Michelle Garren Flye's Blog, page 62

National Poetry Month: Poem 7

A little late with this one, and I tried a little rhyming. No real scheme to it, but maybe that would come in a later draft.

Poem 7

Bang, Explained

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

I just heard a bang downstairs.

The house is dark and cold.

No one’s home but me, I know,

Cause Mom went to the store.

Do I investigate?

Oh, I can’t be that bold.

Tiptoe to the banister and peer below?

Surely it’s better to wait.

 

That was a creak,

But I’ve heard that one before.

What could that bang have been?

I’ll just go back to my game.

There’s nothing here to hurt me now.

There, I heard it again!

What’s down there creeping around?

I’d better go check—no, wait!

 

That’s nothing at all but the cat at my door.

Maybe’s he’s lonely…like me.

 

National Poetry Month: Poem 6

Poem 6:

Little Kitty

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Little kitty, you gaze so long

From the floor at my lap.

 

Would you like to join me?

I invite you with a pat.

 

You consider my offer

With eyes half closed.

 

You leap—so graceful,

Your purr is divine.

 

Step once, step twice…

Then back quickly away.

 

Was my lap your desire?

Or was it always my chair?

National Poetry Month: Poem 5

Poem 5:

I Dreamed About…

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

I dreamed three dreams.

 

I dreamed about grandchildren

Although I’m too young.

There were three,

But I only remember one.

Beautiful, blonde and laughing at me.

 

I dreamed about clouds in the sky

But when I woke, the sun was shining.

You said it was my imagination.

But later when I looked up

I saw a cloud and it reminded me.

 

I dreamed about tornadoes

On the eve of the inauguration.

One, two, three, four…

All went around me.

But there was a fifth on the horizon.

 

Of the dreams, I only like the first one.

I cling to it when it wants to fade.

A beacon of hope

When the others strive to overwhelm,

Or when I fear they may be true.

National Poetry Month: Poem 4

I actually wrote this last night, but it was after midnight, making it the day after my oldest son’s birthday.

Poem 4:

The Day After Motherhood

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

I still remember the moment they woke me.

They said my baby needed me.

I remember thinking, Really?

He’s mine?

 

You were.

 

For years after that, you really were.

Mine to tote to the store.

Mine to entertain.

Mine to sing to, to read to,

To coax into sleep.

 

Mine.

 

But now, it’s the next day,

You’re almost ready now.

To make decisions, to venture out…

To live your life.

 

Still mine…but more.

National Poetry Month: Poem 3

Poem 3:

17

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Today’s the day.

Seventeen.

Amazing how the years

Aren’t long enough.

Filled with Moments.

Moments to live over and over again

And Moments to wish you had back.

 

Nobody said it’d be easy.

Did they?

Nobody said there’d be no regrets

Or that everything would be perfect.

They said

You’ll be a family.

We are.

We have been

From that first Moment

Of love.

National Poetry Month: Poem 2

Poem 2:

The Unknown

By Michelle Garren Flye

Golden leaf volumes

On dusty library shelves

Knowledge unembraced.

 

And from my youngest:

The Early Bloomer

By Jessica

Snowfall ends. 

But the trees still don’t have leaves.

No flowers yet bloomed.

Until one tulip pops up.

Tulips aren’t supposed to be up yet.

Oh well it is very beautiful.

The next day, it’s not there.

Oh no.

It was gone.

Forever and ever.

It inspired other tulips to grow, though.

Now there were millions.

Everyone loved that early flower.

Everyone loved that early bloomer.

(Inspired by tulip season)

Happy National Poetry Month!

It’s my favorite month. National Poetry Month. I try to read a poem or two a day during National Poetry Month. It’s not very hard, so this year, I’m challenging myself to something a little tougher.

Write a poem a day.

Post it here.

Yeah, I know, not smart to post raw stuff, but I’m determined and not many people read this anyway. So today I dug deep, and here you go:

 

End of Daffodil Season

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Thick, yellow air.

Breathless.

 

Sun warming,

Breeze chills.

 

Tall stems sway

Shrivel.

 

Die.

 

No more buds

To love.

 

Yellow blossoms

Are gone.

 

Winds promise

More fun.

 

Soon.

 

Jesus Walked Into Planned Parenthood

The other day as conservatives chanted “USA!” and “Lock her up!” as if they were interchangeable sentiments, I found myself in a very dark place wishing very bad things to happen to all of them. I pulled myself out of that place as best I could by writing this:

Jesus walked into Planned Parenthood. He paused at the desk. The receptionist, tired and counting the minutes until she could get out of the tiny, antiseptic-smelling room with its buzz of computers mixing with the sniffles and throat-clearings of the waiting room, looked up, her expression guarded out of habit. “Can I help you?”

“No.” Jesus smiled at her and she thought about the scent of dandelions. She’d loved dandelions when she was a child. She remembered the clump of golden dandelions she’d spotted by the bus stop that morning. Tonight, when she left, she would stop and smell them. Maybe she’d pick one and take it on the bus with her. The thought made her happy because dandelions smelled like hope and she very seldom felt hope anymore.

Jesus reached through the small opening in the glass window—the one she used to pass clipboards back and forth to patients—and touched her hand. “I’m just looking for a friend,” He said before turning to the waiting room.

