December 1st, 2012


More and more often these days, December brings this great poem to mind:

“How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?"

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel

Yes, it is December 1st already. And indeed how the time has flewn.

The joyous spirit is in the air already. My daughter learned math at first by counting the days to holidays she loves I think. It is a good thing, time.

It amazes me more each year how it does fly. Time does fly, just as my grandmother told me it would, especially the older we get. And she preached to make the most of each moment. She begged us to embrace youth, and that we revere time while it ticks and tocks and enjoy it. She was right. As long as I embrace it, time, each moment rocks, good or bad, happy or sad, each moment has its right to exist, each tick-tock making one or the other more momentous. Time. It is a thing to be appreciated. She knew I would not understand this as much as I do now. I am thankful she told me way-back-then though. Because now I can hear her words still, so strongly in my mind.

There is so much to love in each moment of time.
--PPM

Magnolia Springs Library

Poem for Magnolia Springs Library

19 July 2012

There is a place I know where the children go

ages one to 100 and two.

So much can be done there,

fun activities abound where,

here,

learning is background to boot.

Our library is part of Baldwin County’s public system

-- a fabulous group in itself.

If you love to read? Want to learn and discern?

Nearly any book can be brought to your shelf.

                            Welcome to Magnolia Springs Public Library

-- --

Many thanks to our librarian, Alida Given, for her enthusiasm and commitment to making our quaint library the lovely environment it is. As Mrs. Alida might say, many others have helped her along the way to make the library a great place to spend a lot of your days.

Early Bloomers in Our Home Town

                                                        Photo by Molly A. Klaas

photo by Andrew Monaghan

Fungus is among us and it is lovely.

Wonderful World

17 May 2012

The most amazing thing happened today. The first magnolia bloomed in one of the many magnolia trees in the front yard. This particular tree is lackadaisical by nature. It is a late-bloomer. Maybe you can relate? Other magnolias are blooming all over town. But this…this one tree likes to wait. Make us anticipate. Anticipation is great, so no complaints. Waiting is fun. So each year when this tree’s first bloom appears, it is an event. After all these years doing its thing slowly but surely, it is amazing grace on a tree. A gift.

Seems this tree has a purpose for me. Each year it reminds me of the wonder of ‘firsts’—first loves, first kiss, all those things you remember as Firsts. The first time you rode a bike and looked back to see no one was holding you? Your first job? First hurt, first time you realized middle-age is a quirky time when you must re-learn every thing you thought you knew all over again. That mighty tree is proof everything happens in its own sweet time, not on any one or anything else’s schedule. The simple act of a wait-on-me magnolia blossom relates to that? I think so, maybe because I was as late a bloomer as this magnolia.

It is creamy white and fragrant. It unfolds on the tallest branch so no one can reach it. It does not give a hoot about keeping up with its peers. Its peers were donning themselves in blooms weeks ago. Yes, this magnolia births its first blossom so high no human could pick it without ample effort or equipment to reach the mighty treasure it put forth for nature’s sake only. It does not want to be a short-lived cut flower floating in a bowl. Admittedly I float and will continue to float many magnolias in a bowl, but not from this tree. It is different. It demands its efforts be, respectfully, left alone to do what it does best: bloom and re-seed.

Happy Birthday 2012, Michael

March 3rd

So many brothers I know are just fine yet

I would not trade the world for mine.

He is kind and smart, handsome and giving.

He is there for me always,

without fail he is loving ... in ‘all creatures big and small’ ways.

Sure, we had our spats in our younger days but

now, as we get more set in our ways

our bond is as special as Grandma Lalla’s pound cake lemon glaze.

Made with love it was so complete.

That glaze was such a yummy treat.

She made it just for you, because

you are just as sweet, oh dear brother of mine.

I am so grateful, my brother, we have each other.

After all, siblings are the only ones who share the

Mitochondrial DNA with one another (ha).

That said, no other ‘understanding’ can compete.

Happy Birthday, Michael.

May all your days be bright.

Thank you for all the guidance and insight.

There is goodness and love in all you see and touch.

Happy Birthday, Michael.

I love you so much.

Love,

Pooh

Elegant

Elegance

18 January 2012

She had the most down-to-earth air of well-deserved arrogance. That is what my friend said about my grandmother. Spot-on correct, he was.

Of course she would have flipped her wrist and pursed her lips at such a comment, as if to say ‘oh bosh’ I have nothing of the sort. She was not arrogant in the nasty sense of the word. It is just, well…she knew who she was, firmly and with conviction. The difference between right and wrong was as simple to her as snapping peas.

She knew what she was on this earth to do, and she did not mind telling you if you had just acted a fool, albeit fool is a word she did not utter, and she did not allow us to say it either. She said it was a sin to call someone a fool.

I used to tell her she was a saint. Quickly she would retort, “A saint I ain’t,” knowing full-well she would not allow us to say ‘ain’t’ lest we planted it in a clever euphemism.

But my grandmother was a saint to all who knew her. Gone more than 15 years or so now, we all hear her words still. Her wisdom resonates in our lives. We sit up straight when we remember to b/c now we have to remember it all by ourselves without being told. She is a treasure to have and to hold in our hearts for ever, my grandmother.

PPM

Moody Weather Nature

Moody Weather

DECEMBER 1, 2011

It is hot one day and cold the next. Why should this come as a surprise?

It does not. It has been this way the entire 44 years of my life. The South is not alone in this moody weather business. Still, everyone moans and groans about it anyway. What is this, our propensity to talk about the weather I wonder? It is our ‘go to’ topic I suppose? It is always there, ready and open for comment without back-talk.

Come to think, weather reminds me of a few people I know. They can be hot one day and a hard freeze the next. Storming one day then calm the next.

Nature, human or otherwise, it does what it wants to do no matter my opinion, and I am happy to admit lack of control, even more thrilled I have none. Perhaps all I can do is layer my jackets and cherish what I can control (not much if anything).

--PPM

May Your Days be Merry and Bright

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

11 December 2011

Well, last night was bright enough certainly with that full red moon engaging the sky and our eyes. It was gorgeous indeed. Life is beautiful. So how could it be that everyone I know seems to be in a dither lately? It has been several weeks now, this dither of a mood which none of us seems to understand or have reason to explain it. It is bothersome. This is The Season set aside specifically to be merry and bright, and tho lo and behold and surely He says unto thee: we should be merry and bright and thankful year-round, still, sometimes, here on earth Life seems like the subway, where we need a token, some reminder that there is a cost as our travel in this Life speeds under the currents of so many footsteps.

Could it be this is to remind us the extraordinary price we pay to be alive, for Life?

Life is a gift, sure, but it does not come without cost.

My Aunt Margaret died November 8^th this year, 2011. This will be our first Christmas without her, as well as her husband, my dear Uncle Jack, who passed merely months prior. No, life is not free. Life takes time, and equally it will snatch time away from us just as quickly as it gives. Aunt Margaret was a mere 62-years-old, and Uncle Jack just a bit her elder. We all knew after they spent such a ‘long’ life together in the same home, the same bed, the same world, that it would not be long before they meet each other again in the great beyond, wherever that is. I knew. Yet I could not accept it, that she would pass. Still each day I see them together in my mind, alive, not just alive but skiing the Alps as they used to do. It is weird really. But who’s to say?

Take heed I plead unto myself, but I do not seem to be listening.

Without doubt, something in the air this time of year does make the season sparkle. Joy is sprinkled in every corner and curve, in every chilly breath we take, as if to amplify that special blessing of time, which only some of us are granted the privilege. Perhaps that is the case in your family too? Someone has passed, and you cannot forget their presence no matter what you do?

On the bright side, my favorite part of this season is to remind us of that child-like feeling of joy and eagerness, mirth and anticipation. That is the greatest gift of all.

My least favorite thing? That would have to be how life can be so short without warning. Even though in this case I had years knowing of the warning such a cancer sends; now, the warning is mute upon them meeting their end, on this earth, whereby I could touch them.

We know we must savor every day, and perhaps this is what creates our middle-aged indulgent sadness? By this time in life we have suffered Life’s incongruence. We have lost people we love, more than one, and it hurts. Period. Yes, it hurts. And yet as always as Pollyanna © would say, there is a bright side! J

The holiday season spells something magical, there is no doubt. Carpe Diem is to be carried to the extreme, now more than ever despite the strangely empty seats at our holiday table.

So what of the hustle and bustle of buying and spending? Save the economy? What does that have to do with the birth of Christ? So what of the anxious thoughts such as: Did I get my gifts mailed off to the correct addresses, and the etcetera of expectations of being the perfect Christmas person and guest? Do I want people to know I am the perfect Christmas person? Or, do I just want to be a good person year-round, loving my friends and family as I do?

I vow to let the season sing and bring its joy. Yet admittedly I am among those who have felt in a dither lately. Why? Beats me. Yet the fact remains We Must Overcome, and I vow to sing joy from the rooftops if I must, to let the season ring no matter the dithers this Life can and will bring.

It is unacceptable to me that I feel loss this year, despite the loss of my loved ones. It is not my first time, and I aim to discover some reason for this malady of mood-flavor I and my friends discuss.

It is important to note the company I keep, my friends, they are all people who are happy-people-by-nature, or else I could not participate in their relationships. I am weak that way:

Pessimism gives me the strength to run a 3-minute mile in the opposite direction of negativity.

