A lifetime ago
You only saw purity
All now forgotten

Sometimes I like to take a word and see how many short
phrases I can come up with that use it.  I chose HAND
this time.  I won’t list words that have hand as part of it -
like  ‘handsome’, but I will use the plural and past tenses.
I tried to avoid nouns. How  many more can you think of?

     Hand of God      Hand me down
     Hand over fist              Hand delivered
     Hand made      *******
     Hand in glove              Hand in hand
     Hand to mouth      Hand it to you
     Hands off              Hand to hand
     Hand stand      Hands of time
     Hand in   *    Hand over    *   Hand off
     Hands down  *   Hands up    *    Hands off

     At hand      Unhand me
     Glad Hand      Even Handed
     Back handed      Under handed
     One handed      Cack handed*
     Lend a hand      Second hand
     Steady hand      Force your hand
     Hold hands      Lay hands on
     On every hand              On the other hand
     Out of hand      Show your hand
     Take in hand      Try your hand
     Throw up your hands         Wash your hands of
     With a heavy hand        High Handed
     On hand  *  Off hand  *  In hand  *  Out of hand
                                                            ­        LJM
Additionl words from BLT:     Hand over my heart
Hand to God       Sleight of Hand   Grabby Hands
Slick Hands,    

T S Poetry added  :  Gotta hand it to you    Overhand
One in the hand is worth two in the bush (birds)  

Melancholy of Innocence added:  Holding hands

Amanda Kay Burke added:   Shorthand    First hand   Handout

I am darkness.
I wear the mask of sunny mornings
But dark shadows seep around the edges.

I am storm clouds.
I masquerade as blue sky days
But the cows out in the fields lay down.

I am a somber dirge
Though my speakers play a happy song
It’s always in a minor key.

I am tomorrow.
While I can’t untangle from today
I waft the scent of yesterday.
                     ljm

Thoughts,
like fingers trailing in the water of a quiet lake,
making ripples that fan out and eventually fade
into the stillness that makes reverie a balm
to mend the broken pieces of my wounded spirit.

Small boat
big enough for only two but I’m alone and very still,
paddles stowed and sunhat on, I drift
on currents imperceptible and slow
in directions that the birds won’t tell me.

Pine Trees
on the distant shore, unmoving in the tiny breeze,
create the vision of a cool and private place of safety
not for me, but for all those I cannot see but know
are sheltered in their shadowed depths.

Tiny Fishes
going happily about their business, clearly seen
beneath my little boat in water that’s so clear
they seem just inches from my trailing fingers,
Unafraid that they might be in danger.

Dragonfly
neon needle in the sky darting close to visit me
then swooping left to disappear against the sun
and leave me musing in my tiny boat as I discover
I am whole and healed of spirit, and can go on.
ljm

I’ll never see the daffodils again.
They come up only in the spring
And I’ll be somewhere that I hate.

They’ll be a surprise for who lives there
A bonus for fixing up the place -
A victim of benign neglect.

I wonder if the Lilly bulbs will bloom again
Special gift, enjoyed and planted by the wall
Tended well. in hopes of more red glory.

Will the roses thrive under better care
And bloom in cycles all year long
To perfume the air for someone else.

The mouses in the memory bower
Will sleep in peace without their markers
And Poco’s stone will go with us.

How much will change - how much will not
When new eyes glance around the rooms
And measure the back garden.

Will everything be taken down
So shiny new can take it’s place
And relegate its memory to a closet

There is no way that I can know
I’ll have to wait and see and hope
That some small touch of me remains
In walls that warmed me for thirty years.
ljm

Tippy toe, tippy toe. tippy, tippy toe, toe
I somehow never hear you come -
I almost never hear you go.

Like a puff of smoke
You drift through my life.
Almost impossible to be your wife.

I never know where in the house you are;
Upstairs, downstairs or at the corner bar;
Inside, outside or someplace very far.

You walk like a phantom,
Your feet don’t touch the floor.
You make not a sound when closing a door.

Trained from your childhood to not make a sound;
I need to put a bell on you to know you’re around.
ljm

(BLT challenge: song titles from one singer)

This is the story of THE STRANGEST ROMANCE I ever encountered.
It didn’t involve me because I was then TOO YOUNG TO GO STEADY. I  hadn’t even purchased my FIRST FORMAL GOWN yet.  MOST PEOPLE GET MARRIED, under the ALLEGHENY MOON in this part of the country, but this couple said no to that. I kept telling them to GO ON WITH THE WEDDING, but they insisted it would be ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE.  I then suggested OLD CAPE COD, but they said THE WALL has ears, and if anyone found out they were eloping, it would be GOODBYE CHARLIE. I told them to TRUST IN ME and I wasn’t FIBBIN’ when I said it.  They said: REPEAT AFTER ME: “I’LL  REMEMBER TODAY and keep your secret. I swear this on a CROSS OF GOLD”
Swearing on a gold cross made my heart go PIDDLY PATTER PATTER and I now felt like WITH MY EYES WIDE OPEN I’M DREAMING.  They told me to HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, and to GO ON HOME.  
I had my Walk-man on, so I trudged home with THE SOUND OF MUSIC in my ears, but the walk seemed like TWO THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED, TWENTY THREE MILES, and as I thought about their rejection of me,  I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN.  Being brushed aside like that left me with A BROKEN HEART AND A PILLOW FILLED WITH TEARS.
EVERY TIME I think about that day, I want to throw MAMA FROM THE TRAIN for not letting me even go to their wedding when it finally happened.  I had kept their secret and told no one.  I’m proud of me.
                              ljm