Musings on life, love, and healing past trauma
Summer is finally here. And the new playground is finally done. So this afternoon was spent discovering all the new ways to climb, slide, spin and swing. Afterwards my muscles informed me that it became its own kind of workout. And my phone informed me that I had taken thousands of steps more than a normal day.
Discovering play
A magic colourful world
Seen through a child’s eyes
©RedCat
Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.
Read other Daily Haibun’s here.
The simple yet priceless pleasures of children. Of their hugs and laughter. Of their pride in having made a drawing or a pearl plate just for you. Of their happiness for an excuse to have berry juice and cinnamon buns. Of their delight to have picked a bouquet of flowers to give. Of the spark in their eyes as they say,
– I love you Mommy! Happy Mother’s Day!
To share a child’s joy
is to grow heart-young again
to remember love
©RedCat
Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.
Read other Daily Haibun’s here.
Don’t react if they bully and tease.
Turn your other cheek and say please.
Don’t hit back!
No one likes a girl who attacks.
Don’t show you’re smarter than the boys.
It will them only annoy.
Don’t talk back to adults.
Even if they are wrong it’s an insult.
Don’t show you’re smarter than men.
You’ll just be a bother again.
Don’t speak up for anyone’s rights.
They’ll just think you’re picking a fight.
Don’t claim any self worth.
What? Do you think it comes with birth?
Don’t state your opinions.
You’ll just get shun.
Don’t stick out, it’ll break Jante’s law.
Remember you’re just another bah, haha!
Don’t pursue creative dreams.
You might as well chase moonbeams.
Don’t be a nuisance girl.
Do you think you’re a precious pearl?
Don’t be a disturbance.
No one wants to see your brilliance.Or..
©RedCat
Do the opposite of all that!
Better be called a hellcat than live as a trampled doormat!
More information of the Law of Jante, something that have had a negative effect
on me and many other Scandinavians.
(From Wikipedia)
To see all art and read all poems for today go to The Wombwell Rainbow.
Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/
Re-post comment:
Wednesday and time to wander the archives. This is the second most read post from GloPoWriMo 2020.
It’s both a story and about me as a child. Books and pets where my only true companions.
Enjoy!
What did you think would happen to a child left on my doorstep?
Free to roam the the shelves.
Delve into the dusty archives.
A whole childhood to read whatever took her fancy.She learned everything she knows from me.
I always accepted, comforted and nurtured her.
When no one else did.
She felt safe spending hours.
Within my booked lined walls.Of course she’d find.
Fantastic stories to immerse in.
Hilarious verses to laugh with.
Poetry as steamy as any video.
More facts than you know.
Opposing ideas and new wisdom.
Philosophy and all the religions.
Mystical traditions founded in ancient history.Curious children do that you see.
They search for and soak up stories and facts.Of course all that.
Paper and ink.
Facts and fictions.
Millions of words.Put her under my spell.
Made her seek my sanctuary.
Endeavour to write stories of her own.Wondrous worlds of strange beauty.
The nature seen through loving eyes.
Sensual stanzas that arouses desire.
Horrifying tales of death and suffering.Yes! I confess!
That bright discarded child.
I made her mine by love.
Of knowledge and words.Now she lives in the apartment of the head librarian.
© REDCAT
Spending days and nights with words.
I think she’s happy!
Written for today’s GloPoWriMo prompt, to write a non-apology. Very fun!
Also linking to OLN at dVerse.
DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation
I’m gonna help mommy with laundry
We’re gonna wash everything clean
Then hang it all by clothespins
My shirt so white that it gleamsSuddenly I remember the red fox
I dropped him yesterday in the rain
I better put him in the washer
So my brother can’t see the stainsI bundle the fox with my bed-sheets
Feeling so clever and grown
Now, no one will know that I took it
Without asking for a loanFrom the washroom, suddenly there’s a yell
©RedCat
Every white sheet is now pale pink
Sighing, mommy looks at me sternly
– Whatever did you think?
Written for tonight’s Poetics prompt at dVerse. And inspired by a children’s book I read at bed time earlier tonight.
My darling curious quick witten daughter,
my love for you will never falter.
Life’s greatest joy is to be your father.
You are a wonder to my old eyes,
your lust for life always makes me smile.
Ever since you came to us under a full moonrise.
I will always be your steadfast rock.
Always protect you like a keen eyed hawk.
Always there if you need a hug or to talk.
I am forever proud and grateful,
I have a child so caring and merciful.
Thankful the universe entrusted me with a soul so beautiful.
My greatest wish for you is a life filled with love,
with friends and laughter and the freedom of,
letting dreams grow wings to fly the heavens like a dove.
©RedCat
A letter or perhaps a diary entry, I spent my lonely childhood dreaming of. Something to hold close to my heart, something that would tell me I was once loved and cherished.
I’m glad I finally found a way to write what that little girl so dearly needs!
Written for Exploring the poetic genre: “Verse Epistle” over at dVerse.
A dark stairwell. My cat meowing and howling in his box. The grownups swearing over the scratches they got when forcing him in. My mothers volatile mood. Grief flashing to rage, flashing to confused numbness flashing back to grief.
My aunts and uncles have strange whispering voices. Walking on eggshells. Afraid to do or say anything that reminds us. Like it’s possible to forget.
Like it’s possible to step out of the endless loop of grief and confusion.
I did not understand. How could daddy just be gone forever? And who is that stranger looking out of my mother’s eyes?
Like a plucked flower
A rootless child drifts astray
Unseen and unloved
©RedCat
Written for Walk with me down Memory Lane… today’s Haibun prompt over at dVerse.
I’m one of those that might have opted out of this one, knowing the punch in some of my memories. Also knowing I do not have them all. Nearly everything before my fathers death, two months before my sixth birthday. And two months before my younger siblings birth. Are built up by photo albums and my mother’s stories. And those stories tended to shift over the years. Even today, if one of her children mentions a story she told us over, and over, and over again – only to be met with a blank stare and a totally new story.
Both of us have long ago lost the sense that we will ever know the truth. We have our own memories, as far back as they go. Beyond that we will never know.
And I, again, ended up with fragments so small I don’t know what the memory is about. And this memory, of the dark stairwell, in the house we’re moving out of just weeks after my father passed away.
I have no pictures of that time. But I do have this from what seems a happier time then I can remember.
Free your mind
Accept the unknown
Note every strange idea
Take in sounds and smells
Always go further
See wonder in the mundane
Your mind can travel everywhere
©RedCat
It’s the holiday season and not much time or room for writing. Mostly it’s playing or hanging with the kids. Building a train of chairs and traveling to outer space. Acting different plays with cuddly toys. Reading books. Watching movies and series. Playing board games.
When evening comes my mind is overwhelmed by their energy and fountains of ideas. :-)
The world according to RedCat
The world according to RedCat 