Poetry Stretch Results - Birthdays and Beginnings

The challenge this week was to write about new beginnings or birthdays or both. Here are the results.

Stu Pidasso of Mudville Musings shares a poem entitled Old Dog and New Tricks.


Everything Is Beginning
by Kate Coombs of Book Aunt

Everything is beginning:
this breath, this doubt,
this cell phone ringing,
this smile, this curse,
this better, this worse,
the glitter of sunlight
on a splash of water,
the soft living weight
of my baby daughter.
Everything is new
in this world, every bit,
every sound, cell, byte,
every worry, glory, fight.
The skitter of a bug,
my walk across the rug.
The rug's very oldness
makes it a surprise,
not the same it was once
in the weaver's eyes.
These words are new
and your thoughts,
that one, just now—
it was new. So are you.

--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved

One Whole Year
by Amy LV of The Poem Farm

Look at me!
I'm different.
See?
I'm not the age
I used to be.

Last night
that number
disappeared.
I'm older now.
One whole year.

Today's my
birthday.
Look at me!
Can you see
a change?

I still feel
the same.
Growing up
is strange.

© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater


Stephanie Parsley of Sparble shares this letter poem.

Dear Dallas,

Nearly a decade has passed since I fled
your potholed streets and stony store clerks.
I'd buried a daughter and a marriage here,
and I didn't look back.

A new town welcomed me, all warm-red brick
and tall live oaks thick with dove.
There, church bells rang out hymns
four times a day. My daughter played
with neighbor kids until dusk.
Random old people struck up
conversations in the grocery line.
It was impossible to be lonely.
I married and began to laugh again,
grew stronger, stood taller, felt safer.

But now, against my will and
because of it, and to do what is right
(because that's what I do),
I've come back to you, Dallas.
Temporarily, I remind myself,
temporarily.

My first week here, I wore my shell
and invisible weapons,
icy stare and shoulder chip
weighing me down.
Yet you are somehow softer than I remember:
Gentlemen hold open doors,
receptionists call me by name,
you are filled with people who are just plain
people.

Sure, I expect the bottom to fall out of my car soon
because of your bumpy, neglected streets,
and that blonde woman in the Mercedes
cut me off in the carpool line this morning,
almost side-swiping a teacher-on-foot in the process.
But the teacher smiled and mouthed, "Thank you,"
when I stopped to let her cross in front of me,
and the AT&T guy was nice enough yesterday.
Of course, he'll bill me for that.

-- Stephanie Parsley, 2010

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.