Friday, August 25, 2017

1 Poem I Wrote When I Was Young(er)--and Happy Poetry Friday!

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Howdy Campers!  Happy National Dog Day on August 26, happy book birthday to a new and marvelous poetry resource, A POETRY FRIDAY POWER BOOK PET CRAZY By Sylvia Vardel and Janet Wong. (more on this book soon)....and happy Poetry Friday! The link to PF is below.

I'm in Kauai, and the other day we went on a glorious red-dirt tropical jungle hike, and within an hour, the heavens opened, pouring bathtubs of water on us for over an hour!  The upshot was a hilariously red-mud, slippery and stunning hike...and a drenched cell phone which lingered in a coma in a bag a rice for 24 hours, was transferred to the ICU of dehumidifying crystals, and died a sad death yesterday morning.

Which is a long way of saying that the universe did me a favor by ripping my cell phone out of my grip but also messing with me, my brain, my calendar and the fact that it is my turn to post today--oops!

None of my photos from the hike survived to float up to the cloud, so here's a picture I took of a bumpersticker the day before our hike for your amusement:


I'm the last to post on our topic along the lines of What I Wrote When I Was Young (scroll below for what I'm sure are magnificent posts by my fellow bloggettes--I haven't read them yet)

I've decided to offer you a poem I wrote it on this date seven years ago, when I was five months into my first year of writing a poem a day.

Enjoy!


I LIKE SUMMER IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
by April Halprin Wayland

I like summer
when Eli is chewing his old bone
which hasn’t had meat on it for forever
and it is a gnawing chewing crunchy sound
and I just mixed yogurt and honey and pecans together which is
deeply delicious

I like the summer
when Mom opens the roof of our old car
and we zoom down the road with all the windows down
and my job is to watch Eli to make sure
he’s only putting his head out of the window
and not trying to hang his whole body out.

I like summer
when shoes are optional and I opt no
and the breeze is good on my shoulders
and the cement is hot on the bottoms of my feet
and we get to go to the thrift store after all the errands
and I can buy anything I want for three dollars
and I pick the little red boat with a real sail

I like summer
when Dad puts one leg on the arm of our old couch
and he’s reading a mystery novel
and its night and you can hear the crickets outside
because the door is open
and Mom and I are playing Scrabble
and I have all the letters for SUMMERY
and the first M and the Y are on triple letter squares.

I like summer
because my breathing gets slower
and we don’t have to go anywhere
and we walk the dog without shoes
and a postcard comes from my friend who lives on a sail boat
and I am almost there with him, swimming with the dolphins
and I am also here in our backyard, barefoot

eating a deeply delicious grape.

poem
 (c)April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

Thank you, Jone for hosting at Check It Out!

posted with sun on my shoulders by April Halprin Wayland

10 comments:

Buffy Silverman said...

Delicious poem, April. Wishing you many triple-letter scores.

Violet N. said...

Oh April, this is deeply delightful!

And so sad to hear of the decease of your phone, through no lack of CPR on your part.

April Halprin Wayland said...

Buffy ~ thanks for coming by and for your kind comment. It means a lot to me.

Violet, thank you, too. I'd saved a camera once in rice...but my more-up-to-date son suggested putting the phone in a zip-lock bag and then hiding the bag in those dehumidifying crystals. Good idea...may have been too late.

And to think that just the day before I was thinking how nice it was to have all the "furniture" on my cell arranged exactly how I like it...*sigh*. The Universe clearly wants me out of my rut, learning new stuff!

Linda B said...

I like summer, and poems from poets who show exactly why! Each part made me grin, April and this "and we don’t have to go anywhere" is a best part. Sorry about the phone, but love hearing about your adventures!

Robyn Hood Black said...

Deeply delicious, my friend, and sorry about the cell phone! But yay for you for finding a silver lining and moving forward. Hawaii! Double-yay. XO

Deborah Holt Williams said...

Love these summery images! Scrabble and thrift stores and a good dog are some of my great joys.

Kay said...

Yummy! You capture so many things to savor about summer. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Kauai ? I want to be there. I may have to try your Summer poem line for a starte.

kbrebes said...

Nice!!!

Brenda at FriendlyFairyTales said...

I have experience bathtub rain in Hawaii and the only thing to do is submerge, emerge changed, like a baptism. Perhaps your phone failing was a message from the universe to unplug more often. I like turning off my phone. I hate paying to replace though when it goes through the washer... LOL