tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115423652024-03-16T00:17:17.360-07:00Writing Down the WordsPaulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.comBlogger604125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-14211164079008740502023-12-17T08:12:00.000-08:002023-12-17T08:12:42.780-08:00Reflections Looking out.Looking in.There is a window in my bedroom wall that faces west through which, when I am inside looking out, I can see the rise of a mountain, its flanks like bits of blue paint splashed between the trees that grow close to the house. At this time of year, late autumn, the ground is papered brown with fallen leaves and every branch and twig is gilded by the early morning Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-17015370857246164692023-11-17T17:15:00.000-08:002023-11-17T17:15:56.269-08:00Gathering MemoriesOld homestead Berry patch (L) and brook (R) behind meYesterday I stood in the driveway of my brother's house that sits where a small apple orchard Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-73486099364244401252023-11-12T06:59:00.000-08:002023-11-12T17:34:53.805-08:00Returning Home I look out the window at the familiar trees of my childhood, the great pines, the lone oak still holding its leathery brown leaves on this mid-November morning. I watch the light appear in the eastern sky over the brook, watch the fingers of sunlight touch first the top of the mountain – Mama’s mountain – and trace their way slowly down to color meadow and farmhouse, and finally the Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-20362283122634466942022-03-06T10:32:00.002-08:002023-11-13T08:11:22.400-08:00 Sunday morning writing prompt - what that you love most about life would you give as a gift to someone? Here's my gift to you:I would give you dawn in vivid colors and in rainy gray. I would wrap sunsets in shades of scarlet and orange, and darkening evening skies in glimmering starlight. I would give you cold November rains, colored lights gleaming against the snow in December, the warmth Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-90239322398127963552022-02-17T07:44:00.001-08:002022-02-17T07:44:24.134-08:00 Then life Intervened I was contemplating the way the sunshine gleamedon the polished chrome of the kitchen faucet –creating a star of cosmic proportions for a small sink –when the telephone’s strident voicebroke the silence.My book, the story forgotten on my lap while Ithought of stars and moons and planetsloose in my kitchen, fell to the floor and closedits covers so the occupants Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-73249387172016185142021-04-11T14:17:00.007-07:002021-04-11T14:17:56.653-07:00Searching the Present for the Past Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-10185737832540257942021-02-14T05:06:00.001-08:002023-11-13T08:19:09.407-08:00Two Small Winter Poems Waking In a Snow GlobeThe wild wind tipped the worldupside down while I was sleeping.Now, snow catches in tree-caught gusts of airthat blow small birds off courseand set the wind chimes swinging.High above the spinning white,the sun is prying the clouds apart,loosing snowy feathers from the downy puffs,until the air itself is made of silver and gold.Winter DaySnow is falling all around,it Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-11229865686416381682021-02-07T06:59:00.002-08:002021-02-07T06:59:25.246-08:00MysteryWith all the Bernie mitten memes circulating the internet, I found myself thinking about mittens and remembered this poem from my years in the classroom teaching poetry. It was winter term and one second grader said, "It's cold out. Make up a poem about mittens." So I did.MysteryI found a mitten in the snow,just one, just thumb and hand,and stripes of red and green and whitearound the mitten Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-38074734359732235642021-02-03T08:46:00.002-08:002021-02-03T08:46:35.991-08:00Forever Winter Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-23696847227885739992021-01-29T13:28:00.000-08:002021-01-29T13:28:02.195-08:00 PerspectiveIn early 2000, I returned to school to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, VT. My roommate was a sturdy woman from Michigan. Both of us were used to the cold and often during that first winter semester we rose at 6 a.m. and booted, hatted, and mittened, we walked for 45 minutes before breakfast. One chilly day we decided to walkPaulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-81141631391047026222020-07-10T11:20:00.001-07:002020-07-10T11:20:40.718-07:00Summer
These are the long nights
The middle of July nights
The pink and blue and cream nights
The best time of the year
They’re firefly and moth nights
Fiddle cricket tune nights
Stay out late to play nights
Until the moon appears
These are the hot nights
The no pajama, sheet nights
The window open, fan nights
The nights of frog and loon
The bicycle and stroll nights
The Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-15163063449390019852020-07-05T10:33:00.000-07:002020-07-05T10:34:29.384-07:00It's NOT Boring!
