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By Keri Collins Lewis

Looking back,
it’s clear to see
too often I counted myself as unworthy.
Not enough.
Not the right one.
What do you want to be?
Not something practical, after all.
A writer, poet, artist, creative?
Why NOT me?

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As I watch my dog

nearing her last day,

I wonder,

Does she know it is coming?
Is she fearful like me?

Will she later look down

and smile

of the happy life we shared?

Will she know that

she will live in my heart forever?

I am not ready for the answers.

2018 Sandie Vaisnoras

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By Tiffany Dickinson

What if everything I said was true?

I can’t do it.

It’s too hard.

It’s not worth it.

People will hate it.

I am not creative.

I’m not even smart.

They are bad.

They mean to do me harm.

We will never find common ground.

Or

I can do anything I determine to do.

It’s easy.

It’s so worth it.

People will love it

I am a creator.

I am smart.

They are good.

They mean well.

We will work together for good.

What if everything I said was true?

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by Carol Varsalona

My questioning poem along with digitals can be found at my blog site: http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2018/09/listening-to-roaring-waves.html

The poem itself:
Questioning Life, the Mystical Mover is below.

How would my life have been different

if I only knew

to pause and savor quiet moments more often?

How would my life have been different

if I only knew

to view silver raindrops as day brighteners, not negatives?

How would my life have been different

if only I acted with patience

as nature slowly paraded in front of me?

How would my life have been different

if "what if" reflections

marked the beginning of the journey?

...and so now, I listen intently to the roaring waves

throwing out one question,

"How can I find balance in life to make a difference?"

©"CVarsalona, 2018

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If the lawn mower stays silent on Sunday mornings,

the green carpet untamed,

the grass inching ever taller,

will the frothy foam of spittlebugs

appear in June?

Will rabbits stand on hind legs

and reach for dandelion seeds?

Will goldenrod and asters

bloom among autumn grasses?

Will we miss the roaring engine,

the stubble of fresh-cut lawn,

the symbol of suburbia?

©--Buffy Silverman

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There are owls in the neighborhood now.

Two barred owls wondering,

“Who cooks for you?”

They wake us in the middle of the night.

We worry about the littlest skunk.

The one with white angel wings.

The silent puff of scent who cleans up dropped seed

beneath our bird feeders each dusk.

We are simply spectators in this backyard drama.

Is it bad form to cheer equally

for predator and for prey?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

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Life is precious.
Despite hurt and pain,
Can you remember?
Will you live in grace and awe?
Every day is a gift.
Live each moment....
Lift your face
To the sun and say:
Thank you, world!

Dianne Moritz, © 2018

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(response to I WONDER)
..........................................................................................................
A star we seek, each twilit night, s t r o l l i n g
in a sea of lights,  eyes  atwinkling
fixed  on sky.  Wonder-full!
You're
o n e
of
us.

Cory Corrado (2018) ©

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(to be read from BOTTOM to TOP)
............................................................
t o o
with wonder
gaze down upon me
I wonder   whether Stars and Moon

to walk among the stars and moon
imagining how it would feel
eyes raised up to the sky
I stroll each night
the twilight
Into

Cory Corrado (2018) ©

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We would grow old together.

What would we do?

Where will we go?

How many years is “forever”?

The wheel of life spun faster than we could imagine,

and here we are.

Now the questions are different.

What will I see when I look back on my life?

Will I look through binoculars, narrowing the focus on the heartache?

Or through rose- colored glasses, remembering only good times?

I prefer to think I’ll use a panoramic lens

and take in the whole huge, scary, and shaky roller coaster of life.

The hills and valleys.

The highs and lows.

The fun and the fright.

I will watch and wonder.

Did I do what I set out to do?

Have I given enough of myself?

Did I make lasting footprints and, more importantly,

lasting heart prints on my journey?

What will I see when the day comes,

and I look at my life through the lens of time?

Ellen Leventhal © 2018

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curious questions.
Can I really love so much
as the sky is big?
To eternity and back?
Around the world a million
times?
Can I touch with the same
sensation as a brand new babe?
A new wife?
Can I see love the same as two
mockingbirds?
Two doves?
A wife who has just lost her mate?
I will ask these things
for the rest of my days.
Are there really answers? I don't know.
I only see that I have truly loved and
truly lived and
truly tried to do my best.
Questions, questions beautiful questions.

