January Poem

The new year's resolution made a mere
four weeks ago: compose one tiny
unambitious poem each month this year.

I figured I would manage easily
to come across the finish line, grinning
ear to ear the last day of January.

Unlike a goal of shifting twenty pounds,
this was supposed to be fun and easy -
then the power went out and snow came down.

Dishes piled up and there was laundry,
I caught a really nasty head cold
(thus adding insult to my injury).

So here it is the thirty-first and this
is all I have to show for the month.
February looms. Into the abyss!

Brunch with the Bunch

Ice and snow having released them from their winter captivity, the Burien Senior Writer's Workshop stumbled into Li'l Pat's Cafe famished as bears coming out of hibernation.

It was Occupy Pat's fueled by endless cups of coffee and Tabasco-laced hash browns.

Scintillating conversation and good eats! What could be finer than to sit around a diner with writer friends? (Two of which discovered they had been in the same high schoolgraduating class! Go figure?) We must do this again soon.

CABIN FEVER

Snowed in all week. Only now the melt begins, icicles drip, drip, dripping from the eaves.

A week of missed appointments but rare beauty. Dug the Subaru out several times with no real intention of going anyplace. Made a huge pot of vegetable soup.

Came down with a head cold that couldn't have come at a better time - didn't want to stir from the couch anyway!

But with the warmer temperatures comes the realization that soon I'll be able to stir from my den once more - get up to the store to replenish supplies. And I'm more than ready to get out and around. I'm running out of tissues - and good humor.

POEMS FOR 2012

Resolved: Write a poem for each month this year. The collection is called Twelve Occasional Poems for the End of the World. I'll publish it on 12/21/2012! Once it's out there in the universe the universe can go ahead and implode for all I care. I will have done my job.

I love the whole idea of the end of the world. Change is the only constant after all. Every day is the end of the world as we know it. Half the fun is seeing what's coming at us over the eastern horizon. The other half? Seeing what we can make out of whatever it is before we lose the light.