WHEN SHE THINKS BACK

When she thinks back,
she pictures herself sitting
out on the patio stones,
rocking in a wicker chair
The chair bleached as white
as the stones
The stones, the colour of the
sheep on the hill

The memories blur together;
one falls against the next, and the
next, and the next,
much like a long line of dominos
set to cascade in some crazy method

Her rough red hands, delicate then,
did fancy needlework
She can still see the thread - colours
plucked right out of the fields:
corn-yellow, olive-green, tomato-red

While she sat on the patio stones
rocking and humming, snatches
of hymns, and laughing at nothing
Sometimes she mended things, but
she can't think what now

What would a country girl have
to mend, she wonders
She can almost put her mind on it
but it flits away, skittish as a colt
Was she always such a fool,
she ponders this a bit before moving
on to some other something.

POSTCARD FEST PHOTOCARDS AND POEMS 2023;

One of the most satisfying and inspiring things I've done over the last decade plus is take part in Paul Nelson's baby, the Poetry Postcard Fest -- sending a poem a day on a postcard to a stranger, every day for 30 days over July and August (I may have the date slightly wrong; I've been MIA for several years) but the 30 days is correct and it is in the summer, so that's a given, plus, every registrant gets a list of strangers' addresses and receives the same number of cards from other participants. People from around the planet take part and it's quite remarkable.