Tag: memories (Page 1 of 2)

Papa’s Garage

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Sarah Pouliot

I stood in your garage, inhaling sawdust
like incense as you unveiled the new altar:
a dove and an olive branch etched into peeling
cedar, curled shavings scattered on cement
like split ends at a barber shop.

“There’s a sculpture inside every sapling;
my job is to set it free,” you told me—
voice as rusty as the metal bench I leaned on.
I didn’t know you were quoting Michelangelo
until “Taps” resounded from a bugle

and two men folded an American flag
into a perfect triangle—the day New
Hampshire’s bleached sky became
an ocean of arctic terns, white wings
coalescing behind their captain.

Now, I stand in your garage.
It’s cleaner than ever.
No shavings stick to my soles
as I glimpse the sallow glow of Christmas lights
Dad hangs with your hammer.

Sarah Pouliot is a poet from Titusville, Florida. She believes that poetry holds the power to bring stillness and meditative reflection amid life’s chaos, and she hopes that her writing can do this for you—even if only for a moment.

The Singing Lake

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Sandra Hosking

Sacheen Lake sings in winter
Though its surface is still
It sounds like a hammer on a metal roof
A rap on a hollow oaken door
A ghost desperate to escape the attic

The lake wants to tell you a story
It knocks, it bangs, it reverberates
Tales of fallen fishermen
An osprey dropping its prey
Splashing children
A lost oar, floating free

It holds these memories
Beneath its frozen shell
Until the sun returns
To release them

Sandra Hosking is a Pushcart-nominated poet, playwright, and photographer in the Pacific Northwest. Her chapbook, Forces of Nature, was recently published by Dancing Girl Press. Her work has appeared in The Ana, Red Ogre, Havik, Black Lion Review, and more. She holds M.F.A. degrees in theatre and creative writing. Visit sandrahosking.com.

Following Fireflies

1 August 2025 / Editor

Poetry by KB Ballentine

A dream in midsummer lures
each of us to those thin places
where we abandon our fear
as sun and moon slip into their dance
of lights. We adore the mock-orange
sweetness anchored in our memories—
ones we neglect through busy-ness.
Weary, we welcome this longest day,
grumble of darkness faint for now.
Soon, Hercules will usher Scorpius
across the night horizon. But tonight,
if we listen, we can hear the dead speak.

KB Ballentine’s newest collection is All the Way Through (Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., 2024). She has eight previous poetry collections and was recently awarded Poetry Society of Tennessee’s 2025 Best of the Fest and Writer’s Digest November 2024 PAD Chapbook Challenge. Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.

Memories of Old Things

22 July 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Peter A. Witt

Bedroom closet is full of ghosts,
not the kind that lay siege with angst,
no, the kind that recall the warmth
of a spring day, when soon to be wife,
Sally, was the victim of my indiscreet kiss
as I wore my still favorite blue-green shirt.

An old skate brings memories of doing twirls
on the frozen pond until Mr. Smithers
chased us near teens off, afraid we’d
all plunge to our deaths, or worse yet,
having to rescue us.

Coin collection reminds me of Uncle Fred,
the dear old man, who used the tarnished gelt
as props to tell us endless stories about places
he’d visited, but really hadn’t, we listened anyway.

Under a shadow of dust is a painting,
the brush by numbers kind, done in third grade —
like the rest of my life, colors spilling
over the boundaries and mismatched.

Finally, a baseball caught on the day
Sandy Koufax pitched a no-hitter for the third time,
at least that’s what I told people, and would
pass onto my grandson without correcting the story.

Cleaned out the closet as I packed for the retirement home,
no room there for anything beyond a few faded pictures,
last year’s Christmas cards, my favorite reading chair,
a pile of books I’ve meant to read for years,
and a heavy blanket I’ll lay over my lap,
while I finish a painting with my unsteady hand.

Originally published in The Bluebird Word in April 2023.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a retired university Professor. He also writes family history. His poetry has been published on various sites including Verse-Virtual, Indian Periodical, Fleas on the dog, Inspired, Open Skies Quarterly, Active Muse, New Verse News and Wry Times. Read his poem “Garden Reading” from The Bluebird Word‘s January 2023 Issue.

Making Beds

7 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

I throw the clean sheet up into the air
that my mother bought us
from the United States
to stretch it across the wide algarrobo bed
and as I center the white-and-light gray striped top sheet,
tuck each side along the bed
with the tips of my fingers
because the top sheet has not held bodies,
cradled them across the years
unlike the bottom fitted sheet grown threadbare
and sewed back into life several times,
I think of my mother before she is gone.
I have been doing this a lot lately
and wonder if the memory of her
will remain in the sheet
when I fly it into the air
and let it down on my bed.
Will memory cover me and warm me
when I need to be warmed?
How do we suddenly stretch memories
so that out of the old the new may come?
My mother taught me to fold
hospital bed corners at the end of the bed
holding sheets and blanket together.
I gained a Housekeeping badge
as a Junior Girl Scout.
We are so different.
Throughout my years in another land
where she was born I have only needed
to know she is still living.

