Kites: Don't Tie Your Happiness

from Looking for Me, by Beth Hoffman


Just grab hold and run with it!

=)

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The Promised Land

Zionbound: Tribute to a Female Pioneer

©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

The woman stood, endured, grew strong.

Propelled by faith, she trudged along

the snowy trail, the dusty plain,

the rocky passes, slick with rain.

Another life she left behind

in search of peace she hoped to find,

exchanging treasures of the past

for precious freedoms meant to last.

She bought those freedoms at a price,

a pathway fraught with sacrifice.

Family heirlooms, sold or lost,

portended a more grievous cost.

This unforgiving trek laid claim

to health and strength; in Father's name

she prayed for babies born too small,

enshrouded in a threadbare shawl.

Their graves she marked with memory,

no headstone for the world to see,

no time for mourning dear ones gone,

just pushing, pushing, on and on.

Her dress was washed in blood and tears,

but pressing forward through the fears,

she walked to Zion, made her stand,

and gave birth to the promised land.

HAPPY PIONEER DAY

JULY 24th

Insomnia: Once Upon A Snore

 

Insomnia: Once Upon a Snore
©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

I love you like the ocean's roar.

In fact, I love you even more.

Yes, every stupifying snore.

I love the wind between your lips.

Your exhale doesn't sigh; it rips.

(The breeze it blows could sink warships.)

And yet, your wild wind fills my sail.

Each night you wrap me in a gale,

a storm set off with each inhale.

Your foghorn warns me through the night.

My eyes fly open, wide and bright.

(I wake up safe but look a fright.)

I love your spittle when you spray me,

but do I need a respite? Maybe.

Without you, I sleep like a baby.

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How Do You Like to Go Up?

first line of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Our Ms. Matlock has created a combo picture and word prompt for this week's Saturday Centus. How clever is that?! 110 words of poetry or prose will complete the assignment. And by the way, don't you love this cool sign from her Etsy shop? I have several in my house and even had her make custom signs for my family Christmas gifts last year. 

But I digress. Below is my response to a prompt that is close to my heart. (I love to go high!)

∞§∞

 How do you like to go up in a swing?

Pump your legs or be pushed?

Take it slow or take wing?

How do you like to consider the sky?

Safe and sound, from the ground?

Perched in trees, eye-to-eye?

There's no right or wrong way to take in the view.

Embrace, grace, or chase life.

It's all up to you!

{just make sure that you do}

∞§∞

A Fading Sky

Supermoon, Julio Cortez, 2013, AP

A Fading Sky

©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

They came: the tired, the poor, the yearning masses,

the flood of people reaching for one moon––

sharing a dream that lived and died in snatches,

mercurial as air in a balloon––

inflating, rising, dipping, begging patches,

blown-up and bursting with sweet freedom's tune.

Their voices soared across the purpled mountains;

their footsteps turned and tilled the fertile plains.

They slaked their thirst in rivers, sipped from fountains,

sucked liberty into their seeping veins;

laid down new roots, too numerous to count them,

scattered upon the wind the seeds of change.

Our Lady greeted all, and still she stands,

holds torch aloft against a fading sky,

whispers to suitors born in distant lands

promises kept or broken on a sigh.

Hope is the light that flickers in her hands,

as fragile, strong, and free as you and I.

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Glory, Glory Hallelujah: Let Freedom Ring

©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

Our history is  glorious.

Why should we not stand proud?

And yet, today, so many feel

that pride is not allowed.

Can our missteps obscure the truth

that much of what we've done

has nurtured peace and freedom

in the lives of everyone?

If we have made mistakes (we have),

does that erase the good?

How many threats to freedom

have our valiant hearts withstood?

We are Americans, the

keepers of our legacy.

The way we view ourselves predicts

the nation we will be.

Our country runs imperfectly;

we're learning as we grow.

But let us not forget that greatness,

forged so long ago.

Our heritage ennobles us.

Allow it room to breathe!

Set free the roots of who we are;

drink deeply and believe...

In Give me liberty or death,

in Stars and Stripes Forever,

in melting pots and second shots

and dreaming BIG, together.

United, stand. Divided, fall

 in this land of the free...

not one in practice, nor in thought,

but one in liberty.

Embrace the tired, the poor, the masses...

raise that torch up high.

And when our country's colors burst

against the summer sky,

Remember to salute with pride

the things they signify.

The happiest of Independence Days to all you patriots out there!

Let's keep that love of country alive.

=)

It's become almost politically incorrect these days to voice pride in our country. 
I'm going against that tide here, because I don't like where it's leading us. 
Taking pride in our country used to be lauded as patriotism.
Now it's being reframed as "American exceptionalism," 
and we are made to feel guilty about it.
Pride doesn't have to be arrogance.
I'm proud of my children, as well,
but I don't think they're perfect.
(Though they are, indeed,
exceptional . . .) 

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