Emotions

All Poems, Emotions, Family, Spouses, Stories

Electric Garage Door

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Let’s open the garage and sneak out, whispered Bob.

Adding, forefinger to lips, and not tell Bob.

He looked at me with a glint in his eye.

Joining me in conspiracy against that grumpy Bob.

The one who, only days ago, chided me.

For opening and closing the electric garage door too many times.

Using too much electricity.

Raising our electric bill.

Which, by the way, he never sees.

Because I pay it!

The accusation startled me.

Shocked me into silence.

For, in my mind, it was he.

Opening and closing the door with abandon.

Opening it to exit with his leki stick, stored there.

Or his electric vehicle.

Driving it to the store, park, train station.

Then parking it again inside.

Protecting it from rain and snow.

So when I took umbrage, he reconsidered.

Apologized for the tongue lashing.

Saying he didn’t know what part of him spewed those words.

But, my displeasure persisted.

Each time I went to open the garage door, I asked permission.

Wearying him enough to become my partner in conspiracy.

Against the Bob from whom

even he now felt offended.

Both laughing pressing buttons.

Hurt evaporating, mended!

Lynn Benjamin

June 26, 2024

All Poems, Disappointment, Emotions, Hope, Loss

Disappointment

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Disappointments are ubiquitous.

Popping up all around us like toadstools.

Some large and intrusive.

Others, small, almost unseen.

But, everyone encounters them.

At one time or another.

Remember when a friend didn’t return a call?

A dinner date, called off?

A flight, cancelled?

A movie you wanted to see, uninspiring?

Having to choose between two important events on the same date?

Can you recall the feelings set off?

Disruption of joy?

Loss, sadness?

Anger, hurt?

What do you do?

When things just don’t work out the way you wished?

It helps me to contemplate nature.

At all the seeds dropping from trees.

Never germinating.

At birds’ nests poached.

By foxes or raccoons.

At cicadas drumming.

Not finding a mate.

All creatures, human and not, suffer disappointments.

I am not the only one.

I know I’d offer compassion to another.

So, I give it to my unsettled self.

Honor the feelings.

Scattered thoughts.

Till ready to move on.

Turning them into something worthwhile.

Some action.

Maybe writing, sharing, forgiving.

Perhaps disappointment, a toll for living.

Helping us grow strong and learn.

We’ll never want for practice.

It’s everywhere we turn!

Lynn Benjamin

June 24, 2024

All Poems, Animals/Insects, Emotions, Farewell, Loss, Natural Beauty, Plants, Pleasure, Seasons

Summer Solstice Arrives

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Summer solstice arrives.

Soaring into the heart of June.

Longest day of the year.

For butterflies, bees, chipmunks.

For me.

Lover of natural illumination.

Walks at dawn and dusk.

With a Tilley hemp hat upon my head.

Tipping it to the sun.

As we tilt closer.

Like I would a glass of champagne.

Celebrating natural milestones.

Red and pink beebalm blooms.

Lips wide, enticing winged creatures.

Bright orange butterfly weed.

Beckoning monarchs, swallowtails.

Linden blooms carpeting lawns.

For queens and princesses to tread.

Mulberries hanging heavy on branches.

Staining streets as they fall.

Congregations of day lilies praying.

Tiny green lemons bursting to life.

Frogs bellowing mating calls.

Does gazing upwards quizzically.

Baby geese growing as large as parents.

Ready to take wing.

Each scene, a piece of the jigsaw.

Filling in the frame of bright June days.

Do plants and animals tire of so much light?

Are they hungrier, thirstier?

Or are they greedy like me?

Wanting to seize sunbeams?

Already sad to bid the solstice farewell.

Bit by bit what’s sunlit will fade.

As earth slips away from sun.

Shorter days bringing nighttime shade.

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 22, 2024

All Poems, Animals/Insects, Emotions, Stories, Worry

Turtle

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I was finishing my morning walk.

When I saw the turtle.

Sitting in the middle of the street.

Large, green, ponderous.

Lichen sticking to its shell, a patina.

Oh no, I thought, as I ran toward it.

