Unplug the Children

Summer days
watch clouds
running to nowhere
hop scotching driveways 
rubbing grass stained hands
cool water hitting bare skin
from backyard sprinklers

Autumn swishes
through piles of leaves
to be pressed in books
taking in smoky smells
of fires unknown
skipping down lanes
just because

Winter weather
dares red mittens to
grip sleds
catching snowflakes
on tongues while
skating across 
frozen ponds

Spring teaches
baby bird lessons,
mud puddle jumping
throwing coats aside
to twirl and feel the
breeze turning back
into summer

                   -Joan Ramseyer

Analyzing poetry:  My eleven year old granddaughter read this poem and I asked her what she thought the title had to do with the poem.  Her idea was that the poem explains what children do and adults need to unplug that inner child.  It was not what I meant when I wrote it, but her interpretation is another layer and so good.  Her analysis reveals that poems can be read on many different levels.  We bring our own experiences to poetry and that is what makes a poem sing to us.   

Everyone Has A Story

There was a big crowd at the West Michigan Symphony as only one concert was being played in February.  We were there on Friday night sitting in different seats than we usually do when we attend on Saturday night.

I watched as three older women worked themselves slowly up the aisle.  
The last one was using a cane.  They stopped at our row and my husband and I moved into the aisle to let them in.

As they settled into their seats I realized how hard it must be for elderly people to even get out on a frigid snowy night and then get comfortable when they sit down.  I asked the woman with the cane sitting next to me, who was also balancing a program and purse, if I could help her get her coat off.  As I held her cane and helped her with her coat she asked me my name. She told me hers was Alice.  She thanked me profusely for helping her.  She said, "I hope I don't fall asleep."

I told her, "Just don't snore."

It wasn't until intermission when I learned a small part of Alice's story.  I asked her if she lived in Muskegon and she told me she had lived there all her life and had graduated from Muskegon Heights High School.  The two women she was with were her classmates.

I asked, "What year did you graduate?"

The look on her face was one of amusement.  "You don't want to know.  It was a long time ago."

I pushed her to tell me and she said, "1947."

"Oh, I was born in 1946 so I was just a baby when you graduated," I said. 

She told me that she and her friends had been going out for breakfast and lunch once a month.  She laughed and said, "But we decided that wasn't often enough so now we're going out once a week."

"Who is the driver?"  I asked.

"I am, but my kids don't like me driving," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.  Alice seemed the most frail of the three women so learning she was the driver surprised me.  I wondered if her children might not have cause to worry.

Her life story deepened when Alice told me she had a child, who at two years old, was diagnosed with cancer.  She and her husband were told he wouldn't live very long, but she said he is now 57.  However she had a son who died of cancer at the age of 35.  Unfortunately her 57 year old son is not in good health and she was worried about his chances of living too much longer.

When Muskegon was more an industrial city, Alice worked at several of the major factories in Muskegon, including Continental.  I uncovered all these details about Alice's life in a ten minute conversation. She struck me as a sweet woman who had tasted the bad and good of life and was now enjoying her women friends who had been her classmates.

When we said goodbye after the concert she seemed genuinely glad to have talked to me as I was to listen to her story.  She reinforced what I have known and that is that old friends can take us into our final years with memories of shared experiences and a lifetime of love.  Those friendships can be our joy as we near the close of our lives.  An Irish Proverb seems to sum up Alice's story of her companionship with her high school friends.  


 May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.  May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam....

Delta Blues

When you called

I was listening to
The sounds of 

The Delta

Those backwater places

Where notes

Signify the hurt

Of that soulful place

Leaning back in wooden chairs

Guitars twanging with voices

And harmonicas 

Playing counterpoint

Time stood still

And nothing could

Ease the world

Except the music

Doing a slow toe tapping
I was listening to 

Sleepy John Estes

Wail Floating Bridge

But you called and

I slipped out

Of muddy waters

Into now

                  - Joan Ramseyer

Last Night's Concert

When the pianist played
Brahms,
My blond headed
Granddaughter
Sat next to me
Tapping her fingers
On mine

