Frozen

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Bone-deep in winter

meadow trees are sleeping, but

time skates on thin ice.

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(c) 2022  Betty Hayes Albright

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Water-color by my grandmother, Lilly Bjornstad

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Forever in a Meadow

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Eternity came calling

on me one day

with her childlike face

and her kind, ancient eyes.

She laughed at the way

I danced to the ticking

of a mere clock

and said in a voice

that tinkled like moon chimes,

 

“Come let me show you

the land of Right Now,

a place that’s free

from the chains of your time.

It’s a world where the sun

shines from truth’s eye

and the smile on my face

will fill you with peace.”

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I followed a minute

but then a loud whistle

stopped me in my tracks.

Tomorrow perhaps —

it was noon in the valley

and I would be late.

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I headed downhill

but turned to look back

at her beauty once more

and found she had vanished

into Everywhere.

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(c) 2020, 1969, 1965  Betty Hayes Albright

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Written in high school, 1965. Published in chapbook “Living Color”, 1976; previously posted here in 2014.

This is a newly revised version. I guess it’s about time! 😄

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Gifted

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Now we understand —

time is not a fleeting thing,

it is we who fleet.

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Now we understand –

time does not have any wings,

it is we who fly.

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Now we understand –

there is only one present

for us to unwrap.

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© 2020  Betty Hayes Albright

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Sorry I’m way behind reading blogs again. Am missing you all, and will hopefully start catching up soon, little by little. Please forgive me if I don’t comment much.  (Fibromyalgia and chronic back pain are the usual culprits, and I know many of you can relate to these “invisible” health problems.) 

Loving thoughts to everyone. ❤❤

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Kindling

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I remember

when twenty-five years

was my whole lifetime.

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Now a quarter century

is just another tumbleweed

bouncing down the street –

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a little bit battered,

a lot more dust

but what wonderful kindling

I’ll be!

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© 2019, 2020  Betty Hayes Albright 

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Brine

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So soon, again

they come this way –

long shadows

in the meadow play

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between the leaves

turned red and gold

where faeries

of the frost behold

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a disappearance

of the bees,

the fogging

in a stand of trees,

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the seasoning

of twig and vine

as Fall adds nutmeg

to the brine.

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©  2019  Betty Hayes Albright 

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It Won’t be Long

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Many years ago

and still

you’re with me

in the silent deep

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where time spins faster

before our eyes –

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it won’t be long

until that blur

is just a knowing smile.

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©  2019  Betty Hayes Albright 

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Iron Cocoon

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In-a-Gadda-da-Vida

we danced to our favorite

solo of drums

till Keith turned on

Folsom Prison Blues

and we dosey-doed

in a square-dance spoof,

Tom’s arm

in-a-cast-in-a-sling

but feeling no pain,

for we couldn’t see

through the smoke in the room

and we would be young forever.

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When the haze finally cleared

to reveal gray hairs

we still felt the beat

in-a-light-a-day-now

as butterflies —

and it’s not really bad

being older.

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© 1992, 2019 Betty Hayes Albright

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(Re-post, reminiscing about the good old days, Iron Butterfly’s hit song “In a Gadda da Vida”, and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”.)

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Blurry photo from 1971 (age 24), taken at an outdoor rock concert at Seattle Center. 

Dig the hat!  😊  

(I’m pushing a stroller with 6 month old son sleeping inside. He happens to be 48 today. Geez, time flies….)

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Shifting Manually *

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I dreamed

he was a little boy again,

sitting in his red wagon

waiting for a ride

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but he talked

like a wise, old man

and showed me a scroll

of his life –

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diagrams, notations

I couldn’t understand.

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“I’m shifting manually

through the cosmos,”

he said.

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I woke

with an ageless song

playing in my head.

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©  2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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*This was an actual dream, early this morning, about my late son, Arlie.  I jotted down his words, not fully understanding them at the time.  Later, when I told his older brother about the dream he agreed: only Arlie would say something like that.

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Arlie on left, and big bro Jason.

Both photos taken in 1976.

 

 

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Skipping Stones – book released

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“Skipping Stones” is now available on Amazon.com,  (https://tinyurl.com/yccscdzk)  and Barnes & Noble!  

Many thanks to Thomas and Ethel Davis at Four Windows Press, and to Lauren Scott and Candice Daquin for their cover reviews. 

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Time Out

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They leak out

from the calendar –

seconds, minutes lost.

They steal away

into the fog

and freeze to winter’s frost.

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I close my eyes

and there’s an hour

missing from the day.

It turned into

a floppy kite

and spring blew it away.

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Dripping

through my fingers

another day has gone,

evaporated

yesterday

from summer’s placid pond.

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And soon a year

has fallen

bright confetti on the ground

and I wonder

if we’ll ever have

the time to just slow down.

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© 1992, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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(….and another 26 years has flown by since writing this….)

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(a re-post)

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