Acts of Kindness

We pass the light,
Candle to candle,
On Christmas Eve.

Much the same as God’s love,
The light is not diminished
But grows bright and bold
When we share it.

We leave offerings of
Encouraging words,
A hand to hold,
A warm meal,
Much needed laughter.

The candle glow
Travels row by row
On Christmas Eve.

Acts of kindness
Multiply,
Fill the room,
And give us sight
To see ourselves anew.

Judith C Evans  (c) 2019

Shared with Poets United Midweek Motif  — love
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2019/02/poets-united-midweek-motif-love.html

The Last Daisy of Summer

Dear Happiness,
I think I saw you today.
Yes, I'm sure it was you.
You fluttered near the cage
I had prepared for you.
I briefly touched you,
And then the wind carried you
Just beyond my fingertips.

My old friend Happiness,
When I was young,
We walked side-by-side, you and I.
We explored the seashore,
Noticed sparkling pebbles in the tide pools,
Painted my nails for the first time,
And celebrated the last daisy of summer.

Do you remember?

I should know better than to chase you.
I just wish you would chase me.

© Judith C Evans 2014

Shared with Poets United Midweek Motif. This week's prompt is "happiness."

Ashes

Children,

I watch you learn the same paper crafts that I learned

Nearly seventy years ago.

I might have been your great grandmother,

Had history taken a different turn.

Fold the paper just right

And pray for me as you set the paper cranes

To flight.

Forever six years old,

I am in every sunbeam, cloud and snowflake

That falls over Hiroshima

As the ashes of my bones,

Caught up in the poison windstorm decades ago,

Look for a peaceful place to rest.

© Judith C Evans 2014 

Written for Poets United Midweek Motif prompt: "Hiroshima, or Ring a Bell"

Wise Choices

Barely as tall as the shopping cart,

I could tell that we were getting closer to the produce aisle

As fresh peach and apple fragrances greeted my nose.

I reached upward toward the sparkling display of grapes.

I noticed that my mother’s navy blue sneakers kept on walking.

“We’re boycotting grapes,” she said as she pushed the shopping cart

Past the green and purplish-black jewels

Without missing a beat.

(I thought of one day during the previous school year

When we had an assembly because a great man had died.

We saw a film about bus boycotts and lunch counters,

And signs that said who could drink at which water fountain.)

I turned and looked at the forlorn grape display,

Realizing that they did not look as sumptuous as they did two minutes ago. 

And that was the day I learned to shop.

© Judith C Evans 2014

Shared at Poets United Midweek Motif . . . this week's prompt is BOYCOTT

Eccentric?

She reads poetry.
So well-rounded!
How nourishing for the soul it is,
To ponder those fine phrases...
And how clever she must be,
To understand such deep meaning.
It must be so stimulating to be her friend.

She memorizes poems.
How admirable!
She and some lucky fellow
Will have plenty to talk about at the dinner table.
And if they ever have children
(Do you think they ever will?)
They will learn to read at an early age.

She writes poetry.
Wait a minute!
How did she turn out to be so...well...
Eccentric?
I just feel sorry for her poor husband.
How can she be a good wife,
With her head in the clouds 
And her nose in a book,
Writing all those poems?
She watches documentaries about artists in Paris
And leaves peeled potatoes on the kitchen counter.
Then she writes a poem about the time she forgot to finish cooking dinner.
I suppose we should be thankful that she never had children.

© Judith C Evans 2012

Shared with The Think Tank Thursday #100 at Poets United. Inspired by this quotation by Tim Burton: "One person's crazyiness is another person's reality."

In Honor of a Young Girl

I absently sat on a bus stop bench,
As the San Antonio noonday sun
Baked streaks in my hair.

I gazed across the street and tried to guess
Where the old, wind-tossed newspaper would land next.
It had blown across the scorched parking lot, 
Beginning at the farthest end, in front of the garden center.
The yellowed, ripped edges of the crumpled newspaper
Fluttered like pretty ecru ruffles as the wind
Tossed it randomly
Across the searing pavement.

A whirlwind tore the front-page headlines in half.
The mangled first page of Section 2 landed at my feet.
I stared at the center of the faded page.
A black-and-white school portrait of a teenaged girl smiled back.
You could barely see a boy's class ring on a chain around her neck.
She was an honor student, the caption explained,
Just 16 the day she came home from school and died,
In what is known as an "honor killing."
She loved computer science and played the clarinet.
They found the knife weeks before they
Found the body.
Other school band members planned a concert
In her memory.

I leaned forward and reached for the dirty, dusty page,
Wanting to know more about this brief life,
As if my curiosity would honor her memory.
A sudden, hot gust lifted her face into the air
And out of sight.

© Judith C Evans 2012

Written for The Think Tank #98 at Poets United. This weeks prompt was "honor", and I wrote this poem in honor of those who have faced domestic violence.

Words Surge

Three trivial lines,
all significant to me:
words surge and recede.

© Judith C Evans 2012

Written for Poets United Vice/Versa prompt #1: surge/recede, trivial/significant

First Visit to Farmer's Market

I finally find time
To visit my small city's
Community Farmer's Market.
Every Sunday, from June through October,
At 8 AM in the parking lot
Across from the Amtrak station,
The stalls open.
The Northern Arizona mountain air opens my eyes.

I admire glistening bunches of Swiss chard and Lacinato kale,
And overflowing baskets of purplish heirloom tomatoes
And grass-green sugar snap peas.
The jostled pea pods squeak as I fill a plastic bag.
Clear glass jelly jars of water, filled with aromatic stalks of
Cilantro, basil, oregano and spearmint,
Catch the sunlight and sprinkle prismatic colors
Over stacked jars of homemade black currant jam.

At one crowded stall, a teenaged girl in a straw hat
Slices a fresh, raw turnip.
"Try some turnip," she insists, offering a snow white slice
On the end of a toothpick.
I shrug. Turnip is turnip.
The crisp, wet slice snaps in two in my mouth,
Releasing gleeful layers of living flavor.
So that's what turnip tastes like.

© Judith C Evans 2011

Written for Thursday Think Tank #60 at Poets United. This week's prompt is Market Days. Join us!

Biographer's Meditation

In school we studied names and dates
Of you who came before
But stories whispered in my dreams
Tell me there's so much more.
I thirst for more to memorize,
More links to eras past.
From pages of debates and wars
I hear your voice at last.
I must write your story;
I must try at least.
Now sparks from your soul
To my heart increase.
With unfrozen breath
From you whom we call "dead"
I transcribe with devotion
Things you might have said.

© Judith C Evans 2009

Submitted to Poetry Pantry #60 at Poets United.