© Robyn Campbell 2018

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Two - only answers, “No, no, no.”

At seven, “Why? I want to know.”

Thirteen, private, asks self, “Who?”

Eighteen, hungry, “Where shall I go?”

“What?” and “How?” feed grown-up years;

“Hurry, hurry. Answers, appear!”

Elders’ salt and pepper quest,

“Bring them on.” No question feared.

Linda Baie © All Right Reserved

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We listen and learn,

study and search,

decipher decades of

answers that just

inspire more decades

of riveting questions.

Is this what life is about?

©2018 Sydney O’Neill

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I pet the patient lambs ears,

squirt the cherry tomatoes

into my cheek. I check the milkweed

for tiny yellow eggs, hover near

the sky-blue morning glories

and remember my grandmother’s eyes.

I wait for hummingbirds to pierce

the scarlet salvia and spot

papa goldfinch surfing the echinacea.

Soon the garden will fade to beige,

and all I’ll have are the long grasses

gone to seed and the question

that sustains me all winter:

what will I plant next spring?

Elizabeth Steinglass ©2018

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"All the earliest poems are prayers."
~Robert Hass  National Book Festival 2018

We search and search for the word, the gesture, the thing in all

that’s cracked and broken. Is it possible to tend to all the

Humpty Dumpties we rush to -- we triage in the earliest

moments after their falls? We recite petitionary poems

for cures and repair. We forget that what we need also are

Silences, moments of golden rule -- good and honest prayers

© Linda Mitchell 2018

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Will this be my window?

Will this be my floor?

Will this be my cupboard?

Will this be my door?

Will this be my closet?

Will this be my wall?

Or maybe I'll never come back here at all.

© Suzy Levinson 2018

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How do we make something new?

How do we take that hand, still as a rock, pick up

those heavy, heavy fingers and push ourselves,

force our way through all that protective bone,

move past the little shocks of neurons trying to

ride their carts down their usual tracks?

So tempting to pull our hands back, let those

familiar travellers roll unimpeded along the line,

arriving on schedule. But today, here you are,

rushing before those clattery wheels,

laying fresh tracks the second before they dart past,

keeping them from falling into oblivion below.

They spin, you go on, pounding down one

after another, dropping them out

of your fingertips, you frenzied engineer,

and, lo, a new destination.

Tabatha Yeatts

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Holocaust Museum: millions die

Faceless sculptures

Piles of gray shoes

A wall of hair

What is a body worth?

Facebook reports: two suicides

Someone’s daughter
Someone’s friend
Someone we lost for losing

What is a body worth?

On all the news: John McCain

An American hero,

Warrior, senator,

One life forged for many.

What is a body worth?

National Book Festival: one father

reads my poem

to his infant son.

My heart beats stronger.
My body stands taller.

Such a small thing can

make a life worthy.

© Margaret Simon

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I hear about the man, a prisoner, who, starved and beaten and surely afraid,

wrote the names of his fellows in human blood on scraps of cloth sewn

into the collar of a shirt---a shirt that would be worn by whichever of

the company of prisoners was first released, carried out into the

world on his own back.    Witness.    And I ask myself, sitting

here with my cup of tea in my flannel pajamas, comfort

abounding: how dare I fear any loss, any torrent of

grief that I work so hard to keep contained, writ

in the pulse of my overfed blood, sewn into

the muscle of my unmarked neck and

back, worn like a skin.    Listen.

Have I any right to fear?

I must look at it,

live it, leave

it, let go,

turn

that skin
inside out.

© Heidi Mordhorst 2017

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What is my imprint today?

Soothe a hurt?
Trigger a smile?
Bestow a hug?
Create a treasure?

Will I do no harm?

© Sherry Howard

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(A poem I dreamt about, woke up and wrote down)

A question here,
A question there,
To be or to are,
What will I dare?

By Angelique Pacheco

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Will you?

defend those who struggle

with poverty, addictions, discrimination?

Will you?

vote for fair leaders who will defend those who struggle

with poverty, addictions, discrimination?

