Quote of the Week

“Walk at least a little way down into the Grand Canyon; don’t just stay up on the rim.” — Stephen Edgerton, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Poem of the Week

The Rented Bar Mitzvah
.
Your rented Torah rolls open
Before you as you pause,
Hoping not to lose your place.
.
Hours spent, tutored in Hebrew
You still can’t wrap your tongue
Around the missing vowels.
.
Are you doing this
In praise of Adoni
Or to fulfill your parent’s needs?
.
Months of rehearsals,
Hours of memorization;
You wish yourself elsewhere.
.
They are your parent’s friends,
Not a congregation, not a community.
Their piercing eyes make you shiver.
.
This is your time to shine,
Prove you can walk into manhood.
You trip and fall on the Psalm’s words.
.
Your yarmulke slips
Further south on your head.
You want to hide beneath your prayer shawl.
.
Garlic sauce smells remind you
That this is no synagogue.
Welcome to the 21st Century rented Bar Mitzvah!

Announcing Garwood’s 1st annual poetry festival

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Garwood’s 1^st annual poetry festival… poetry readings on Sat April 20, Sun April 21. Free

National Poetry month poem of the week

I believe that it’s better to “show don’t tell” when writing about a subject. I stay away from just describing something and instead use words that will lead the reader to create an image in their mind.
Can you guess, before I get to the end of this poem, who the Silver Stallion is?
.
I Ride the Silver Stallion
.
I ride the silver stallion
Through marshes and wetlands.
Spurring him on, faster, and faster
His gallop parts the grass, the egrets fly.
.
Above, the sky turns menacingly dark.
Rain falls like stones from a slingshot
Pelting me and my silver stallion.
He moves slower, the egrets disappear.
.
Into the mist we ride
The morning sun obscured.
A hawk circles above us
A town passes by the wayside.
.
The rain drops glisten off his sides.
I feel his movement beneath me
As we enter the dark tunnel.
Only his hoof beats can be heard.
.
We come out into the light
Then submerge into Penn Station,
The drab canyons of Manhattan above.
Another wet Friday’s commute begun.
.
I slip my novel into my bag,
Stand up and move slowly with the crowd.
My steed, the silver train,
Now a fond fantasy, left behind.

It’s National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month! It was first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.

My theme for this year is “Let poetry lift your soul” and I’ll be posting one of my poems each week throughout the month.

Easter is Here! Let us rejoice for Christ has risen

Hark! A Sonrise
.
Through desert and famine,
Through days without rain
Through death and destruction
A path of great pain.
He walked without crying
He walked for our sins
In light then in darkness
Until all became dim.
He took on the crimes
Our cross he did bear
We just turned our heads
We just didn’t care.
He knew we’d betray him
He knew he would die
And in a cold tomb
His body would lie.
But he was the Messiah
This world he would save.
As the Son of the Father
Rose from his earthly grave.
           From the Epilogue of “Stations For a New Millennium” by Leona M Seufert

Poem of the Week

It’s a horrible time with children starving in Gaza. They can’t celebrate Ramadan because there is no food or it’s too expensive. For Christians, we are coming to the last weeks of Lent when Christ died a horrible death for mankind’s sins. My poem reflects the horrors that are happening in our world. Read and weep:
.
MT 25:42 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink
.
21st Century Golgotha

And the world turns in sorrow
And the world turns in pain
People are tortured
And killed in God’s name.
.
A planet is ravished,
A planet is defiled.
Sin upon sin
By mankind piles high.
.
The devil is walking
His power takes hold.
Christ’s 21st Century
Golgotha unfolds.
.
Bleeding and battered
Head crowned with thorns
The Via Dolarosa
From our selfishness reborn.
.
Prolog to “Stations of the Cross For a New Millennium
               @2022 Leona M Seufert

Poem in Memory of a Friend

Who Will Light Your Candle?
In memory of my friend Marguerite Dolch
.
Who will light your candle
When I’m gone?
Who will sing in your memory, a song?
Yahrzeits come and go
You’re forgotten, I know.
In some grave you lie.
Does anyone for you cry?
.
The memories inside my soul
Will never grow old.
Though years keep us apart
You’ll always be in my heart.
When I too have passed
This poem I’ll leave behind.
Your photo and a burnt out candle
They’ll also find.

“The Stories We Leave Behind”

.When the World of Fantasy and Reality Collide

Sometimes the world of fantasy and reality collide in a most unexpected way. Over the last 2 weeks I lost a good friend and neighbor, then my cousin passed away. I recorded an episode of one of my favorite TV shows, NCIS, but didn’t view it until Feb 25 which was after my 2 people were gone. It was a memorial to one of the characters who played a prominent role on the show for years. (NCIS ep on Feb 19  “The Stories We Leave Behind” was a memorial to the character of coroner Dr. Donald Ducky Mallard, David McCullum passed away in real life last year and this was the way they honored him and wrote him out of the show) It was the best episode they ever had written and had me in tears because it reflected exactly how I was feeling in my loss. Here are 2 quotes from that ep that hit me hard but is advice we all should take to heart when we lose someone:
.
“We all die twice: Once when our bodies give out, then again when our stories stop being told. So keep the good doctor with us by sharing his stories.”
,
“All we have in the end are the stories we leave behind. We also have the lives we touched while we were here” – Tony DiNozzo
.
.
This is my poem about remembering those who have passed through our lives
.
The Memory Keeper’s Promise
.
Your life was a wondrous, magical, mystical Journey.
It gave us love and laughter, and memories
That will live forever.
.
Our experiences together through earthly time,
Left within us a piece of you.
Like a many faceted jewel set within a brooch,
These memories catch light,
Refract it and shine it outward.
When we remember you, we hold this jewel,
Turn it, admire it.
And it sparkles in the darkness of our despair.
A light to those who must now walk without you.
.
Your name can be carved in marble or etched into plexiglass,
But what does that say of your soul?
Who were you and what did your life mean to your loved ones,
To others, to humanity?
.
It is in our memories, that the spark of who you were is kept burning.
Deep within us the precious bits of your/our existence together,
Remains alive.
You did not “go quietly into that dark night…”
For your memory is a flame lighting up the recesses of our souls.
.
As long as one living person remembers you, you will not die.
It is this memory I will carry with me and share with others.
This I promise: you will never be forgotten.
And your light will shine across time and space
For we are….always and never….touching and touched….
                                                        @Leona M Seufert

Quote of the Week

Here in NJ we finally got snow! A lot. So here is a quote from Edgar Cahill about how the Scandinavian painter Jonas Lie viewed snow:

“He has always loved snow, feeling, as Scandinavians do, that snow is the year’s coat of ermine, the white mantle that protects…he sees more than the pictorial side of snow, he sees its whiteness, its stillness, its rich lusciousness.”

Meditate on that when you shovel out after our next storm!