So this makes it even more curious, why do some of us deem to feel so strangely ‘lost’ presently, in this joyous season? Why for example do I wake and feel my family, many of them gone to the great beyond … but yet they seem SO alive and with me still? Should that not be blessing enough? I feel it should. It could if I allow it. And so here and now I vow to allow it. Let the season ring!

Could it be that the heavenly stars do play so heavily upon our thoughts, just as it was in the time of The King of Joy, who suffered so, with whom He and we are all so surrounded, by stars and joy and suffering and most importantly, by overcoming it all?

Oye, lo, so so, so … so little I know. It is written in all the Christmas legends I know though…of how the stars told of this or that good tiding. All good tidings. This much I know and I cling to it. Cling.

So I am riddled with desire to feel the simple joy of the season this year. Child-like. It should be as simple as that, right? Child-like is gracious and heavenly.

So, it seems my only means to accomplish this is to temper my thoughts. Perhaps all we must change is our thoughts, especially if we tend toward a lowly feeling upon the Christmas season as odd as it is that so many people do feel lowly when ‘Tis the Season? Maybe our approach to the gala of the birth of The Savior is the only focus our families need? Perhaps to gratefulness only should we give heed, and to help others with less than we ourselves need?

So simple it seems, and yet my people and myself seem in a quandary of cold, dreary down-trodden-ness this Yuletide season. Among my family and friends I plead that we shall not let the darkness reign, indeed! Light prevails. Of this I am certain.

Because I know I know I know, we all feel the joy whether we can bear it, of Love, Family, Friendship and Kindness, of Giving and Receiving, of knowing we are here for a reason, to spread it, and to sprinkle joy as freely as a child will pour sugar on a cookie.

So let us go forth now in faith, and with Love, and enjoy the season. Please help me, best beloved, with your good spirit and faithful reasons. May your days be merry and bright each season, no matter the circumstance of our earthly plight; ‘tis the season.

Your days will be merry and bright each day you choose them to be thus with delight. This is my wish for you all. I say so only because I must. This is my flight. Into reason, for the season, and every day.

--PPM

Lascivious

Lascivious

26 August 2011

Lascivious. Now there is a word to ponder. Having used it freely in my life, my mis-use is yet another snafu I must live with all my days. Oye, there are worse things, yet this lil’ word forced me to reflect on what my grandmother must have thought when I was using it in the stories I told her. Only because I liked the word (and like it still) back then I would pepper it anywhere I could, because I thought it sounded so lovely. And it does. Say it out loud: Lascivious. Ahhh, the creamy curl of the mouth and tongue it takes just to say it is enchanting.

Unfortunately only today did I look it up in the dictionary, yes, a real hard-back, paper-turning dictionary, the OED at that. Now I am stumped. On this day I learned the innuendo that stellar word lascivious conveys, or rather what it is supposed to convey anyway. It just did not convey to me. Ooops but oh well, little did I know anything other than ‘oh what a pretty little word that is I can use and enjoy for emphasis.’ It seemed harmless enough for a pre-teen to use with her grandmother, as if it were a good substitute for a word like ‘fervor in great detail’ or something such as that. Now I know, or so am told, I was talking to my grandmother in terms she could have deemed way too saucy for such a ‘little young girl from B County’ as she used to call me.

Now I see how it drips sexiness just rolling off the tongue. Why have I not noticed this before now? Basically it carries LUST in its definition. How many times did I say something or someone was ‘lasciviously loveable’ or some-such to my grandmother I wonder? And what did she think I meant if and when I did? Oh well, she did not chide me for it. Maybe she thought it was just a ‘pretty word’ as did I? She knew I was innocent. Yet she knew the meaning of words as well as a child knows how you feel, no matter what you say.

Lascivious is pretty as words go, unlike say ‘putrid’ or ‘repugnant’ or ‘bile’ – you know, such words that do not roll off the tongue easily or beautifully?

Lust is not nearly as pretty a word as lascivious. So why does language make room for both I wonder? To trick me, that must by the reason. Yes, that must be it: to trick a silly unknowing teenager attempting to be eloquent.

Aahhh, the trickery of language has been my bane more than once. Words can be so strict. Perhaps that is why we need some words which are more subtle than others to suggest the same or similar meaning?

This American-English language is tripping me up constantly. As a youngster I actually said the phrase out loud, at the supper table of my very first boyfriend of all things, I said,

“Oh that was delicious. I am as full as a tick on a bull’s sack.”

I meant well, of course, praising this delicious meal Mrs. Penry had cooked. One could be no other than thankful for such delectable well-cooked meals, especially for me knowing they were as full of the love with which my grandmother cooked. Love true love cooking; that is our heritage. Yet alas, my comment: Talk about OYE! A hush ensued at the supper table followed by roars of laughter upon my ‘bull’s sack’ comment, which I had heard somewhere thinking it adornment, most likely.