Her silky peach dress
Matching her skin
Flowed over her
Nine year old frame
Reminding me of the
Pale pink frock with ruffles
I wiped my sweaty hands on
At my piano recital
So many years ago

When Rachmaninoff's notes
Filled the air
I thought the
Russian darkness
Might permeate her soul
But she yawned
Leaned her head
Against her grandfather's shoulder
And fell asleep


                             -Joan Ramseyer

The Power of Flowers

Painting by James Brandess 

In the wintertime, my grandmother's house was filled with the pungent aroma of geraniums that filled her windowsills and the ever present smell of bread baking in her wood range. In the summertime hollyhocks grew at the edge of her garden. We picked the blossoms and fashioned them into little dolls.

The pleasure that flowers bring to me goes back to my early childhood. In kindergarten our class walked to a local woods near Piper Creek, which was a little hike from the school. We picked wild flowers and learned their names. When we returned to our classroom we put our bouquets into paper May baskets we had made. When I got home I put the basket on the door knob, rang the doorbell and ran to the side of the house to hide until my mother opened the door.

I wrote my first poem when I was around ten about the violets that grew under a bay window at our house. My mother entered it in a writing contest which I did not win.

When I was dating my husband to be in college, his gift of yellow roses on a winter day and daffodils in the springtime won my heart. A man who gives a woman flowers is most likely a keeper.

Flowers are nature's way of coloring our lives. They bring us the three senses of touch, sight and smell. My photos reflect my love of blooms wherever I find them. Naomi's garden on 72nd Avenue between Hart and Pentwater - the zinnias grown in a field by Cargill's Farm Market east of Hart - the beautiful small open space behind the Secret Garden, a shop in Pentwater, to countless flower scenes in many countries of Europe.

Naomi's Garden

Cargill's Farm Market

The Secret Garden

In the winter I try to have fresh flowers in our house. Last week the Fed-Ex man delivered a box full of flowers that were a gift from a sweet niece. When I opened the box I saw a bouquet of one of my favorite flowers, chrysanthemums. These beautiful little gems bring back so many memories of autumn days. To have a bouquet in January of various shades made an ordinary winter day turn into something special.

Thank you Peggy.

The power that flowers have over me can not be easily explained. Maybe it is that now flowers are memory triggers. But still the discovery of a single beautiful rose in Norway or bright pink flowers against a white stucco wall and in front of a green window frame always gives me a rush. I hope it always will.

Just living is not enough....one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.

- Hans Christian Anderson

The Walaker Hotell

Solvorn, Norway

Winter Poetry

Approaching Storm

The weatherman on TV
(You know the one)
Said he was ninety percent
Sure the blizzard
Would arrive
Before midnight

At the witching hour
I strained to
Hear what
I could not hear

To be sure there was
No wind, I opened
The window
To have true north
Hit me between the eyes

Immediately I knew
The icy sting of death,
The opposite of fire,
Was waiting in the dark
To prove that the weatherman
Was right

                           -Joan Ramseyer


Stronger Breed

In the North we
Are a stronger breed
Since we face the threat
Of being crushed between
Two semi's on any
Icy road

Long winters and
Gray days take a
Constitution of hope
For the next season

Our ancestors brought
In the harvest
And sealed the cellar
Doors against the
Cold to come

But we know the
Snow will melt
And the first above
Forty degree day
Will have our coats
Tossed in a corner

We duck our heads
Against the wind
And shovel the white stuff
One more time
Then we feed the birds
And glory in two
Sunny days out of ten

Our reward is
A beautiful afternoon
In July when we
Watch our children
Frolic by the lake shore
And see the sparkling droplets
Run off their
Innocent skin

                       -Joan Ramseyer

January Blues

 

Find me a flower

In January

That blooms

In the snow

 

Swoop blood red cardinals

To my window

Hovering

Like hummingbirds 

 

Tell me a tale

With a happy ending

To keep me warm

Inside and out

 

Send me a note

With an actual stamp

So I can know

You're real

 

Then throw another log

On the fire

To break the ice

Of a long long winter

 

 

                                  - Joan Ramseyer