Monday, January 03, 2011

Monday Poetry Stretch - Lost and Found

Hello dear friends! Happy 2011. It's been a long while since I've been here with any regularity, but this is a new year and a new start. We could write this week about endings and beginnings, but I've been thinking a lot these last few weeks about things that I have lost and found. Whether they be material things (those darn mittens!) or people we love, surely we've all lost and found things in our lives. Let's write about that.

Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

15 comments:

  1. No poem, but happy new year!

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  2. Yay, Poetry Stretch is back! Happy New Year to everyone.

    Lost and Found

    The day loses color
    as the sun slides away.
    Gold turns to blue
    and blue turns to gray.
    Gray turns to charcoal
    and charcoal to black.
    I'll live without color
    till dawn brings it back.

    --Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved

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  3. Lost and Found

    I have lost love,
    am trying to find it again.
    Not like a black ribbed sock,
    lost in the washer,
    or a puppy unleashed
    who has run away,
    or a noun once firmly in my head
    and now somewhere in the ether
    of an aging mind.

    My love was lost to the crab,
    to a succession of treatments
    that prolonged but did not sustain life.
    And now I am looking,
    like a bad country song,
    in all the wrong places—
    on the Internet, at conferences,
    during dinner parties,
    at gray-haired men on Scottish streets,
    in the assembly line of old hands
    wanting one more chance at the gold ring,

    ©Jane Yolen 2011, All rights reserved

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  4. Lonely

    It’s lonely here in lost and found,
    one mitten whispered to one glove.
    I hope someone will help me find
    the child I will forever love.
    I miss throwing piles of snowballs
    with that hand I used to hold.
    I wonder if he has warm pockets.
    I hope he does.
    It’s getting cold.

    © Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

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  5. The Changeling

    Okay, so the baby wasn't perfect,
    blemished we often wrapped her
    in a blanket of myth. But her
    constitution was so sweet.
    Admirable. She was loved.

    The fairies came under cover
    of flag and cross. We became
    distracted by trinkets. Our thoughts
    shut out by constant noise.
    We lost sight of our precious baby.

    And the fairies had their way.

    © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved

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  6. Spooky Diane. And aren't we all distracted by trinkets and when we look up, we have teenagers in the house! Where did that adorable baby go????


    Jane

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  7. Oh, Jane, I'm glad you saw it that way! Actually, I was thinking about the USA when I wrote it! I'm feeling a great sense of loss these days.

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  8. I second Kate's YAY!

    LOST AND FOUND

    That single
    staggering word
    the one you’ve
    lifted rugs to find
    swirled lusciously
    inside your head
    while you dawdled
    around your day
    lost with one
    innocent twirl
    of spaghetti
    sauced spoon
    when fixing
    dinner last night
    only to reappear
    split-secondly
    as you sank
    deep into
    paralyzing
    sleep.

    © Carol Weis, all rights reserved

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  9. Been there, done that! Nice job of putting it into verse, Carol!

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  10. What lovely poems all have shared. This doesn't come close but I've vowed to play more with poetry online this year so here goes.



    found
    on Christmas eve
    1 turkey, stuffed
    1 bowl of potatoes, mashed with butter
    helpings of sweet corn, slices of bread
    pumpkin pie, 2 pieces
    numerous glasses of wine and champagne

    found
    on Christmas morning
    a stocking full of
    fudge, peppermint sticks
    a breakfast of bacon, eggs,
    biscuits drizzled with butter and honey
    more champagne

    lost
    1 waistline
    and most of my willpower


    © Susan Taylor Brown, all rights reserved

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  11. Diane - I've been feeling that same way about the country, about news and noise, about the trinkets. Love that last line of your poem, which just sends a shiver down my spine.

    Here is a poem of mine - not new (it was published in Ecotone) - but definitely about losing things.

    UPON LOSING ANOTHER EARRING



    It’s a long story with lots of losing –
    one earring, two earrings, ten, then my hearing,
    then the fine hair of my right ear’s interior,
    then my balance and my bearing.
    Believe me, what’s happening
    is the opposite of win-win but why
    start whining about the small things?
    Soon the lobes will go, and the cartilage after,
    as well as what’s larger, what’s between one ear
    and the other, then the neck and everything below,
    shoulders to toes, breasts, elbows, knees,
    God knows there are no safe zones, all of it
    will go missing soon enough, just toughen up,
    buy another pair and get on with it.

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  12. I hate losing one earring. It'd be better to lose a pair. Interesting way of looking at things, though, Julie. I hope you don't lose anything "between one ear
    and the other"--that's the scariest.

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  13. Thanks for the prompt.

    I Have Lost

    That mix tape you made me.

    So many pens it's not funny.

    My patience way too often.

    I blame genetics,
    grandfather; your temper
    was legendary.


    My grandfather.

    A friend or two.

    My ability to ignore your absence.

    Track of time again.

    My memory of adult life without
    children. (No need for it.)

    Control of this poem.


    You can read more about it here:
    http://thesmallnouns.blogspot.com/2011/01/poetry-collection-crisis.html

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