Monday Morning Musings:

“God, how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.”

–Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Come

“And Guy felt it again—the sense of hostility in the clump of woods east of the house. . .

What chance combination of shadow and sound and his own thoughts had created it?”

Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train

Tuesday

So now, my mother feels her age

and shadows walk on either side

both before and behind, this stage

of life, some accept, others rage.

My own walk, confident, with pride

stepping fast and firmly to ground

with thoughts in clouds and eyes now wide

to watch my mom and match her stride.

This fake spring day, a shy half-smile

timid, like a deer, before it flees

and can’t be seen, but for awhile

we’ll bask in light, as it beguiles

though my mom unaware, she sees

but doesn’t, knows winter is here

leaves dropped and then tossed in the breeze

is age a stage, or a disease?

Thursday

We go for drinks, daughter’s birthday,

we talk and laugh, I’ve baked a cake

we’ll sit awhile, no lengthy stay

work tomorrow, always the way

I value moments with my child

a beautiful woman, she’s become

with students now that she has styled

wisdom and laughter reconciled

Lemon Cake–extra icing. 🙂

Friday

We watch a film set in a war

where women have to hide their hair

and people flee to basements for

there is danger, bomb threats, and more.

Did djinn arrive somewhere upstairs

flying on missiles in the wind?

But look, what is real, what nightmares–

shapes in shadows, sounds on the stairs?

Saturday

A date day to play with some clay

cold outside, but it’s warm inside,

we turn the wheel, and learn the way

clay becomes bowl–or thrown away.

I say to him look at the moon

as we walk into the light of night,

city to train, and then home soon

for shadow-dreams to lunar tune.

Secret language, a potter’s wheel

spins, shaping it, and us anew

through heartache, and then all we feel

as spring to fall, to age we kneel.

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I’ve attempted something different for my Monday Morning Musings—a Rubaiyat. This is part of the poetry forms series on dVerse.  I’m not sure if this works.

We watched the movie, Under the Shadow, an Iranian movie set during the 1980s in Tehran. I liked it—it’s billed as a horror movie, but there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s on Netflix. Trailer here. We went to the Clay Studio in Philadelphia for a date day. There was wine, beer, food, and instruction. Each person gets to make two pieces (you can actually make more and keep your best two). I’ve never used a potter’s wheel before. We weren’t too good at it, but it was fun. On Tuesday, it was in the 60s F. Today, it’s snowing.