I don't know why some people claim that country living is quiet and boring. Take, for example, the other night. My friend and neighbor, J, and I were taking our regular evening walk that passes the dam at the north end of the pond. Water crashes over and pools in the rocks below before hurrying on its way downstream. We often stop to lean on the bridge railing to watch the great blue heron Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-35650803804255737052019-12-02T03:30:00.001-08:002019-12-02T03:30:04.186-08:00
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-33711369738960929642019-11-03T04:51:00.000-08:002019-11-03T04:51:08.919-08:00Reincarnation
I think, said a friend once,
that you were a tree in a former life.
That would explain my deep love of the out-of-doors,
my longing for roots and an inordinate love of homeplace,
my penchant for being a watcher, a witness,
rather than a willing participant in human endeavors.
What sort of tree he didn’t specify.
A pine perhaps? I’ve always admired pine trees
with theirPaulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-46222085503423220282019-10-24T06:43:00.001-07:002019-10-24T06:43:11.356-07:00autumn morning
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-35612520302918690302019-09-09T13:05:00.000-07:002019-09-09T13:05:15.111-07:00A Little Taste of Heaven
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-11052752044544426772019-05-13T14:22:00.001-07:002019-05-13T14:44:20.907-07:00Runaway Memory
runaway
behind the library
that used to be the grammar school
where the old yellow bus
cranked open its doors and
spilled us out like
so many windup toys from a bucket
there’s a patch of mowed grass
smothered in bluets
and dotted with white violets
surrounded by pine trees
I clearly remember sitting under
with Donny and Raymond
my two best Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-48087811024309475372019-04-23T07:49:00.000-07:002019-04-23T07:49:04.401-07:00Color Me Green
New green against morning blue.
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-18877961718130812602019-04-05T16:21:00.000-07:002019-04-05T16:21:07.953-07:00Something Different
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-80293691228604396172019-03-13T09:17:00.000-07:002019-03-13T10:22:04.082-07:00
Our hand built cabin in 1979. My mother visited once we had a roof over our heads.
In 1976 we (my then husband Mike and our four kids) moved to northern Vermont as part of the huge tide of back-to-the-landers making their way to rural areas to homestead in lieu of city life. When cleaning the closet in my cottage recently, I came across several hard cover floppy disks with "Cabin" Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-90678544847604518252019-03-09T05:48:00.000-08:002019-03-09T05:58:16.978-08:00Where I Am From
I am from the depths of the round, gilt-edged mirror that hung over the fireplace mantle, reflecting my first homecoming, from the unremitting ticking of the Seth Thomas clock that bonged on the hour, and from the voices and faces that morphed slowly into mother, father, brother, sisters.
I am from the beamed and shuttered farmhouse whose walls hugged me close and kept me safe, from the giantPaulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-49606700358374896562019-02-28T08:19:00.002-08:002019-02-28T08:19:38.811-08:00How It Was
I spent my childhood
in love with home—
with the gold-emerald
grasses that knelt under my feet
and stood again after I
passed,
with the spring flowers
in my mother’s garden,
violets, lily of the
valley, daffodils,
their breath sweet, their
faces washed in sunshine,
and later, the fairy
roses that climbed the fence
and hobnobbed with the
first cut hay;
with the rough rocks that
Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-60306799507873187002019-02-24T04:37:00.000-08:002019-02-24T04:37:01.044-08:00Thoughts On a Rainy Sunday Morning
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-70925553439648304252019-02-13T07:51:00.000-08:002019-02-13T07:51:19.076-08:00One Morning
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Paulinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14555472024981357622noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11542365.post-16287784276082884002019-02-10T13:58:00.000-08:002019-02-11T06:59:21.904-08:00Winter Dawn<!--[if gte mso 9]>
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