hope and fear in cold winter days

Nutcracker from the Pennsylvania Ballet

I baked a few cookies.

as the moon hums,
the house fills with the scent of vanilla, cinnamon,
mulled wine, and chocolate,
laughter echoes from beyond to within
and hereafter,

if you wonder–
we’ve always been in-between

shadow and light, spinning as


the colors of time bend
like giant wings, hovering, circling,
and moving on,

reflecting what is, what was, and what might be.

Puddle Reflection, December ©️Merril D. Smith, 2021

I never posted my Christmas poem from the Magnetic Poetry Oracle. So, I’ve embellished it a bit here. I hope all of you had a joyous holiday season. It’s so very complicated trying to figure out how to get together right now, even when everyone is vaccinated and some of us are boosted. We saw some of my family on Christmas Eve—testing first, staying masked much of the time. Again, doing the same thing, we saw my husband’s family yesterday, but somehow did not take any photos.

  • Christmas Cat
  • Christmas Salad
  • Traditional Christmas Bagels
  • Dutch Baby
  • Cheese Fondue
  • This fondue is So good!


My husband and I had our now traditional cheese fondue and mulled wine for our Christmas dinner. For our Christmas brunch, I made us a Dutch baby, and we watched a show I had recorded from PBS of Alan Cumming with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra telling the full tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The story tells the origins of the Nutcracker and explains what happens to the girl and the nutcracker afterward. You can read more here.

I looked up from writing this morning to find my dining room glowing pink.