Before Breakfast

I need to write…

          a poem

                      early…

Before breakfast.

Before caffeine dilutes

My train of thought.

Before dreams are lost

And plans for work

Muddle my mind,

With stuff

Of yesterdays

Of tomorrows

Of days left behind

And gifts of days lingering to become

As yet, unwrapped.

I write…

                 as my heart

Fills with pale whispered light

Because sunlight

Eludes my soul…

             before dawn.

I dream…

As charcoal skies crack open

pouring water from the spout

of a cold pitcher

shiny, stainless.

I dream…

And write

When heavens are bleak

With ashen clouds

And angels cry.

I write…

A poem at dawn, early

Before breakfast…

What a way to breathe a new dawn in

With hope, with a smile

            With my heart full of joy.

 

5 Days Without a Poem

I write notes in a 5×7 spiral Mead

with a chamois colored cover

like Glenn Close used in Jagged Edge

to convince herself that Jeff Bridges

was innocent of the murder of

his wife and housekeeper.

Have written notes in emergency lanes

alongside freeways

in Arizona, California, and New Mexico;

when words were leaking out my fingers

faster than I could contain them.

So I sit here in this car

by the side of the road

in a Circle K parking lot

listening to Black Magic Woman on 95.5 FM

writing with a borrowed pen

I begged for at the counter. 

What kind of writer am I after all,

traveling with a spiral 5×7 and no pen?

Writing in the sky and parking lots

because I haven’t written since October 30^th

and the words are spilling

out of my ears and through my fingers

leaking onto white blue lined paper

held by metal concentric circles

in a chamois colored 5×7 Mead.

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

In the End

It matters not

who did

what to whom

or why…

 

It matters only

how we get

from there

to here

and when.

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Seattle On Sunday

Are you ever going to see

Or even get to read

All these letters I write to you

On Sunday mornings,

Early…

Before the sun comes out of hiding?

When we should be sharing our bodies

warm and wanting.

S…T…R…E…T…C…H…I…N…G

Like lazy cats on summer days.

All these feelings spilling out on paper

            instead of on to you.

Sitting here…

                                    …alone.

Drinking coffee

staring at a gray sky.

Dreaming thoughts of you and me

Sharing our bodies, early

On Sunday mornings

Warm and wanting

hungry…

            so hungry…

With thoughts and feelings of you.

What Price Peace

Speak them loud intentionally

With heart, with soul, with tears

Attached…

Write them in notebooks

Carve them in a tree

Lovingly…

Joyfully with fingers in the sand

Declaring…

Say them in languages at the equator

At the Antarctic

South and north, east and west

But say what you mean

And mean what you say

Tell the truth

Your truth out loud for all to hear

Say your truth…

Say it loud…

Clap your hands in cadence

Write in rhyme or free verse

Put your prose on paper for eternity

Do not drop your bombs instead

Of getting mad

Anonymously from the air

Do not hide in tanks

Destroying mothers and children

Homes and gardens

From your safe vantage point

Torture is torture

No matter the method of delivery

Do not torture

Then call it peace

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

You Meet No Strangers

Edith, her cousin Nancy (both over 70) and I met on an America West flight back to Los Angeles from San Antonio May 1991.  I noticed Edith while I was waiting in the airport for the flight that would take me back to Long Beach (where I lived) after negotiating a contract at San Antonio Air Force Base.  She was dressed head to toe in black with a black hat and special black glasses wrapping the top half of her face indicating she had a problem with her eyesight.  The only colored clothing was a noticeable lime green jacket covered with huge red and yellow roses.  Like meeting Spring.  She must be an artist, I thought.  As it turned out, we were sitting next to each other when the plane took off and I had guessed correctly.  

My career as a poet was two months old; I was handwriting all my poems in a tiny spiral notebook, which I carried with me everywhere.  I was writing feverishly on my poem in the aisle seat while we were taking off, and they noticed.  Hadn’t even reached the novice stage yet.  We started talking, I shared my notebook of poems, and Nancy gave me their calling cards in white lace gloved hands.  When I arrived home, I wrote Beautiful Ladies and mailed it to San Antonio, Texas.

It turns out that Edith Kroshel was a renowned watercolor artist who had been commissioned by the City of San Antonio to paint the Alamo. 

She sent me a thank you letter with a note, “Thank you for seeing past the wrinkles.”  Hand written on pale blue tissue paper.  Edith and I have been corresponding since that airplane ride.  She now lives in a retirement home in Texas and sends me letters written with a magnifying glass and tiny drawings of her surroundings.  I respond in 18 pt font so she can see the words.  Recently she wrote that she’s been reading my poems to her exercise swim class.  While the “girls” are doing kicks in the pool, Edith is reading my love poems out loud.  Imagine that!

Guess when you share your gifts of gratitude; you never really know how far your gifts will travel.  In retrospect,  always put back more cookies in the cookie jar than you take out.  Then the cookie jar will always be full, and so will your heart! 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd