Not Out Of Joint

April 10, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Caring, compassion, Current events, Gratitude, humanity, Interconnectedness, Light it blue, New York City, Overcoming, Poetry, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness 13 Comments

LIght-it-Blue-NY-One-World-Trade-2-credit-One-World-Observatory-@OneWorldNYC

The farmer pruning rows of trees,

The seller in the market.

The hens that daily lay their eggs,

For tomorrow’s nest (or basket).

The driver navigating streets,

The postman carting packets.

The parent shepherding a child

In mask and zipped up jacket.

The nurses, doctors

Plumbers, pets,

Who have become our mascots.

The slower pace

The seeking gaze

In meetings held in tablet.

The smaller gifts

That bloom in hearts,

As parks in flowers blanket.

The ebb and flow of day to day

The births, the hope, the caskets.

The love that feeds

The good of deeds,

The evenings’ clapping racket.

For as so many things are stalled,

Kindness grows in ranking,

And we are really not at all

Out of joint in thanking.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: joint

Go Deep

April 3, 2020April 3, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Adversity, Creative writing, Current events, Deep, Inside, Meditation, Memory, Poetry, Reflections, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Writing prompt 15 Comments

Photo: Amitai Asif

Go deep into the space within

Where sorrow holds to joy,

And find the light that shadow

Serenades

In times

Without employ.

Go deep into the burrowed

Land

Where memory resides,

And seek the song that

Dances,

Stubborn,

In your mind.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Deep

Note: Dedicated to all who are struggling during these uncertain times. May you find all that you need, in health, in life, in light.

Not Welcome Here

March 20, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: COVID19, Current events, Gaslighting, Government, humanity, No More Hate, Pandemic, Poetry, Society, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Truth 12 Comments

Photo: Franck V. on Unsplash

You are not welcome

Here,

With your

Contaminated fear.

You are not welcome

Here,

With words that hurt

And terms that mean to harm, divert,

Self-aggrandize, and

Smear.

There is a bigger risk

In hate

Than in keeping

Near.

You are not welcome

Here,

If you weaponize worry

To steer

Away from empathy,

Away from truth,

Away from the real challenges we share

As we ride great distances

On this one

Sphere.

Call this by its name.

Not by the rhetoric

Of racist,

Misinforming

Jeer.

Address it not in

Murky swamps

That deliberately

Throw mud into the

Gears.

Humanity is better

Than your insatiable need

To infect the

Atmosphere.

We’re on to you.

We see.

We hear.

We will hold steady to what

Matters.

We support the hardworking, factual and

Compassionately

Sincere.

But you?

You are not welcome

Here.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: Welcome

Them Poor Bushes

March 6, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Professional Development, Reflections, Writing Tags: Choices, Creative writing, Decisions, Figure, Indecision, Just because, Just for fun, Rhyme, Social Skills, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Working together 4 Comments

Photo: Burst on Unsplash

She figures it would be okay.

She figures it would do.

She’ll find her schedule and get back,

Within a month or two.

She figures she could do the task.

She figures it is fine.

She’d done a thing like that before,

Not quite, but in outline.

Still, she figures it a breeze.

She figures she’d succeed.

Even when history, at best,

Is wondering if indeed.

She figures this, she figures that

In neutral all her wheels,

And it becomes impossible

To not begin to feel,

That maybe it’d be easier

To let them bushes be

They’re beat from hedging here and there

And wishing they could flee!

Note: This was really just for fun and isn’t about (ahem) anyone … So similarity to any individual is (sort of) coincidental … 😉 Dedicated to all the ‘he’ and ‘she’ and ‘you’ and ‘they,’ who won’t say yea and won’t say nay, and leave us all in limbo every day …

For Linda Hill’s SoCS challenge: figure

Aftereffect

February 28, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Current affairs, Elections, Expectations, Leadership, Poetry, Politics, Reality, Rhyme, SoCS, Writing prompt 10 Comments

Photo: Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash

It does not do to elect

Only those who self-select.

Because it is best to object

To any who hold no respect

For others’ ability to reflect

On the facts in each subject.

For if we fail now to protect

The need of everyone to connect

And the necessity to detect

Those who humanity eject,

We might injustice reinfect

And cement moral defect

As the greedy now expect

Blind loyalty by genuflect.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS writing prompt: “ect”

As They Say …

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Video, Writing Tags: Current affairs, Current events, Denial, Evidence, Poetry, Politics, Reality, Rhyme, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Trevor Noah, Video, Writing prompt 6 Comments

Oy vey, Oy vey

Or, as they say.

Bless their hearts,

Now we best pray.

For this pack,

Who clear as day

Have evidently

Lost their way.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: (un)pack

Choosing Dandelions

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Being in the moment, Choices, Creative writing, Dream, Flow, Imagery, Morning, Small Things, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 23 Comments

Photo: Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

I wake and turn my back on the clock and seek the comfort of the dream that is still floating like a bubble, already fragile, above my head. It pops and disappears and there is nothing but a vague sense of something lost. I wanted to go back into it … and yet the choice, when it was made in some subterranean neurological net within my mind, was that sleep was to escape.

The day to unfold.

Still, and throughout the mundane tasks of morning, small search-parties like tentative roots into hard-packed sand, send shoots into my consciousness to try and capture whiffs of the dream. A hope that perhaps a fleeting dandelion seed of recollection will find purchase and regrow a stalk.

A place of in-between. Perhaps a corner of my mind is still in slumber. Perhaps if I find it, I will come across the dream, robust in puffy bubble-hood, still tethered to my insides, waiting to be seen.

Sometimes writing helps.

I have too much to do.

I will ignore.

Will choose to sit and breathe and let my mind and fingers wander where they may, the sands of time, the depths of grief, the dawns of days, the fluttering delights, the warmth of recognition, the sorrows of injustice. Currents of discovery of what’s already there. A sea of tethered bubbles like a field of hot-air balloons, straining at the anchors to let loose.

I wrote of a blimp just the day before.

Was that the origin or the reaction to the imagery of bobbing thoughts and fullness so tangible it turns air into rising power? Was the blimp the source or the reflection of the fragility of any skin if pulled too tight, of the leaking deflation if seams are untended, the world upended as it spirals out of flight?

I write. I breathe.

I look pointedly away from the pink sticky notes and the open documents holding forms awaiting filling for a speaking engagement and another for an upcoming presentation and a list of emails needing a response.

I make a choice.

To chase a dandelion.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS Challenge: Choices

Frozen

January 17, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Frozen, Hibernation, JusJoJan, Movies, Patience, Poetry, SoCS, time, Waiting, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 21 Comments

Photo: Amitai Asif

Inside the core of frozen

Lore

There beats a tender

Heart.

Beneath the glaciers of

Dearth

Unfurl forgotten

Paths.

Amidst the howling winds of

Cold

Whispers bid to

Start,

And feed the seed ‘neath Tundra’s

Soul

Awaiting summer’s

Part.

Note: just the other day, I watched parts of the movie “Frozen” (the first one) with a young child, in preparation for that child’s going to the movies with friends to see “Frozen 2.” Now I have an ear-worm and am yet to “let it go” … 😉

For Linda Hill’s SoCS and JusJoJan challenges: Movie title

The Parade

January 10, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Flash Fiction, JusJoJan, Just for fun, Parade, Politics, Realistic fiction, Satire, SoCS, Stream of Consciousness, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 4 Comments

Photo: Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

It was partially because they needed to find something to focus on, and the months ahead stretched barren of anything worthy of looking forward to; and partially because they believed they had some yet-to-be-discovered organizational talents and this could be a good way to shine a little spotlight on them; and partially because they knew it was the last thing Mayor Perry would expect. The latter reason alone was worth the effort. Especially when it would be something he won’t be able to admit he was against and may even end up having to endorse.

So they planned a parade.

They enlisted friends’ cars for floats and roped in small sponsorships by neighborhood stores and minor celebrities. They tempted bands and cheerleaders from local middle-schools with free exposure and offered same for the martial arts students from George’s Judo (which, not to be outdone, was followed by the dancers from Teens’ Tap and Ballroom Ballerinas). They raised money (and attention) by holding bake-sales on stoops and organizing a popup donate-your-merchandise shop on the sidewalk in front of the library. They printed flyers and pinned them to bulletin boards then convinced store owners to tape some into their display windows, by telling them every one else already had.

Peer pressure worked.

Most people didn’t ask too many questions about why a “Celebrate Ourselves” parade was necessary, where it had been born or by whom or to what end. The general theme seemed good enough, and it probably didn’t feel right to be against celebrating who one was and what they belonged to and were included in.

They ordered “CO” shirts, stickers, and visors in neon-green, complete with an abstract sketch of a float-turned-banner-turned-thumbs-up to ‘carry’ the letters as the parade’s logo. They uploaded photos of themselves handing shirts to firefighters, visors to grinning grandmothers in the park, and an assortment of the stuff to slightly bewildered parents at the playground. The stickers were a hit with the kids.

They videoed themselves delivering a shirt to the mayor’s office, then sent the video to the local news, who shared it under the title: “The Mayor Celebrates ‘Celebrating Ourselves.'” Social media amplified it.

By the following morning the mayor was accosted by a reporter on his way out of the gym. The insistent young woman shoved a microphone in Mayor Perry’s face and asked whether he’d been asked to be the Grand Marshal.

“Not yet,” he mumbled.

An hour later they were in his office, neon-green shirts on, tailed by the reporter they’d tipped ahead of time for an “exclusive follow-up scoop.”

Soon enough a statement was issued and the news headlined: “Mayor Perry to Lead CO Parade.”

Sponsorships streamed on: The gym the Mayor belonged to. The bank. The local hospital. The Aerobatics Club.

Requests came in for satellite parades in nearby towns.

The national news picked the story. Talking heads nodded and argued the pros and cons.

Mayor Perry marched, neon-green shirt and forced smile on.

By the following year they ran for office, with the CO logo strategically in the background.

Celebrating themselves was fun.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS and JusJoJun writing prompt