To pluck it from its precarious place.

Just as a huge white truck started turning toward us.

I jumped into the road.

Waving arms, pointing, shouting, stop.

The driver slammed on his brakes.

Exited the cab of the vehicle.

Be careful, I wagged my forefinger again toward the turtle.

Could you put it back on the lawn? I asked politely.

But, the man spoke quickly.

Explaining he had five turtles in his yard at home.

He wanted to take this one to add to the collection.

My heart started racing.

My head spun.

As I’m an advocate for animal freedom.

Wild creatures belong in the wild.

But there was no stopping him.

He lifted the reptile.

Tucked it into his trunk.

Leaving my thoughts in pieces.

I wished the turtle to be safe,

near a grassy, leafy pond.

Close to all its relatives,

near to where it spawned. 

But, if it wanders into traffic,

like a careless vagabond,

then anyone who comes along,

with the tortoise could abscond.

Though my worries flocked like starlings,

fretting I could be conned,

he might get the protection he needs

postponing the great beyond.

I reassured myself

the man knew how to bond.

The old turtle would be content.

Of his new home grow fond.

The living space would be charming,

elegant, well adorned.

Elevating the old creature

to pizazz in beau monde.

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 20, 2024

Beau monde is the world of high society.

All Poems, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Emotions, Politics, Stories, Worry

Storm

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Humidity made the heat seem like steam off an iron.

The weather app didn’t predict rain until late tonight.

So I donned a sundress to drive to a birthday/anniversary dinner.

My seventy-fifth, our fifty-fourth.

But without warning, the sky bellowed.

Lit up like a chandelier.

First raindrops, round, heavy.

Falling like drips from a leaky faucet.

Then picking up speed.

Coming down in torrents.

Gushing waterfalls.

Doing battle with windshield wipers.

Winning the competition.

Making it hopeless to discern trees, shops, oncoming cars.

To step out into rushing waters.

Gushing currents.

So, we sat there, peering from the windows.

Awesome spectacle.

Hammering the roof.

Exploding all around.

Setting off turmoil inside my head.

Struggling to remain still.

Not to threaten the joy of the occasion.

Now impossible.

Sorrow, rage, lamentation.

Unleashed by the tumult.

For a sick grandchild, her family.

For corrupt politicians, their enablers.

A partisan supreme court.

Disinformation, repeated in media echo chambers.

Republican party rhetoric.

Preferring guns to safety.

Isolationism to global engagement.

Alienation to cooperation.

The heavens scream.

As do I in silent affirmation.

Mourning time’s twisting, whirling waves.

How can we bequeath this roiling world to our young?

Slipping backwards?

To before women had rights?

My mind, liberated by the chaos.

Ruminations swirling in the winds.

Wandering, then wondering.

Here we’re dry inside a car.

What about robins, bees?

Grounded like commercial jets.

Can’t go where they please.

Once the whirlwind over,

winged creatures again will fly.

Soothing agitated thoughts

in mellifluous lullaby.

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 15, 2024

 

All Poems, Emotions, Family, Grandchildren, Loss, Stories

Easy to Forget

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It’s easy to forget.

The longing eleven-year-olds have for companionship.

Yearning for company of family members.

Before the adolescent push for friends.

Elias articulated wishes to be with parents, siblings.

Disappointment when they, occupied with work or school.

Or social media or sleep.

So, Bob and I, grandparents, seized every second of each moment.

To spend time with him.

During his short foray here.

On Shavuot while his mother worked.

Enjoying meals together on the deck, in the atrium.

Making protein shakes.

Taking him to exercise classes.

Miniature golf, the supermarket.

Meandering the neighborhood.

Seeking foxes, deer, bunnies.

Hummingbirds, butterflies.

Watering the garden.

Listening endlessly.

To what he’s learned.

Science, economics, botany.

Observations about the world.

Worries about personal maladies.

Most of all, his desires.

To hang out with parents, siblings.

In these days of hustle bustle,

when everyone’s plugged in,

hard to find time and space

to bond with closest kin.

Familial hungering, sad.

