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Tag: gratitude (Page 2 of 3)

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Poetry by John Hoyte

I grabbed it from the bookcase, to read before bed.
The Problem of Pain, a two shillings and sixpence
Fontana paperback, from my college days.
It tackles the question, If there is a loving God,
why does He permit pain?
I chose it to see if C.S. Lewis’s writing
still resonated for me.
A bookmark fell out.
The Grand Hotel, Taipei, Taiwan.
Pain came surging back, engulfing me
in sorrow, though bitterness had gone.

The year my wife died had been a year of devastation.
To get away, Lisa, my daughter, and I flew
to Taiwan on a business trip.
We stayed at The Grand Hotel, and felt like royalty.
External opulence, internal grief.
I look back over thirty years.
My daughter’s daughters are in college
and I have just turned ninety-one.

I went to sleep in gratitude, thinking of my daughter
who has stood by me with love, grace and courage.


John Hoyte is a retired engineer, artist, and explorer.

The Laundry Laughers

Nonfiction by Sandra Marilyn

In the days before a washing machine came to live in my kitchen and car keys came to live in my pocket to further my isolation from the bus people and the laundromat people, I had enjoyed watching those folks. I imagined I could live inside their lives for just a moment, could learn their secrets. My family was fond of saying, “grow where you’re planted”. Since I did not stay where I was planted, I modified it to say, “learn where you land.”

On one of those laundromat days I sat on a hard chair feeling its plastic slat cut into my bottom and watching my clothes tumble in an endless circle. I was feeling a bit lonely and bored when the sounds of the people around me rose up to obscure my self-absorption. The couple in the corner were having a dust-up that sometimes threatened to become too loud for a public place but then was pulled back to an almost whisper. The old man by the front door was chatting with himself in an amiable way and chortling at his own jokes.

At the folding table next to me was a small extended family of women and girls just pulling their clothes out of the dryer and tossing them into a basket. The four young girls seemed to be in a range between eight and fourteen years. My scant Spanish caught just a bit of their jovial conversation about boys and school. Then one of the girls pulled a red sweater out of the pile and held it up for inspection. The girls were average sizes but the sweater had become so small it might have fit a tiny dog. The entire family froze for a moment, stunned by the mistake and maybe considered placing blame. They all stared intently at the tiny sweater and then wide-eyed at one another. Someone had put a wool sweater in the wash when it should have gone to the dry cleaner.  

My thoughts were about how much the garment might have cost, how pretty it must have been. Had it been a gift? Which one of them counted it as a part of the wardrobe that defined her style? I would have been extremely angry at the wasteful mistake, and I definitely would have expressed that anger noisily. I would have felt defiled by the intrusion of the clumsy mistake into the collection of things I cherished, things that defined my place in the world. I thought of my own sweaters folded perfectly and waiting for their turn to impress my companions. Just waiting to announce their cashmere luxury to a world that judged my success by my assemblage of stuff. My old left-wing sensibilities rose up to argue that the world needed my intellect, my creativity, my passion, and not my cashmere. And I believed that, but it was a heavy truth laden with responsibility and it struggled to rise above the material preoccupations that lived in the swampy bottom of my soul. The swamp was thick with southern expectations I would never meet. The useless notions about what would be appropriate displays of success grew moldy there on the bottom but steadfastly refused to rot and decompose.

The moment the family had stood gaping at the tiny sweater passed and the girls began a titter that rose steadily into a boisterous mirth. The pure notes of their young voices began to fill the room with their delight. Each girl took a part of the tiny sweater and began to pull, as if they could pull it back into its original size. They pulled and laughed and laughed and pulled and spun around in a circle of mad silliness, until they collapsed on the floor in a flurry of giggles. Their joy rose to the ceiling of the room and fell back down tickling even the grumpiest of the beleaguered laundry doers. Their hilarity swirled and danced around our heads, as captivating as a quartet of piccolos. And it carried them right over the abyss where materialism would like to have captured their sparkly freedom.