Will you?

look into the eyes of the defenseless and be able to say,

I voted for fair leaders who will defend those who struggle

with poverty, addictions, discrimination?

Will you do the best you can?

by Kathleen Mazurowski

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by Janice Scully

If ten chefs make apple pie

you will have ten pies that are different

though all baked with apples

sugar, flour, butter, salt, and

cinnamon.

Just because some are paler,

some browner, some sweeter,

others spicier,

doesn’t mean

each won’t have its fans.

Why is that hard to understand?

What if apple pies were all the same?

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It's much too hot to be out there
with moisture hanging in the air.
I sit in air-conditioned bliss.
Why should I be blessed like this?

Cindy Breedlove

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the children
exist in cages
no parents
singing songs
or comforting their fears
unanswered questions

©jone rush macculloch

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September, When the Heat Finally Breaks and We Open the Windows

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September, When the Heat Finally Breaks and We Open the Windows

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Rain pounds as sheer

curtains dance a damp minuet.

My husband’s shoulder

moves up and down,

under the tightly-gripped blanket

but the scent of rain

takes me back to camping

in a crowded tent, my children

fidgeting and sighing

around me as frogs croaked

and cicadas hummed, until

I thought I’d never hear my

own heart beat again.

The tent roof was green

and dark with seams from

front to back, moving with breezes.

My bedroom ceiling is cracked

from window to window, a dark

fine-lined pathway

with one dark spot. What is it?

A spider perhaps, frozen there,

wondering the same thing as me:

Why can’t I sleep?

2018 Brenda Davis Harsham
New England
All Rights Reserved

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Is nature important?

Monarch’s munch milkweed

till it’s time to fly south–

Do they shed a tear

when one monarch’s wings no longer work…

Is nature important?

Trees loose their leaves

as summer ends and autumn begins–

Do they shed a tear

as their summer shade disappears…

Is nature important?

Mother earth freezes over

all over the Midwest–

Does she shed a tear

as her nutrient rich soil takes a nap…

Is nature important?

Robin’s busy building her nest

her instinctual springtime ritual–

Does she shed a tear

when her fledgling flails failing to fly…

Is nature important?

People say Global Warming is made up

but, I don’t believe them–

Will they shed a tear

when the earth has been exhausted…

© 2017 Michelle Kogan

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Self, do you remember what’s important?

Nature’s

feelings–

Human’s

humility–

Nature’s

critters–

Caring

about

natures–

Remember self, what you do’s important!

© 2018 Michelle Kogan

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What was I thinking?
What erratic firing of neurons placed me here
on an icy snow-covered hill
heading in slow motion for the trees
with quivering thighs
fighting a losing battle
with “pizza”
or what was called snowplow
decades ago?
Why did I think this would be fun?
I, who hate adrenalin, speed and heights?
Was this some sort of test
I assigned myself?
Just who am I trying to impress?

Deliberately, I tip and fall
skid to a snowy inelegant stop
remove the rented skis and rise

pick up the scattered equipment
and walk down the mountain

It feels like victory to me.

©2018 M. Hogan

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in school I learned

spontaneous generation
is an erroneous theory

why then, each August,
do fruit flies appear to
tease awake my primal brain?

© Diane Mayr

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Inside the circle, inside the envelope,

inside an hour.

Please go inside.

Play inside

on rainy days.

Inside, she’s really, really shy—

What is inside the house, the hand, the jacket,

the body?

I want to be on the inside;

horses come up fast on the inside.

I want the inside information.

It’s the inside of my mind, my feelings, my nature

to want an inside seat.

Now I only have an inside job.

Where is the inside information?

Should I know The pitch was low and inside?

I broke down again inside of a mile,

because they knew my heart inside out.

The outside of me needs painting.

I yearn to resume life on the outside.

Do those on the outside always finish second?

If they’re chosen to be the outside passenger,

then they’re just on the “outside”.

Must news from the outside world

be only from an outside television antenna?

I live in the outside lane, furthest from the center.

I have no outside influences, no outside help,

only an outside chance for recovery.

This is an outside estimate,

that I’ll work on an outside job, be an ‘outside’ woman.

Outside of us, won’t anyone else come inside to the party?

