AprilDawn

AprilDawn Jul 2017

Snapped

raw
green beans
this past afternoon
brought back
my Oma
full white apron on
in  the kitchen
one summer
in Germany
decades ago
window wide open
to the garden
sitting at the table
busily breaking them up
together
for her delicious vegetable soup
I'm  helping ,I'm helping
I said as  they broke
in my little fingers
her soup
a mere  memory
as she  stopped making it
   a lifetime ago

Oma was my German grandmother who I visited every summer growing up in the 70's , no matter where we were stationed ( My Dad was in the military ) we always visited her at least once a year .She died in 1982.

#ohsnapmemories

AprilDawn Jul 2017

Only things

I like about
July
are multitudes of pink mimosa trees
on countless country
roads
with orange day lilies
running rampantly
along stranger’s driveways
air thick from
smoky spent fireworks
trigger thoughts
of sad
goodbyes
said way too soon

Too many anniversaries of loss intersect in July for me .

#spentfireworks

AprilDawn Jul 2017

Press

ever so
gently
don’t want to bruise
sweet giving
flesh
suggestive satisfaction
hangs between
my patience
and fingertips
that tactful test
on well ripened
curves

Peach time ! Blink and you'll miss the window between hard as a rock and ripe for devouring !

#peachharvest

AprilDawn Jul 2017

Empty

space
just plain
gone
where you once
flaunted  your  beauty
is now mere grass
to be mowed
it’s been 2 long summers
since I last raced
to snap pictures
before storm gusts
would shred
your  glory
year after year
they showed up
to  dress up this boring
little back dirt road
those golden sunflowers
against a deep blue
Kentucky sky
haloed by tufts
of white pillowy clouds
inspired me
to prose and praise
I am no gardener
and cannot raise you
from the dead
summer solstice
now marks the day
I  start sadly gazing
through the space
you use to
occupy
and let out
  a weighted sigh

Our lovely older neighbor lady use to keep sunflowers near the end of their driveway , and for years my eyes feasted on them ever y summer. A few summers back she got too elderly to tend them and her son mowed them over. That space got the just right amount of sunlight , and so that bounty of flowers can not be replicated anywhere else in the neighborhood.

#goldenmemories

AprilDawn Jun 2017

Regret

the ice coffee
I snuck in
late  this afternoon
red wine
I drank
with a robust
spaghetti sauce
not until
it was time to sleep
my eyes regretted
not being able to close
mind riddled and running wild
with unlaid plans
fanciful schemes
memories mostly hidden
from daylight
revelations leap
out from the dark
shadows
with every toss and turn
grudges
lain bare
with my uncovered legs
my only hope of absolution
remains in the desperate hope
to exhaustedly
dissolve  into dreamscapes
where regrets are simply keys
to opening
doorways
to subconscious delusions
that  make
some sort of sense
there
because
you tell them to

I keep forgetting I can't do coffee after 5:30 pm or red wine past 9 pm...

#latenightramblings #lightweightdrinker

AprilDawn Jun 2017

Cameo

Never ever
has
anything
been so beyond
my reach
I know less now
than I did
15 years ago
back when this
unspeakable
horror
         happened
still grasping
for reasons
that elude even the
fiber
of an understanding
who ,what and why
reverberates through me
on repeat
    while sorting
dusty piles of pictures
                 from a life
that seems like a foreign film
a naïve version of myself
cameo moments
captured within
assorted snaps
your smile
profiled
many times  over
these are the  memories
I try to press into my
deepest mind
instead of  the weight
of ashes
that buckled my knees
in  a sleek
Cherry wood
     box
I gave
to your brothers
to keep

July 2002 I lost my husband of nearly 20 years and the father of my daughter to ******. Unsolved mystery it remains , and these thoughts creep out from the corners of my everyday life and haunt me regularly.

#reallifemystery #truthmia

AprilDawn May 2017

Late May

announced itself
all around a tiny
quaint white
birdhouse
nestled inside
  the lanky lilac shrub
that towered above the roof
of our ranch style
rental home
with a  profusion of light purple buds
their heady fragrance
no perfume could really capture
these technicolor memories
of the two New England
Springs spent exploring
on  walks along the woods
while chattering squirrels scampered
on branches
arcing over our heads
fingers crossed
we’d missed the bears
that ransacked
our birdseed feeder
earlier that morning
as our blind hound
delicately  sniffed
our neighbor’s
blooms