Alexandra Newton Rios is the mother of five children and a marathon runner. Nueva York Poetry Press published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem in 34 parts as a dialogue with American artist Georgia O’Keeffe in November 2024.

Sparks

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Daphne Riddle

A night in September
surrounded by water
that’s when we first sparked

gentle as ever
I never felt better
meeting your light with my dark

your hands in my hair
that shirt that you wear
our love summed up in parts

the sparks aren’t there
and I wish that you’d care
I’m lost here in the dark

I look for you everywhere
and you just carry on
I’m questioning all those years
but all I really want
is floating in September

with all of the fish
and the stars
and the songs
and the sparks

Daphne Riddle is an artist from Southern California. She is a music student at CSU Long Beach and an active songwriter. She is largely influenced by her study of international art song and her career as a musician. Writing is her foundation to heal.

The Horses

1 June 2024 / Editor

Nonfiction by Kandi Maxwell

I miss the horses. Those wild Mustangs that filled the fields near the old, abandoned house. I imagined the house, as all that was left by the time I visited was a stone chimney. In spring the large pasture bloomed yellow with stink weed. I loved those tall, ruffled leaves and yellow flower heads. The plant is actually named Tansy Ragwort—an invasive, noxious weed, but who couldn’t love them with a nickname like Stinking Willie? I savored Willie’s weedy, earthy smell like a sweaty man who worked the land. I never saw those Mustangs eat the plant. Instead, they ate the hay thrown off an old truck and onto the ground by a rancher.

I visited in the mornings before work. I’d bring a lidded cup of coffee that was always too cool for my liking, but I willingly gave up the heat for moments. Snatches of wild. Dust. The soft, high-pitched neigh, or whinny sounds the horses made while feeding. I drove to the old road in my Nissan truck. Pulled into a pocket of packed earth and parked. Opened the truck bed and sat on the tail gate. Sipped cold coffee. Soaked in the soothing smells of hay and horses and dirt.

I was an idiot. Knew nothing about horses, but there was an attraction, and I wanted to be near them. I knew enough not to touch them. They were wild, after all. Still, sometimes I walked into their pasture. Got too close so I could take photos. I look at one now. See numerous paint patterns in colors like copper, red, black, and white. Long tails touching hooves. Noses buried in hay. Their black shadows on the golden morning landscape.

Later, when my husband and I moved onto thirty acres in north-eastern California, we had six horses. Lloyd is my second husband. He had owned horses for years before we married. Knew how to handle them. How to ride. We adopted a wild Mustang with colors of black, white, and reddish brown. She was stunning, but never ridden, though Lloyd managed to halter her for brushing and hoof trims. There were evening runs. The horses seemed to instigate this play—walking towards the dogs who waited by the fence. When the horses and dogs were almost side by side, they ran. Horses on one side of the fence, dogs on the other; joy emerged through sounds of hooves hitting the ground, horses neighing, dogs barking.

After twelve years, we sold the place in Modoc County to return to family in the Sierra foothills. We were down to two horses when we moved. We sold our rideable, paint quarter horse. Oreo, the Mustang, was given to a trainer who specialized in wild horses. We no longer have horses, so I yearn to hear them running— their drumbeat, the song of wild.

I live about an hour from where the stone chimney stood and the Mustangs ran. Both are gone, the land covered over by apartment buildings and new homes. Across the street is a medical complex, a few restaurants, more new apartments. So much lost in all this new. I’ve come to an age where I’m often distraught by changes I don’t want to see. Wistful of an imagined simpler life. I tell myself to be more present, but I resist. My future is shorter than the past, and I miss the horses.

Kandi Maxwell is a creative nonfiction writer living in Northern California. Her stories have been published in Hippocampus Magazine, KYSO Flash, RavensPerch, Wordrunner eChapbooks, and other literary journals and anthologies. Her memoir, Snow After Fire, was released in 2023 by Legacy Book Press. Learn about Kandi’s writing at kandimaxwell.com.

The Block

1 April 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Richard Higgins

The keyboard avoids my fingers’ touch
as if words I need are in its clutch.

My pen sits unused without a care
and lined notebook pages blankly stare.

Neurons fire on an unrelated task
ignoring the questions that I ask.