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

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Why, yesterself, did you waste any thought

or angst or time on things you couldn't change?

Why make your mind a cage? It sought,

dear yesterself, a waste of time and thought.

What shift, what happiness in you is wrought

by mere review? Let go or act! Exchange,

my yesterself, the weighty waste of thought

and angst for time spent on the things you change.

© Rebekah Hoeft September 2018

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What is it about you that makes you, you?

Is it the housework you do?
Is it the career you’ve built?
Is it the children you’ve taught?
Stop doing so much to prove yourself.
You are enough.
You are uniquely you.
And that’s enough.

By Angelique Pacheco

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Dear Younger Me, what made you choose

a path with such uncertainty?

Six years old, plies, tendus,

little girl with giant dreams.

Nine years old, first pair of pointe shoes,

lambswool, blisters, aching feet.

Three classes weekly, middle school,

six hours daily at sixteen.

Eighteen years old, dream came true,

New York ballet company.

Glamorous life at twenty-two,

US, Europe, Middle East.

Anorexia, aches, the blues,

soft corns, fractures, sprains, fatigue.

Sacrifices? Yes, a few,

dating, college, normalcy.

Ballet life was all you knew
shaping your identity.

How would life have treated you

had you chosen differently?

© 2018 Mindy Gars Dolandis

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If I can’t see the bottom of the lake,

should I jump in?

If once a moss-slick snag poked my leg when I plunged

deep below the surface . . .

If a long, thin murky creature slips into the water

(Is that a snake?) . . .

If a hungry pike big enough to eat a child is cruising

the depths . . .

If that log floating near shore is a ravenous snapping turtle

ready to snap . . .

If the lake right here off the end of the dock is deeper

than the deep  I think I know . . .

If the water is so cold that it cramps my stomach . . .

If powerful hidden currents twirl and swirl

me far out to the middle of the lake . . .

If I am all alone with no one to hear me scream,

“HELP!” . . .

Should I jump in the lake?

Do I have to answer these questions?

Or do I close my eyes and jump?

Juanita Havill ©2018

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Were you listening at all?
love-love-love
somewhere amidst
all of the negative
words you heard

they seemed jumbled
with every emotion

I'm trying Mom
under rivers of tears
to be just how you
want me to be

because under all
of our differences
is a love that holds us together
even now in separate worlds

you in the sky and
me on earth
like the sun and moon
being so different
yet still helping each out

Me are you listening?
doubting your needs
against your family's

when they're trying in their way
while you're trying in yours
so jumbled in emotions
not hearing the love

dear Me listen to all thing
that seemed positive

like the sun and moon
with all their differences
love holds strong
with helping hands

Me listen please
I admit I don't
know all life's answers

Love Me from Me

By Jessica Bigi

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moving every year or two

changing towns and schools
was tough enough

why would the teacher
sing the West-Side Story song
every day for roll?

© Maria Marshall 2018
(“I just met a girl named, Maria….”)

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What made you write this story?
What gave you this idea?
How did you find the just-right words
to show the way I feel?
Did you peek inside my diary,
or spy on me each day?

Were you ever lonely?
Were you ever blue?
Did someone ever write a book
that felt like a friend to you?

Do you think I can be happy
like the girl inside your book?
You made her come alive,
you gave me a new friend.
Please write more of her story
so our friendship never ends.

© Catherine Flynn, 2018

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Why is the sun so spicy?
Why is water wet?
Why is the moon called the moon?

Why can’t I see my eyes?

Why do sheep and cows sleep standing up?

When you go on excursions,

With a child in tow,

Have answers to questions,

So you’re in the know.

By Angelique Pacheco

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What would I tell you if I could?
Don't hurry; don't worry.
Respect yourself, speak up.
Be thoughtful,  grateful, kind.
Love, laugh, grow...
Let life lead you
where you're meant to go.

Dianne Moritz, 2018

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In a dream,
I write my younger self
messages from the ether

Where do I find the answers? she asked.
Please, can you show me the way?

while the letters accumulate
in cobwebbed corners
she hasn't the presence to find.

Unopened,
they await my arrival.

© 2018 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

Photo credit: "Waiting for delivery" by ~libby

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Background image: "Question Mark Phoenix" by Roy Blumenthal