“What is so funny?” I thought. Obviously I did not have a clue what a bull’s sack was, but you best believe I know now and will not forget it. Luckily, the people at that table are alive still to remind me: of fun, good meals, great family and the importance of laughter. Always accustomed to a good laugh at my expense, I am all for good-hearted laughter without malice, what ever the cause, so, it has been joy, this particular mis-use of language I picked up from my grandfather (somewhere?) inadvertently. We have enjoyed that language-snafu at my expense for more than 20 years. I am grateful for the memories…of childhood and all. Yet I cannot get my grandmother back to explain to her, I knew not what I said when I spoke of a boy and said “Lascivious” amid his description. Still something tells me, she knew, and she wanted me to discover for myself this one of many. She knew I loved words as much as she, and yes it took me a while but finally, dear grandmother o’ mine, I get it. And you know what? It is fine. It did not make me a young harlot.

It is not so strong as to defame a young Lady’s character in even the smallest of towns. So I am thankful she did not correct me or direct me. We must learn on our own the smallest of details. My brother told me upon having our child that I must learn to ‘choose my battles’ if I wanted to maintain a peaceful home as we rear/raise our child to become the best we can be. This has helped me in so many ways. I wonder how many things my parents and grandparents let slide, just to make sure I figured it out for myself, what is right and wrong? There are big issues and then there are simple things complex such as words. Simple words.

Words: they soothe, they heal, they can hurt and they peel. They peel back layers of understanding and, on the flip side include countless opportunities for misunderstanding. As for the concept of words and understanding: with the years I become more keenly aware, how the misunderstood words I use refine or undermine me.

--PPM

Kelley Green

Joy: Ink on my Hands

Please Honk if any other writer under the age of 40 understands the joy I feel because ink stains my fingers this morning? With the advent of computers it has been…years! Yes I realize I am showing my age rejoicing in ink-stained hands, but there is something decorative about it to me and ON me. There was I time, way before this year 2011 came to be that I did not emerge from a day’s work without ink covering my fingers, sometimes my clothes, my desk, or even on my face from where I might have wiped a tear from writing.

Everyone is typing on computers mostly now. I love my computer; do not get me wrong. I have saved more paper in the past 20 years than I can estimate. There is hardly any reason to print most things anymore, even, and this is a good thing. Articles, documents, letters, they can all be emailed or sent as ‘copy; or what ever they call it now? Ohhhh but there was a time, and it was not so long ago when a writer’s world was covered in errant ink. Those days are gone for the most part and good riddance I must admit. I cannot help laugh at myself with the correlation of our grandparents telling us how they used to have “walk a mile to the library” and all that corny stuff.

Well! Today I succumbed to hand-scribing words, and lo and behold, yes, I have ink stains on my fingers I want to lick them it is so memorable.

Nostalgic? Yes. Ridiculous pleasure? Perhaps.

No matter…I did my work by hand today, and I will revel in the ink-stained fingers such an old-fashioned writer dealt with in times long past. No one can tell my occupation anymore because my hands are so clean as a rule. That is just fine with me. Just the same I want to lick this ink from my fingers for old-time’s sake…except I do not want it gone, just yet.

--PPM

Friends

Me and Euphemisms (phrase coined by FCM)

12 October 2011

Friends are the best. My dear friend and cousin coined a phrase yesterday with which I will always be enamored. We were having fun chatting when unintentionally, out came a comment only she and I could have understood at that moment in context. Wish I could remember the phrase but it was worth the good wholesome gut-belly laugh it inspired. That would have been fine enough for me; laughing is lovely alone. Then equally inspiring her quick savvy mind quipped:

That is a me and you-phenism.

Thank you, Florence. If I had laughed any harder I would have split in two. We were doubled-over wiping the tears from under our eyes. Sweet joy! Brilliant I thought, simply brilliant. And of course she is brilliant.

A visual artist and Renaissance woman by Nature, she has a way with words which rival the master writers. Writing is not her occupation. She has a full-time job totally unrelated to the arts. Her talents have no boundary. She can design a glorious garden; toss pottery on a wheel; tell me why my dog is acting the way he is. She can paint a portrait, a simple sketch or an entire mural with panache, and at the same time, she can take on the responsibility of yet another down-trodden underfed horse and within months have that horse looking like a show-pony, snuggling with Love. Oh, and she loves to play. Despite her pockets being full of talents and tasks, still she will take time to fly a kite with our child, or fill up the kiddy pool or pull out the bubble-sets, etcetera. She does not hesitate to let the tools scatter when our friend’s children ask, “May we pull out every piece of art paper and crayon you have?”

How does she find the time?

She finds Time in the most important art of all: the art of caring. Among her many gifts, perhaps one I cherish most is her savoir-faire for engaging a listener into a gut-wrenching laugh with bliss. For this, dear reader, I am thankful for the love of all things loveable. I am grateful for friends.