Finally, a mock stern glance from their mother, who had only just managed to contain her own giggles, called them back to the pile of unfolded laundry. Mother, grandmother, and the four girls returned to the seriousness of folding clothes but occasional bursts of laughter bubbled up and were sucked back in.

Oh, how I wanted to live for a bit longer in the life of that family of laundry laughers, how I envied them their joyful freedom. I often remember them when I am tempted to believe that objects will save me, that they will present me as I want to be seen, that they matter much at all.


Sandra Marilyn lives in San Francisco with her wife and a tiny dog. She believes it is her responsibility to continually reeducate herself, so she spends her days trying to pry open the doors and windows and searching for the words to describe the light that comes through the openings.

January 1

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

This is a new year I rise to meet
to run to the sun rising red
amidst eucalyptus and slender-leafed tarcos
running the track of black earth softened
by the rains in a province of deep heat.
I run to the rhythms of a life
found in the doing
the raising of five children
transformed into leading five adults
into their next steps without me.
All is well say the birds as I run
this leaving one place for another
this removing myself suddenly with gratitude
for all that a tree over two hundred and fifty years old,
a mountain and the birds give.
We are rising to meet the new year,
the new day, the new possibility
which is beginning.
Yellow-bellied quetupí  know this every day.


Alexandra Newton Rios is a University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop graduate. Madeleine L’Engle spoke highly of her poems in 1995, and she received poetic praise from W.S. Merwin in 2011. She is a bi-hemispherical mother of five. Read an earlier poem in The Bluebird Word from July 2023.

Framed Declaration

Poetry by John Zedolik

I thank father fish for my spine,
which with the earth allows me to align
and look straight up if I choose
into the sky in effort not to lose

my bearings and reconfirm my status
as one of capacity to focus on the stratus
and my semi-separation from the ground
rejoice in relative stability found

in the necessary inherited armature
support to compete with any furniture
remain myself and certainly discrete
while with lifetime gravity I must compete


John Zedolik recently published his third collection, Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock). He has also published two other collections, When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock), and Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions), which are available through Amazon. Additionally, he has published many poems in journals around the world.

The Dawn Chorus

Poetry by Ruth Holzer

House sparrows, dull smudges of brown and gray,
begin to chirp. Though they sound like dripping faucets
they’re welcome as the messengers of light,

for another night has passed and we’re still here;
for the day approaches when we won’t be roused,
but sleep on, unaware of them and every other thing.


Ruth Holzer is the author of eight chapbooks, most recently Home and Away (dancing girl press) and Living in Laconia (Gyroscope Press). Her poems have appeared in journals including Southern Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Slant, Poet Lore and Freshwater. She has received several Pushcart Prize nominations.

A Birthday Meteor

Poetry by Jeff Burt

When the last bird-wing rose
and the bottom of the open window
became a bed for a creek of cold air
to enter the room, I saw a streak
of acetylene on the western edge of darkness
and found between my sixteenth-century Shakespeare
and my twenty-first century Einstein
a tussle between the optimistic flush of good omen
and scientific swagger that pronounces
a romantic stone a rock,
and I looked over your shoulder,
felt both lucky and fated to be with you,
and eyes lifted, wandered in the early stars
brushing against galactic wonder.


Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, with his wife, alternating between dreams of fire evacuation and dreams of floods. He has contributed to Gold Man Review, Rabid Oak, Williwaw Journal, and others. Read earlier work from The Bluebird Word’s March 2022 Issue.

Faculty Recital

Nonfiction by Pama Lee Bennett

The college students straggle in, wearing shorts and graphic T-shirts. They no longer wear protective masks, nor do I. A teacher in jeans and a faded top posts a “quick response” code on the wall, and students crowd in to scan their attendance with their smart phones. I take a seat alone in the recital hall, on the aisle in the left section, where I will be able to see not only the featured flutist, but also my pianist friend’s hands as she accompanies her. The flutist, pretty, dark-haired, and unadorned in a black blouse and black trousers, enters the stage, followed by my blonde friend in a black, long-sleeved dress. They begin, and I lean forward slightly, listening, appreciative of the tone and skill of the flutist. It is my first concert in two years.

