The Gift
I find myself (as I do every Christmas) thinking back to a
special lady who always made Christmas so loving. There was
one gift I always remember and treasure is the one from Grandma.
She was old and retired. She was living on a very limited
income. Each Christmas she would set up a tree no taller than
Two feet. It was artificial and set on a little table covered with cotton
from old boxes, replicating snow.
She would take the little money she had and buy each of her
grandchildren hose for the girls and socks for the boys.
Today I remember her going to the little tree. Her hands had
become old with swollen joints and trembled just a little as
she picked up the little gift wrapped in thin paper from the year
before. There was always a thin ribbon, usually red tied so carefully.
Handing me the little gift, she would say, “It’s not much.” I
would always smile to her and say, “Grandma, you have no idea
how much I needed hose.” She would smile and sit next to the
little tree.
Today that gift keeps giving back to me. It was love.
copyrighted: 2012 CMM
Four Poster Bed
That four poster bed and me at the foot…
was the beginnings of beginnings
and the irony it took.
My Mother’s plight to come back home,
when our Father’s fights,
were all we had known.
Grandparents adjusting
and opening their doors,
no one needed to sleep on the floor.
The nights we laid, kittens in bed,
me at the foot,
as they snuggled at the head.
Quilts laid busy acoss us just right,
four poster jammed,
with three quite a sight.
As we grew older and given each a bed,
I will never forget the four poster bed,
me at the foot and they at the head.
I wonder in life when all things askew
and the trials I endured
whether old or renewed.
If being at the foot of this bed
gave me the will to survive,
in keeping my head.
© CMM 2002
Cowlick
I was born with a cowlick,
as they say in the South
It is nowhere related
to parts of a mouth.
If you looked real close
nothing laid down.
Hair stood up everywhere
even the crown
People would notice
then look away.
See only the pretty girls
no cowlicks, got to stay.
But, even born with a cowlick
isn’t too bad.
Cause it won’t make you happy
and it won’t make you sad.
That’s got to come way deep inside
learning to take cowlicks all in stride.
© CMM 2012
Shaded Moon
I plant flowers,Lavender, underA pink moon.I see babies,Crying lifeless,Under faded moon.The water sprinklesInto the fertileSoil of promise.While red riversRun just belowThe still cradles.A paradox lives,I see the lavender,They bury innocence.copyright: 2017 CMM
Waking
I hope I will always wake in tulip sunshine
among the fragrance of green grass
growing near flowing rivers
while breakfast sizzles in
cast iron skillets
with biscuits
on cobalt
blue
plates.
If this
goes away
in my memory
and leaves me for
another day in changed
places, I want to still wake
in tulip sunrise and still smell
the coffee brew to another time but let
not the reciting bobwhites forget to sound; so I will always remember.
copyright: CMM 2005
Silver Sea
Silver lights surround fallen beams cast from summer’s full moon.
Sea is quiet and spreads like a lover in waiting for the ones-to-notice, to linger.
Linger we do, in the dust showered in the reflections of the midnight visit.
Women of generations, sit upon sands that are older than time itself,
Gathering thoughts of times to come, and times that passed as wisdom lingers.
Lingering in moments of contemplation, waiting to be heard.
© CMM 2012
(Dedicated to my Mother )
Eagle and Child Inkling 