BUSYBODY: An Animal Mask Poem



 

Yesterday, I watched my granddaughter Julia as she looked out the side door at two gray squirrels scampering along the old rock wall that serves as the boundary line between our “new” property and the property of our next door neighbors. It’s fun for me to look at a familiar scene like squirrels skittering around through the eyes of little Julia who gets so excited about such things. I enjoy  listening to her excited noises when she gets wrapped up in the wonder of things that are new to her young eyes.

 

Today, I’m sharing an animal mask poem. In it, I tried to capture the voice of a squirrel busy scavenging for food in autumn.

BUSYBODY

By Elaine Magliaro

I’m a hurrier
scurrier
scamperer
scavenger
searching for acorns
and maple tree seeds
stashing them now
for my wintertime needs.

It’s autumn…

I’m busy.
I’ve much work to do.
So sorry I can’t stop
To visit with you.

Must hurry,

Must scurry…
Can’t chatter today.
I’m busy…too busy
Must be on my way.

 

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Here are some pictures of Julia enjoying her first tastes of her Grampy’s yummy homemade lasagna:



 Here are two pictures that I took of her when we vacationed in Maine in late August:



 

Here is a picture that I took of Julia at her first birthday party in August:



 



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Marjorie has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Paper Tigers this week.

 

APPLES--A Memoir Poem

I apologize for being absent from Wild Rose Reader for so long. It has been an especially busy and hectic summer for me. Just this past month, I’ve attended two family weddings, celebrated my granddaughter Julia's first birthday, vacationed in Maine, and bought a house! My husband and I hadn’t planned on moving because we love the house we are living in at the present time--and we love our neighborhood. I have, however, been spending a lot of time away from home living at my daughter’s and providing daycare for my granddaughter. That has left me little time to read, write, blog, spend with my husband, or visit with friends and other family. My husband, daughter, son-in-law, and I decided a few months ago that it would best for all of us if we could find a home where we could all live together. I didn’t think we’d find the perfect place so soon...but we did. It was the first property that we looked at.

Here are some pictures that I took yesterday of the grounds around the house:

My daughter, son-in-law, and Julia will live in the main house—a Georgian farmhouse built around 1790--with an addition that was built circa 1850. My husband and I will live in the in-law suite--the carriage house that was converted into an apartment in 1999.

The original owner of the house was a woodworker and an apple farmer. In fact, he had an apple orchard on our property. The thought of an apple orchard brought to mind a memoir poem that I wrote about my maternal grandparents and the apples that grew in their yard.

APPLES

We tasted the green apples of summer,

watched the season pass through Dzidzi’s garden,

shared its bounty.

Now we help harvest the autumn apples.

Dzidzi places two large baskets beneath the tree.

He stands on a ladder and reaches for the highest apples.

We stand on wooden crates and pick apples

from the bottom branches

and salvage what we can from the ground.

In one basket we place the best apples we pick,

the eating apples, the perfect ones.

We fill the other basket with cooking apples—

the ones with brown spots and bruises

that Babci will cook into thick applesauce,

the ones she will bake in fat apple pies

steaming clouds of cinnamon spice,

the ones she will make perfect again.

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The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Random Noodling this week.