Jesus found her in the waiting room. It was late, and she was the last one there. A middle-aged woman holding her purse on her lap and staring into the distance as if she could imagine herself somewhere else for some other purpose. Jesus sat next to her and took her hand. “She’s all right.”

As if she had come back from somewhere very far away, the woman looked at Him. She heaved a breath, raspy, sounding like she hadn’t breathed in a long time. “Is she?”

Jesus thought of the woman’s daughter undergoing a procedure in one of the back rooms that would take away the baby conceived in an ill-timed relationship. He thought of the frightened boy who’d refused to take responsibility, whose parents had taken him away instead of facing what had happened. He knew the young girl had agonized about it. He’d heard her prayers. He’d heard her father’s anger, felt the words fall like blows on the girl’s heart. If you have an abortion don’t ever come back to my house.

But in the end, full of fear instead of hope, she’d gone to the clinic. And her mother had taken her, in spite of her own convictions, too worried about losing her daughter to obey her husband. Both of them had spent the past few hours imploring Him for forgiveness.

“My husband says it’s an unforgivable sin. That she’ll be locked out of heaven forever.” The woman’s voice quavered, imploring a contradiction.

Jesus stood, and the woman’s eyes filled with wonder. For a moment, when He smiled at her, she heard again her daughter’s bell-like laughter tinkling through spring air while she ran and played in the golden sunshine. Jesus bent and kissed her forehead. “There is no sin I will not forgive if I am asked in time.”

He left the clinic and paused outside. He saw the man standing on the other side of the road. He was a man who prayed daily, almost hourly, but Jesus could no longer hear him, though from this distance He could see the man’s lips moving. Jesus knew what He’d said to the woman in the waiting room was true. But He wondered—if this man ever asked His pardon—would He hear the prayer?

His heart heavy, He walked away from the clinic as the man entered it. He heard the explosion, and as those He passed turned to see what had happened, He spotted a clump of dandelions growing between the cracks of the sidewalk.

Fantasy Adventures in My Own World

Once upon a time. Those are magical words, aren’t they? I mean, right up there with “on a dark and stormy night” as far as how NOT to start your new novel, but still magical. Those words tell you you’re about to be transported to another world, an alternate reality. I love that feeling, and that’s why I’m currently writing romantic fantasy, even if I do find it much more challenging than contemporary romance.

I’m more than halfway through editing Time Being, the second book of my Synchronicity series, which began with Out of Time. Last month I released the short story Strange Path, which is technically a prequel, but the hero of that story has a major role in Time Being. I posted on Facebook and Twitter today that “Strange Path” is not only where my story has been, it’s also where it’s going.

A friend who is familiar with the Synchronicity series posted this kind review on her Facebook page to encourage readers to try it out: “Synchronicity blends Tolkien-like creatures, Gabaldon-like portals, a bit of Rowling-like magic with Swords and romance!” Of course I was flattered by the comparisons, but I also loved that she enjoyed the world of Synchronicity. Creating a compelling fantasy world of your own is a challenge, and you can really only hope to have learned enough about world-building from your heroes to manage it. My friend’s words helped me believe that maybe I had.

I hope you’ll read “Strange Path”, and if you do, I hope you enjoy it enough to try out Out of Time before Time Being debuts, hopefully in May. Read for free here:

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Writing and friendship: A tangled web

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.–E.B. White

I don’t think I’m over-generalizing by saying most English-speaking (and some non-English) writers have been influenced in one way or another by E.B. White. I was reminded of this over the past couple of weeks as I prepared a booktalk on White for my daughter’s third grade class. But mostly I was reminded of one thing: White’s book Charlotte’s Web was the book I read and decided to be a writer.

I was about seven, I think, when I got pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week, then home recuperating for another week. I wasn’t truly old enough to understand that it was serious, but my classmates made me get well cards and one of my extended cousins brought me a copy of Charlotte’s Web as a get well gift. His mother probably made him, and I doubt I ever thanked him properly, so he probably never knew that book became my most treasured possession.

I was a voracious reader (still am), and I read that book over and over and over again. The writing was…luscious. Like nothing I’d ever read before. Every writer knows the quote from Charlotte’s Web:

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

How I wanted that quote to apply to me! I could be a true friend. Could I be a good writer? Could I use my words and talent to influence the world for good, as Charlotte had? In my innocence, I truly believed so. It wasn’t until I got much older that I realized how difficult the two could be to fit together. Maybe this quote, also from Mr. White, might explain why:

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

And there’s the rub. If you want your writing to mean something, if you see a need in the world and you try to address it with your writing—somebody’s not going to like it. Writing is a solitary profession that, like a single pebble thrown into a lake, causes ripples wherever it lands. The water may not like being rippled, and it may not understand why you threw the pebble in the first place, but it ripples, nonetheless. It’s something all writers deal with to some degree or other.

However, in the course of preparing my booktalk, I came across a new, and very hopeful, E.B. White quote that I have now pinned up next to my desk.

“All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world. I guess you can find that in there, if you dig around.”

Maybe one day, I’ll be as good a writer or at least as true a friend as Charlotte. I’ll keep working on it.