Tanka
I remember the light
In my grandmother’s kitchen
Something you notice,
then later you remember
how refreshing her presence.
© CMM 2021
Hot Chocolate
Cold evening
Hot chocolate
Remembering
You
Thank you
For being my friend
Even if it had to end
Your friendship
Lives richly in our sharing
Cold evenings
Hot Chocolate
2019 copyright © CMM
Little Time
we will both grow old,
our youth wasted in time
rusted planks of life
jutting out
feeling the days gone past
looking for a sign
we will understand how
little time we tout
until now, we look and see
our hands and body weathered
I will smile and feel the
glow of our youth
even though the shifts
are tethered
Copyrighted: 2018 CMM
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
Moments Soup
It is the parsley speckles floating in my soup,
as I sit looking outside the French doors.
Winter’s drizzle leaves traces downward
as time has left the traces which bring me to reflect.
Warm soup lifts in the steam left over
from the heat of the pot recently served,
brings warm thoughts of a time
brought by the seasons of another time.
A moment on a still chilled morning,
browns from the outer doors,
the dripping from the roof makes
all else in the world un-felt by it’s nature.
In this morning’s nature of warm soup and rain,
I have sat my day’s readings aside written of women’s
conflict and strife to feel the privilege testimony
that only a morning of notice would allow.
I think of the histories of history and I go.
I go far back to the shadows of Grandma and Mother.
I feel their aroma in the warmth of my soup.
With a clandestine smile, I have realized the ingredients
which made them survive—
copyrighted: CMM 2005
revised: CMM 2012
revised: CMM 2012