--PPM

Tornadoes and Coffee

Tornadoes and Coffee

Written 30 April 2010

Both took the same amount of time. A rampant tornado blazed through Alabama killing more than 200 people at the exact same time I was getting angry pilfering through our cabinets looking for coffee which we were out of apparently. I had not heard the news yet of death and destruction. Coffee was on my mind. I was thinking about coffee?

Difficult to reconcile those two concepts to me now, but indeed they happened in tandem. Finally I know how ridiculous I am.

In that coffee-bereft moment, little did I know my native people were not pilfering for coffee. No. They were searching for lost loved ones, rambling through the rubble of their homes, their livelihoods, hoping for something, anything, a family picture, a memento, a scrap of life as they knew it a minute ago. Imagine! All this at that same time I was getting angry because we were out of coffee? That was a personal disaster in itself. I do not understand myself or anything else sometimes.

There is nothing simple about that moment in my mind. Like war, earthquakes, tsunamis and cancer and unrest, I must live with that message forever: how quickly an event can change life.

My lack of coffee became so selfish, so mute upon such news of Real Loss that day.

With luck, as I sip my coffee this morning, I have learned to be more grateful. I thought I was sooooo grateful for my peaceful life, and yet there is more to be grateful for, always. With luck, I learned the mere joy of being able to sip coffee, much less to have food to eat, people to love, and a loving home to greet. With luck I will retain a snippet of wisdom from such a tragic event?

Yet the truth remains about how I felt that morning. I am stuck forever with a moment that confirms I am ridiculous. Coffee? My home is in tact. My family is alive and well. Yet by being unaware of what was happening in the world around me I got miffed about absence of coffee. Please forgive me. Simple things bring me pleasure. But Life is not so simple when someone such as I, who craves simplicity, could be so disheartened because I am out of coffee one morning, unaware.

--PPM

Vignettes from the Neighborly-hood

Vignettes from the Neighborly-hood

By Paige Ponder Monaghan

One Knows One Lives in a Small Town Again,

When…

27 September 2011

A little green truck passed by

Oak Street

this morning. These oaks, ahhh these oaks! They drip with tendrils of sterling Spanish moss, a bromeliad relative of the pineapple family, and canopy a southern road called Oak Street, obviously. The image is embedded. The Spanish moss cliché would be over-done almost if not for its truly laden loveliness, for its old-roots timelessness, sparkling in the morning dew.

This morning I heard this soothing verbal transaction, which made me appreciate my native land which I left for college and after that, traveled farther, for nearly the same reason I returned: everything and everybody so connected. But there I sat on my friend’s front porch. We do not have a neighbor within earshot at my house now which is why I thank goodness for gunshot if needs be. But anyway…this is what I over-heard.

The driver of the lil’ green truck had slowed to a rooooowlling-stop, then hollered out his window at the neighbor next door to where I was rocking on the porch, watching the rain.

The little green truck driver hollered, “Hey, Will! Nora’s car window is down.” The man next door was outside pulling weeds while the rain held. Understandable, weeds give-way much easier from moist soil.

He lifted his head from the weeds in the rain just long enough to holler back, “Hey, thanks, Bill. I’ll get it.” And with that the lil’ green truck drove on its way. It was a ‘Good Morning to you’ of sorts. It just held more information is all.

I live in my native county now, after decades of traveling away from it. I live in a place I thought I would not ever be again, a place I love despite the grandeur of experiencing so many other, different places and countries. With such a huge family clan and distinct circle of friends I was flying home to visit most of the time anyway. Now, here I am, back again, LIVING here and I like it. At least I think I like it?

In a small town no one spats on the ground. Oh heavens no, at least not in front of someone who might tell their momma. I like that. In a small town, everyone says ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ innately. With that I have no bother. That moment struck me like lightning: the people in our sleepy town are kind enough to stop to say ‘your wife’s car window is down.’

It tugs at my heartstrings; it pulls them up to my mind, and I realize, my roots are here, every bit as deep as those weed’s roots are and perhaps deeper than the oaks.

I live in a small town again, and I like it here.                             –PPM

Polo at the Point by Paige Ponder Monaghan

http://alabama-magazine.com/node/213

Polo at the Point article in ALABAMA MAGAZINE this month, March 2011... please subscribe.

Ponder Publishing Company, LLC: Link List

Ponder Publishing Company, LLC: Link List

Ode to Langston Hughes

Ode to Langston Hughes

By Paige Ponder Monaghan
09 December 09, 9:11 AM Wednesday

I’ve know Rivers too, yet not the
same as some
alas!

