icing on the cake
candles counted
for untold years
wax in layers
peeled back
to uncover year
after
year
the sweetness of joy
revealed
This poem was inspired by a comment from Jazz Jaeschke
on my poem “Stories I Did Not Create.”
birthday
Stories I Did Not Create ~ with audio
Reena’s Exploration Challenge #166 offers two short pieces as inspiration, to be coupled with an image, our own or found online. Of the offered short pieces I chose the following:
inkblots mutate
to form pictures,
alphabets,
stories
I did not create
The image is one I’ve used here in the past. It shows me on my fifth birthday, in 1958. Our family tradition has been to place an extra candle on the cake, for good luck in the next year, as mentioned in this Wiki entry. (Something tells me that blowing out candles on a cake will become a thing of the past.)
Stories I Did Not Create
Decades to come, too many to count,
when I look to the past,
see stories I did not create,
stories that unfolded before, around me
Will I follow the inkblots that mutate
to form pictures and create alphabets
to understand the elements that came
to define my perspective?
What does a child know of these things?
There is only now. Before and after,
anticipation and regret, these we create.
Will I understand this, then?
Flickering Candles ~ haibun
Flickering Candles
When I was growing up, our family always held birthday celebrations; simple affairs with my parents and sisters, and, occasionally when I was younger, with my grandparents. Birthday cakes were present, of course, and our tradition was to have an extra candle on the cake. “One to grow on.” Another tradition was to have the birthday celebrant cut the the first slice into the cake and have the knife removed by the person with the next birthday, as a measure of good luck.
I may not place much significance on birthdays of my own as milestones, but I’ve always enjoyed celebrating a birthday with family and friends. A photo from 1958 is proof of that. It has one very pleased little boy who just blew out the candles on his cake.
flickering candles
give warm feelings all around
frosting on windows
This is my response to Haibun Monday: Birthday,
the prompt from Kim at dVerse Poets Pub.
Also shared with Colleen’s 2020 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday
#Poetry Challenge No. 189, #Poet’sChoice
The Happiest of Birthdays
The Happiest of Birthdays
Once upon a time, there was a birthday. This wasn’t just any old birthday. It was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed birthday.
Now, as everyone knows, there are hundreds of days every year: three-hundred sixty-five, to be exact. And, every one of those days has thousands and thousands of birthdays. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed birthday was one of them.
Each of those birthdays, year after year, has a special place. Sometimes it’s a roller rink or a miniature golf course. Sometimes it’s a little kitchen holding smiling faces as pursed lips blow out candles.
But always, there is a special home for those birthdays. It might be the heart of a grandpa who wonders how many more he will see, or it might be the eyes of a two-year-old child who marvels at all the attention.
Well, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed birthday had a very special home, and that was the heart and soul of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl.
And every year, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed birthday was the happiest of birthdays because the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was the happiest little girl when she saw all the love that her family and friends had for her.
“The Happiest of Birthdays” is the sixth of eight short stories in Blonde-haired, Blue-eyed Adventures, a collection of stories about my daughter’s adventures, written for her twenty years ago. Birthdays are a special time for little girls, and hers were no different.
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spud
The Tiny Princess
Blue and Blonde Sprinkles
Jenny Comes Home from School
Smiles in the Pumpkin Patch
The Happiest of Birthdays
The Blonde-haired, Blue-eyed Starfish
The New Blonde-haired, Blue-eyed Girl
~~~
Sweet Dreams
Ken Gierke
I’ll Take Ice Cream with My Cake ~ prose poem
I’ll Take Ice Cream with My Cake
I see snow falling in March and remind myself. Again. My birthday occurs during winter. Somehow, working outside in the cold for more than thirty years wasn’t enough. I had to retire to figure it out. It’s not like I didn’t see enough snow. I lived in Buffalo where scraping ice from a windshield is one way to stay warm and digging out is a just another day. But even if it is my least favorite season, I didn’t move to get away from the weather. Milder winters were just an added bonus. Missouri may not see half as much snow, but it has its share. In fact, six inches is the forecast for tonight. In March. Now that I have more time on my hands, maybe I notice these things more. I watch a female cardinal take seeds from the feeder, her mate standing guard on an overhead branch as the snow starts to fall. Looks like this year’s could be another winter birthday.
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