I have a great story here to tell
but too many memories to quell.

Richard Higgins retired from the nuclear operations business after 50 years and became a writer. He lives in the Detroit Metro area. This is his first published poem.

Blue Snow Globe

31 December 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Jennifer Smith

My winter is ice, but its depth is of my choosing.
Not a sharp, piercing icicle to stab my soul,
but slender glistens of frozen branches on bare trees along our Smoky Mountain trails.

My December ice is not the weak spot on a frozen Tennessee lake.
It is twilight snowflakes with sapphire and silver sparkles,
brushing our faces and street lamps on a Winter Solstice walk downtown.

This seasonal ice is not the danger of a polar path I slip on.
I select shelter in warmth of a southern snow castle,
illuminated in pink pearl tones of protection from darkness and harsh mountain winds.

The blue of the season is not desolate steel grey from a palette of mourning.
My shade is Atlantic Ocean turquoise,
washing ashore your message in a bottle at wintertide on Orange Beach.

Any frost of mid-winter blues is soothed by tunes from a playlist of our Maui shore memories.
My coldest days are layered with island glory,
in songs and swirls of ultramarine and sea, of cobalt and sky.

On a night designed for confetti and celebration, the clock counts down hours, minutes, seconds.
I wrap myself in luxurious, rich velvet of indigo midnight,
and see our friendship amid the stars of a New Year.

Jennifer Smith is a retired speech-language pathologist, residing in Northwest Georgia. She is published in Fictionette and Fifty Word Stories. Jennifer holds an Educational Specialist Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Lincoln Memorial University and a Creative Writing Certificate from Kennesaw State University.

Family Photo courtesy of Terri Watrous Berry

Jack and the Box

31 December 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Terri Watrous Berry

It was the perfect size to hide a dog toy, plus it needed no wrapping since a brightly colored festive design ─ Santa in fact ─ was imprinted right on the cardboard. A loose-fitting detachable lid made it easy for him to nudge open with his nose, and since we used it year after year to hide his gift, Jack knew that box was his. We watched in awe once as he located it among other wrapped gifts, nudged it off the shelf where it was being kept with the rest until Christmas, flipped off the lid and trotted away with his new toy like a successful bandit.

The first Christmas after he passed, seeing his box again of course broke my heart anew, but I decided to make use of it one last time to hold a gift for my daughter Cathy’s cat, Misty. After stuffing two bags of cat treats inside, I inscribed the cat’s name across the lid in indelible red marker and placed it under the tree with the rest.

After all the gifts were opened Christmas day, Cathy began to scoop up the mountain of crumpled wrap, beleaguered bows, and boxes too abused to be of future use, stuffing it all into a big black garbage bag. When she picked up the box, she paused before calling, “Mom?” and then asked gently if I wanted to save it. I hesitated only a moment before telling her to dispose of it with the rest, thinking to myself of its heart-wrenching memories.

Apparently, however, Jack did not agree.

We live on several acres in a rural area, and our trash cans have to be hauled down the long driveway to the road the evening before the truck comes the following morning. The first pick-up day following that first Christmas without our beloved Springer, after donning coat, hat, boots, gloves and wrapping a scarf around my neck, I stepped out into the frigid air to retrieve our emptied cans. Jack used to accompany me on that chore.

I was keenly feeling his absence again on that drab grey Michigan morning, head down, listening to the snow crunch while watching my boots shuffle through even more that had fallen during the night. Rounding the bend as I approached the road, I looked up and saw the emptied cans lying in our yard as usual, their lids flung nearby, but something else caught my eye, something colorful standing smack dab in the middle of our driveway.

When I realized what it was I stopped abruptly, and then I laughed out loud. For Jack’s box had managed somehow to escape not only the garbage bag but also the grinding maw of the garbage truck that day ─ it was the only thing that did ─ and had landed undamaged in such a conspicuous spot that I could not have failed to notice.

Make of it what you will.

As for me, that empty little gift box was a gift, and it wasn’t empty at all. No, it was simply brimming with wise advice from a dear and faithful companion, telling me to remember the good times we had together not try to forget them, and that those we truly love are never really gone. Still chuckling as I bent to scoop it up, I continued to do so off and on all the way back up to the house.

Misty’s name that I had inscribed on the box with what claimed to be an indelible marker easily wiped right off, and now every year when decorations come down from the attic, Jack’s box is one of the ones I most look forward to seeing again. And it never fails to make me smile.

Terri Watrous Berry is a Michigan septuagenarian whose work has appeared over the past thirty-five years in anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers, with awards for prose from venues as diverse as The Hemingway Festival and the Des Plaines/ Park Ridge NOW Feminist Writer’s Competition.