I enjoy the first several numbers: the “Andante Pastorale et Scherzettino,” by Taffanel; “Les Folies d’Espagne,” by Marias; the “Aria” by Dohnányi. The audience is still and attentive, the flute and my friend’s virtuoso piano filling the once-empty air. Even the unfamiliar tones of the Chinese variations, by Chen Yi, interest me. And then the flutist exchanges her soprano instrument for an alto flute, and they begin playing Arvo Pärt’s, “Spiegel im Spiegel,” and the low, slow, sustained notes reach deep into my being and bring me to tears. Missing pieces of my soul silently enter the room and tentatively float to where I am seated and hover above me, pieces that had left me behind when life became distanced and isolated.

Later, backstage, I hug my friend, and I am introduced to the flutist. I say how moved I was by “Spiegel im Spiegel.” She asks if I’ve ever heard an alto flute before. I say yes, once, at a master class given by the British flutist Trevor Wye.  She exclaims, “I bought this flute from him!” I stare at her, then we smile. My missing pieces begin to fall gently back into place.


Pama Lee Bennett is a speech pathologist living in Sioux City, IA. She plays in a Renaissance recorder ensemble. She has taught at summer English language camps in Poland, and at a school there in 2019. Her poems have appeared in Bogg, Evening Street Review, Dash, and Tipton Poetry Journal.

Birthday Presence

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Poetry by Mary Kate Bunstine

There is that one day a year that is a little extra special.
It’s the day where a song is played to usher in a brand new start;
Where decorations are hung and heart balloons held.
It’s the day where I am celebrated by family and friends alike.

I blow out burning candles on a cake.
It’s the day where I make a wish or two;
Where all eyes are on me as I do.
It’s the day that is full of surprise.

It flies by.
It’s the day where proud tears trickle from my mother’s eyes;
Where she sees how far her child has come.
It’s the day I wish I could hold onto and never let go.

But when another year arrives and that day returns,
I learn that perhaps it isn’t about how fast it fades.
Nor is it about the amount of presents unwrapped.
It’s about having gratitude each time I get to blow out candles yet again.


Mary Kate Bunstine is an undergraduate student and English major. She enjoys writing pieces of poetry that focus on positivity and living in the present.

lightning bugs

Poetry by Caroline Randall

at the park, we sit at a picnic table beneath a tree, our faces disappearing in the wane of

daylight. the night is warm with a cooling wind and the scent of distant rain, but we are here,

beneath this tree, discussing the deer across the field and the amount of people still

in the park. we speak of lightning bugs and their absence, and as if summoned,

a single lightning bug glowed, then another, and another until I lost count of their

individual orbs, and i thought,

what kind of magic is this?

that led me beneath this tree?

that brought me to you?


Caroline Randall is a writer and painter living in Louisville, Kentucky. She holds an MFA and a BFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts and Spalding University, respectively. She currently proofs and edits court transcripts for a living.

Choreography

Poetry by David Curry

First there’s that exhilarating “Haste thee, nymph” segment
of Mark Morris’s l’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, a dance
seen live some years ago and, gratefully, again tonight
in a camera-smart clip posted on Facebook.

And then, this afternoon, there’s this bent woman leaning on a walker
with a broad smile for — what? — the uncommonly fair December day?
She’s by herself, oh so slow, takes two changes of the lights
to cross the street. At least one driver is impatient
and thoughtless enough to hit the horn. When
the woman gets to the other side of the street, she pauses
and looks back over her shoulder and then moves on
with her serviceable old blue coat and her intention.


David Curry‘s second collection of poetry, Contending to be the Dream, received “Special Distinction” in the Elliston Book Awards. He has been a writing fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts. For 10 years, he edited and published the poetry magazine Apple.

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