Doughy, dumpy, and droopy but dauntless and otherwise technically inept woman seeks readers willing to look beyond her physical features and miserable mechanical skills to read her words.
Are you willing to consider the qualities that make you look beyond surface rubble for the luminous interior?
Apply within your own counsel.
Just a Thought 74
Painting Old Woman Reading by Yehuda Pen courtesy Wikimedia Commons
No matter the struggles on the ground
The fire or earthquake or flood or revolution
You still awake to the baby’s cries and rush
To quiet her, diaper her, lift her to your breast
Rain descends, rivers run to oceans, wind rises
Dust settles on the white linens, grit mars the table
Boys and girls beg for a story and pencils
Babies turn in the womb, mouths reach for a kiss
No matter how weary your back bent to task
Your spirit slashed by fever, worry, conflict
The electric bill must be paid, bread bought
The children need breakfast before school
Surgeons raise their knives over ill flesh and cut
Farmers plough fields and force seeds into earth
Fishermen drop nets so deep in the sea they vanish
Some get well, some harvest, some eat, some drown
No matter the guns in the street, rockets overhead
The body bows to its insistent daily needs
Before you stand, work, march, weep, shout, fall
You must park outhouses along the battlefield
An old woman reads documents and diaries
An old man sorts certificates and photographs
They write their letters to their grandchildren
Wishing them fewer struggles on the ground
Just a thought 71
Homeward, painted 1881, Georges Inness, courtesy Wikimedia Commons
I recall my cape of hip-length tresses
Wavy locks swirling to guitar and drum
Brazen curls snaking around my jaw
Skirting across a lawn of auburn leaves
Igniting the tinder of other girls’ envy
Catching the sideways desire of boys
Bound with braids of stolen daisies
Wriggling out of tortoise shell clips
Thick locks fatiguing rubber bands
Youthful rebellion straddling my head
Besting the nascent rioter of my heart
Too young for grown up restrictions
I dream the tiara of teardrop pearls
Illumined by a pose of silver arabesques
Clutching jasmine white ballerina tulle
Cloud-like on my pate, glancing shoulders
Secreting vows we’d already pledged
As I waltz the aisle to my betrothed
I did not wear that jeweled tiara
But a twist of roses and baby’s breath
Garlanding my hair like whispered vows
Cascade of satin ribbons sighing after me
Nor on a glade of strewn petals and vines
But over a trampled path to my beloved
I remember the bent clasp of mindless jobs
Friday coins dropped in my blistered palm
Hungry for more than burned rice and coffee
Fighting for time to study, for rights of others
Struggling to hone my wits, find a moral core
Years of adulthood forced upon my head
Brutal decades of wifedom and motherhood
Of employee and citizen, friend and neighbor
Learning to share with ill and hungry strangers
The ones who plead for virtue within me
Begging my twin gifts of sorrow and charity
Now I seek only the crown of a good name
Just a thought 70
Photograph courtesy of Pixabay
Sharon Lynne Bonin-Pratt began her writing career the way so many others have done: by first doing everything else. Winning entries in grade school art, story, and essay contests convinced her to become a writer, but the real world intruded in adulthood and demanded she pay bills, raise kids, be a contributing member of the community. Along that rutted path she worked in the commercial art field designing patterns for surfer shorts, bikinis, and Hawaiian style shirts, taught after-school art through a city recreation program, and structured an art curriculum for three private schools. Ten years ago the writing muse, struggling to breathe in letters to friends and art articles, found its way to the surface. In a two-week period Shari wrote 60 pages of her first historical novel, and didn’t stop for three years. By then a second book demanded paper – OK, computer space – and now the third is in final revision stage. Of course, final revision is two words with a long shadow and a little footprint. Some folk claim they will write when the floors get vacuumed, the family accounting completed, the new garden planted. Shari is proof that all those things can be successfully ignored but not the urge to write. Her fiction explores human relationships, revenge, rage, forgiveness, redemption, and all the labyrinthine quandaries that mess up otherwise perfect lives. She resides in Southern California with her husband who’s learned to vacuum but not to cook. And the garden needs help.
Sharon Bonin-Pratt's Ink Flare 