Despite
I have to laugh
because
it takes so many times for me to learn
in life, at last
the words someone said which I probably
read because now
they are dead…
that it is true
You can never step in the same river twice.

trying to create my 2011 poetry book. not uploading as I want oh well...here tis

LOVE STAYS

A book of poetrizms


Paige Ponder Monaghan

[cover photo was supposed to post here among other places. I shall learn how to do this one day?]
My grandparents, Jabez Mann Ponder and
Mary Ella (Nelson) Ponder - Point Clear, Alabama


Ponder Publishing Company LLC © 2003

Poetrizm One:
--

Ode To Uncle Jack

Paige Ponder Monaghan, 22 Jan. 2011, 7:25 am

Bet you would not have dreamed it ever,
would you, Uncle Jack?
How so many of us would gather together
wishing we had you back?

Guess you would not have guessed it would you
all those stories we remembered…?
of all the fun and love you gave us
from your good long life of so many Septembers

We talked of all your antics and strengths
SO many that is true!
We laughed about your games and all your nicknames…
and a couple o’ your transgressions too.

There is so much love in this house for you
I cry but I shall NOT remain blue
because
I know              what I know                    of Love is this:

We have all been so blessed by you.

Thank you for all the cherished good times.
Thank you for all the fish.
Thanks for being my Uncle Jack and
for granting my every wish.

Now rest in Peace, good man, our beloved,
we know you will always be here
your smile, your laughs, your tears and your presence
You will always be with us, my dear…

          Oh so near! Thank Good Heavens Oh So Near.
We LOVE YOU!!!
--thanks for my nickname:
Pooh

--

Funky Hats and Silly Shoes
Paige Ponder 1989

Funky hats and Silly Shoes
I wear them when I have the blues and
when I do not I wear them still
not to be a spectacle
just serving my will
I cannot help but wear silly shoes
and such hats as

what else is worth keeping
‘sides Love and alley cats?

A Mother says
your smile does not cost a dime and
I say
nor did this Funky Hat or
silly pair of shoes of mine.
--

I Live in My Own
13 April 1998, Monday 2:12 am, Paige Ponder

It’s been said I live in
My own Private Idaho.
Yes, it is so
there’s a place I go
a place made for me where ONLY I know
it is enchanting there
SAFE
with neither friend nor foe…
So I say to my friend,
“Well, perhaps I do, and
it might behoove you to find
your own Private Idaho, too.”

A place you design, where only you go?
So easy to LOVE others when
best
Yourself you know.
--
KnowHowToDoWhatWhen
Paige Ponder Monaghan

What I need in  a man is
savoir-faire
know how to do what when
and where
I need him to go
to a place inside of me
I cannot reach alone,
                        and for he?
to take me
to the place in him
he does not know exists
beyond his moans

a smile is waiting there: Savoir-faire

[I waited long enough and I found it]!
Wooohooooo, worth the wait!

---
On Poems

A poem
is not always meant
to rock your world in some way.

Sometimes a poem only wants
to give you a lil’ moment,
not to consume your entire day!
                 Paige P. Monaghan, 16 January2008 one rainy morning


nonetheless...
---
Trace of a Weekend Home from College
Paige Ponder 1985

it is Friday i am four hours from Grandma Lalla’s house balanced meals are a daily thing here
like hamn'limabeansgreen beans’n a sweeeeeeet potato
that made one of my socks fall down

[photo of family at table here]

dozens of feet have rested under her table and
for dessert this meal Iiiii get to cut with a knife meticulously carve the blood red strawberries, as instructed the smell of them makes my gills tingle
Hungry Youth!

as I sliced my grandmother sprinkled raw cane sugar over the fleshy insides
the noon-sun forced the sugar to squeeze red juice from the strawberries where they soaked in the window sill while we ate dinner at noon
at just the right time I slid a spoon over the top of a block of Rich and Creamy French Vanilla

the ice cream curled into a sphere taunting in the scoop spoon it was the same color as her antique dessert dishes
the same color as her skin her skin
[photo here]
and the strawberries oh yes the strawberries ready i poured them over the cream
they will cling

strawberries will to ice cream
attaching red jellied bits of themselves
in streaks as they slither down to rest
             as gracefully
                           as a sssssnnnaaaake
like grandparents I thought Grace Full                        Grandmother wore no-iron slacks and dainty
summer blouses she smelled of Lily of the Valley
to my Grandfather she whispered one day
You don’t ever tell me I look nice
then turning to address me she added
If I wear a pretty new dress and ask him how I look
he says you look awwlriiight with a wink toward me but she raises one brow to me and I know what she is saying i have heard it a thousand times
they’re all cut off the same bolt of cloth
he overhearing her as she intended so he tries humor as a compliment
You MUST look good or I’d have run you off long ago and with that they both wink at me
his clownish tone makes us laugh
she grins like Katharine Hepburn grins at Spencer Tracey in the movies
she beams
as if her comments were rather to brag about how he is to dote on him however incorrigible she is proud enough to report his antics with loving chagrin
every one knows how much he really loves her
[photo here]
my Mother is at a conference this weekend
in our home where youth was molded

