Once Upon a Morning Dreary

Once upon a morning dreary,

As I pounded my keyboard, weary

Over some poem with which I was bored,

Slowly sipping, my coffee cooling,

Thinking to end a stanza unruly,

I dropped a participial upon the floor.

Oh, ‘tis nothing, sugar rushing,

‘Tis a mistake and nothing more.

Still I continued with my tapping,

Unceasingly typing, my work unraveling,

Using comma after comma evermore.

Now my brain whirling with my writing,

Adjectives dazzling, so inviting,

Tapping tapping at my keyboard,

My editor crying “Nevermore!”

The sun now moved upon my window,

Silhouetting a stately willow,

Creating in my memory stored,

A lust for wordiness galore.

Still I was tapping, my mind unscrambling,

Quelling spelling evermore.

Quoth my editor “Nevermore!”

Unmoved, I continued with my tapping,

Tapping until my fingers sore,

Thrilled me with their swift endeavors,

Using clichés evermore.

Faster, faster, typing now,

Sweat upon my fevered brow,

Ending sentences with prepositions evermore,

Quoth my editor, “Nevermore!”

And my editor, never flinching,

Sits at her computer convincing,

That I am doomed in grammar evermore.

As I tap tap out my sentences,

Semicolons and commas inventive,

My editor shall trust me nevermore.

Excerpt from Swinging Bridge: click here

Courage Smells Like a Hospital

 

We walk into Children's Hospital holding hands.  You are terrified.  You have already endured numerous operations, but at age eight, this is the first one you have faced with some idea of what is happening.

You are trembling.

Minutes seem like hours.  They test your oxygen level, take your blood pressure, ask a million questions.  I have kept as much of this as possible from you, but you sense my distress.  I have told you that you will have an operation.  I will not lie to you, but you guess that I haven't given you the entire story.

You cling to me.

The smell is all-pervasive.  It is an antiseptic smell, an indefinable "no smell”: cleaning fluids, anesthesia, rubbing alcohol, all mixed into one.  It almost hurts to breathe it in, like too clean air invading my lungs, leaving them empty.   I know you will remember it.  In the future, something will trigger the memory of it and you will relive the terror of today.
They take us to pre-op.  Here the smell is more definable: sharp, astringent – like sandpaper as it rakes past my nostrils.
You look at me, and your eyes well with unshed tears.  You know that this is one of the "biggies."  They will take a large portion of bone from your tiny hip and replace the missing bone in your upper gum line: the alveolar ridge.  You sense that it will hurt.

You are afraid.

The smell is starting to make me ill.  Or is it fear?  Once again, I will be turning you, my baby, my little love, over to strangers.

They will cut.

The anesthesiologist arrives and takes your hand.  You look at me with glistening, tear filled eyes, and smile.  Your back straightens.  Your chin lifts and just as those big double doors swing shut, you raise your hand and sign, "I love you."


Copyright 2010 Debra Shiveley Welch
Excerpt from Son of My Soul - The Adoption of Christopher
Library of Congress Copyright 2014 Debra Shiveley Welch 

To My Husband of 27 Years

  To Mark

Are you a mere man, or a god,
Sent to mortal woman as a gift?
Beloved of the Gods,
Divinely tall and divinely fair.

Will Zeus envy Adonis
His earthly tryst,
Or will he smile
And allow Elysium to rule on earth?

© 2008 Debra Shiveley Welch 
excerpt from Son of My Soul - the Adoption of Christopher

 

A Bride's Tribute

I did not believe it would happen,
And my journey on this plane,
Would be one of sorrow,
Loneliness and pain.

I believed that I would walk alone,
My heart and soul unfulfilled.
My life full of yearning
For love’s ecstatic thrill.

And then one day you came along.
I stood as if in a trance,
As you held your hand out to me –
“May I have this dance?”

As hands touched in music’s embrace
I knew that I’d come home.
My heart sighed with completion.
I was no longer alone.

I stood at the entrance and took a breath,
My soul and heart soared.
A tuxedo-clad arm steadied me,
As I walked slowly to my adored.

Step, stop, step, stop
Here finally was love.
I’d found my harbor, a safe place to rest,
Within a magic cove.

© 2014 Debra Shiveley Welch