mine my brother’s and so many others
I sat by the closet of my old room my room still
pulling down crates of things college left behind concert ticket stubs letter-sweaters report cards and scrap books Love letters family Photos elementary school pen-pal correspondence galore tiny wicker boxes jars of pens pencils tiny protractors and a compass
all manner of baggage to be thrown away one day

after hours of traveling through boxes in a closet
I walked up the hill to my paternal grandparent’s house again

we share afternoon coffee instead of earl grey in the South if you please even in July

he makes the best coffee in the world she says to me beaming from her ritual quiet-hour after lunch reading she has a stack of books nearby always
what a pleasant way for a day great uncles great aunts great everything gathered there
my own wicked self there a teenager ready for a cup of coffee
we didn’t come to drink the coffee so much as to gather around It

Her Table as one does a fireplace a Hearth

after the cup the greats dispersed

my Grandfather with his cane went to his tin-roofed shed to fix the neighbor kid’s broken Big Wheel we ladies lingered with our feet propped on the table

when I was young she’d say
and the images poured
such as when she and Leslie Allen
now a retired chauffeur
got tickled in church when they were kids
he laughed so hard, he started kicking his feet in the pew then one of his shoes flew off and hit somebody she said
others of his color hung from oaks for less this was IS unimaginable to me of course but I know it is true and it hurts I love Mr. Leslie.
I told her of my travels school boys
then she said you know Paige I enjoy our talks
my Mother and I used to do the same thing when I was your age
we paused thinking our own thoughts
her Mother had died of Pneumonia so young
I feel I could not live without mine
so much to feel in a weekend.

that evening I visited my Mother’s Mother
Gasque Lee we call her Grandma Boots
she was a widow all my life blonde and arthritic she was decorated by then with large
aesthetically placed moles a broken hip she cannot walk in our visits so we talk
watch Lawrence Whelk we Laugh and laugh and laugh at each other she has such a soft contagious laugh between a giggle and a grin
she wiggles her toes like tiny bubbles her dance
a music lover naturally she liked to dance she was a splendid piano player studied classical music before marrying Colonel William Bibb Irby the grandfather I never knew so she let me read his letters
[photo here of Boots with son SWI]

she says sometimes I dream I am dancing, then
I wake and cannot even walk I try to get up but my legs won’t move
as if to excuse herself
I do not need an excuse just my Grandma Boots    as is
it hurts to leave her   like her legs must hurt but different
I refill her ice water        make sure a banana is by her bed
when I leave she insists I take money
I do not think I need any…later today my old friend Nolan is to visit ; he will not linger long he knows my grandfather and I are going fishing at dawn

These are the days that DON’T try men’s souls

we’re going to Aunt Florence’s pond
where I caught the biggest catfish ever to grow thiiiis big I say, and here is my proof shown
[photo here of Hil and I with the catfish]
my grandfather and I dig our wigglers fresh before fishing we have a special place for Valuable
well-kept worms
he brings a pitchfork and a sawed-off milk carton every time
I scrape a layer of skin off the dirt exposing an explosion of wigglers then he plucks worms from the yucky black dirt dowsed with melon rinds and turnip peelings potato vines and whatever else is unappealing except to worms I guess
he grabs the yellow-jelly-filled writhing spirals we uncover as to spindle on our hooks

[photo called: he baits my hook for me always]

the size of diamondbacks we boast of our wigglers
we count out loud 10 11 12. up to 105 worms numbered one by one as we drop them in the milk carton with ample ambient dirt to keep them alive till we kill them
what I know about love some I learned in one day is this inadvertently I with my pitchfork dirt at my command jabbed that rusted pitchfork through the palm of his hand I screeeeamed
panic-filled I must have looked like Edgar’s ghost but he smiled wrapped his blood in his kerchief REPEATING didn’t hurt buddy it didn’t hurt see
now that the blood was covered he showed me his hand where I couldn’t see the holes I just put in it
and said I love you the most it’s a game we play No I love you the most
No got you first I love you the most all in fun
and so we went fishing
he never mentioned his hand again
it healed but I didn’t
that is love expressed again
in a fishing trip at dawn
Love in baiting my hook all morning long
there is love in frying for lunch those fish
there is love in shucking corn together as a side dish

but in a flash the weekend is over and tomorrow
I’ll be gone not too far ever …


[photo here of Papa baiting my hook at dawn]

[photo of Jabez Mann Ponder, Jr., and III, respectively fishing in Mexico]

--
Preacher Man
26 March 1998, ppm

preacher man says he can take my blues away
but nobody knows how the demons play shop
in my head
my friends say I’m going crazy yet
they beg Pleeeeease take my along
but truth is I just get lazy when
the days are passing long
see nobody knows inside the way we feel
nobody casts my line and
I draw in a slooooow slow reel
because I’ve been kind to be stomped on harder ‘cause of it
still every day has its appeal
so I say preacher man you not getting my blues today
instead I’z going outside to play
--

Ode to Every Dayz

when did I start not stopping to watch
the hummingbirds at the feeders?
…and since I greet the dawn each day anyway
when did it become just greeting the dawn
my way?
I sense something then…
it MUST be time to sleep in…
until
I can appreciate the dawn again!

ppm 17 September 2008
---

Grandchild’s Lament
written on a plane back to SLC, Utah, after leaving my Grandmother’s funeral

The last bit of her leftover hand cream has long soaked in to my skin
each time it is harder and harder to
shake out what is left of her Corn Silk
face powder to dab on to my own face
each day her memory is clearer
her tenor laugh rings louder in my head
but I do not smell the coffee she is brewing for us and though she was old and everyone said it was a blessing it does not help so many months later
and it seems all the stores should be closed
because the earth shall never be the same

[photo here...]
Photo taken and developed by Paige Ponder for Photo Journalism Class, Auburn University, 1987 or 88 “Grandma Lalla” Mary Ella (Nelson) Ponder
--

To be loved, be loveable

early February 1998, Paige Ponder

The Snake has all the lines and
he will test you that is true
but when you side-snag his lip in your line
He won’t shake off -- have to use your shoe.

By now the Snake has done his time
but it bugs you that he’s blue?

Well, honey, what you care ‘bout Snakes?
Does the Snake’s poison
feel good to you?
You know he’s playing with your time
and your time’s for searching truth
but when that Snake casts his filament line
you know he throws it right for you

you hear what he wants you to hear
you do what he tells you to do
‘cause those big black eyes cast a spell
of iron that no little girl can undo

but a lady has the mind
to stop the games so oft
being played by a fool.

--
Ever since…always
 Paige Ponder Monaghan, 21 may 08
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
Life comes in terrible stints for me
until I have had time alone

It is futile to try being otherwise
until I have had time alone
even then my time can go un-utilized
sans my solitary stints    alone
more difficult to play and seize the day
until I have had time alone
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
until I have had time alone
my brain won’t stay sane
my heart won’t bear pain
my soul won’t relish a good needed rain
until I have had time alone  alone
it is harder to see
all the ones who surround me
with love that flows as deep as
           blood and bone
still
the world it does not make sense
to me
until I have had time alone
it is all I have ever known                    ever since…                     always. Hmmmm...

--

Song for Summer Solstice 2010
Paige Ponder Monaghan

Well I don’t have time for a shower today /
As for sprucing, primping / not so much /
Have the same 24-hours as everyone does /
But I don’t seem to have their … touch.
Oh how I admire my friends so much.
But admittedly it is a dream casting chronos with my baby
For shore no one could call us lazy we run the rivers and laugh
Play toss in the streams we stomp in the puddles and
Paint ourselves in the construction of ours dreams!
Papa’s house is being built near ours… he is SO, right on,
on our team
So close to us how grateful can we be
Building this Castle of her dreams
Where memories are made and candy eaten freely / grandparents have the means
To show how to know how Love is eternal, forever fresh and so clean
Oh parents, yes, we are on the same team /
Yet only a grandparent / knows how to sew up any seam.
--

Lady
sometime before February 1998, pp
I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me
I am calm; I am wild;
I am bonded; I am free
Most of what I’m made of
the eyes cannot see
I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me.

I am here and I’m there
          scattered           everywhere
…following my heart
“taking leap after leap in the dark”
No, I don’t think you’re ready
for a Lady like me.
--

HE
 Paige Ponder Monaghan
13 August 1998
I thought I would know
what Love would mean
when the Knight rode in
wearing details of my dreams
I thought I would know
what I in you have seen
but at once when I saw you
Life surpassed my dreams…
they got sweeter, meatier!
            for in Life I may hold you
                                   although gently
                                            more than less
had I have known you were so
dashing, strapping
I could have skipped all the rest:
[the relationships
with arguments
amid periodic complacency]

I recognize you             grow in you
           an oak around an iron fence
I thought I would know
until I saw you              hugged you             smelled you, better than cedar
and as it goes with Truth I recognized you. Thank Heavens!!!
and now soon it is October and
we grow in a familiar mystery
the bounty of infinity …a slice, a sway, a certainty
like a tree and the sun who grow and roll respectively
as I go                                                          from now on
may I know more more more…
more of thee
my beloved, is he.

--
poems to be continued...
Next poem here…



Ponder Publishing Company, LLC: Bartram Canoe Trail by Paige Ponder

Ponder Publishing Company, LLC: Bartram Canoe Trail by Paige Ponder