Though grandparents fill holes,

the child knows those he really wants,

and itemizes woes.

Lynn Benjamin

June 14, 2024

All Poems, Change, Cousins, Electronics, Emotions, Family, Stories, Weddings

Waiting for the Call

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I started waiting for the call at three.

The first part of the time frame established.

Earlier in the week.

Saturday, between three and five.

I texted, asking if he was ready to talk.

No answer.

So, I continued working on my laptop.

Till Bob suggested a walk.

I guess he forgot, I lamented.

As we spun around the neighborhood.

Upon return, WhatsApp tinged.

Asking pardon for not calling.

He was at the gym.

Forgot his phone.

Can I call soon? he typed.

Very soon, I replied. We’ll be eating in half an hour.

Two minutes, flashed the reply.

In two, the cell rang.

My young cousin from Santiago.

Whom we hosted seventeen years ago.

So he could attend high school in Upper Dublin.

Learn English, see some sites.

Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Boston.

Now telling me his wedding date.

Could we come to Chile?

And, maybe in two years, we could meet in New York.

He and his wife, coming to the US for a month in Spring, 2026.

It was a conversation full of details, news.

Lots of catch-up.

Family, career, life in general.

Did I mention?  It was all in Spanish.

Soft tones of Santiago.

Not the jarring sh sounds of Buenos Aires.

Martín doesn’t yet speak English.

I did my best, listening, responding.

In my rusty Spanish.

I think I got the gist.

The important information.

The sense of being remembered.

Not mislaid in life’s press.

Joy of reconnection.

Soul-warming blessedness.

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 9, 2024

All Poems, Animals/Insects, Emotions, Food, Humor, Loss, Stories

Day of Lamentation

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It was a day of lamentation.

Rabbits ate the peas. The deer, cucumbers, eggplants.

Bob intoned at intervals.

Punctuated by, it makes me sad.

It’s true, he worked hard potting those plants.

In tidy rows outback.

Where, in years past, no animals bothered them.

But, once he put peas downstairs, they lured other forest friends.

So, by the end of the day, his crops, nearly decimated.

So, too, his spirits.

Which he soothed, shelling peas.

Picked up this morning at a local farmer’s market.

Also, by harvesting the first purslane.

Grown on the deck above the pillaged produce.

Then serving peas, purslane with dinner outside.

Listening to avian concerts.

Ignoring the garlic and rotten egg odor.

Laid down below to repel deer.

Then taking a walk through perfumed lanes.

Honeysuckles, magnolias, Japanese lilacs.

Instant aha in nature’s hall.

In the scheme, what’s lost is small.

Did you hear the sacred call?

Give the hungry green coleslaw!

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 2, 2024

 

 

Aging, All Poems, Change, Cousins, Emotions, Family, Gardens, Health/Illness, Loss, Regret, Stories

Sitting with Libby

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I’m glad we went to see Libby today, said Bob.

Bustling around the kitchen.

Reflecting on the afternoon.

I’m glad we visited, too.

A chance to sit outside with her.

Under Japanese lilacs.

Perfuming breezes.

Sneaking through open doors to sweeten corridors.

In the residence where she now resided.

It was peaceful.

Not a word about politics.

Conviction of Trump.

Just being together in the garden.

Three of us, alone.

Talking about her soon-to-be ninety-first birthday.

Her new great grandson.

Mention of him filling her eyes with tears.

Scrolling photos on her phone.

Stopping at azaleas outside her former home.

Pictures, she requested from her son.

Still living there.

Blooming bushes, a place, a season she misses.

Trading them for needed care.

Knowing the choice, right.

But wistful for what she left behind.

We sat in shade.

Just present with each other.

I, commenting on her pink nails, short haircut.

Simple, unhurried conversation.

Plying her about my maternal grandparents.

Her aunt and uncle.

Whom she knew growing up.

But who didn’t survive past my second year.

She, the last link in the family to remember them.

My turn to feel melancholy.

Not getting to know them.

I wish my parents told me more.

Or maybe I hadn’t heard.

Tenuous my history.

Who’s left to pass on the word?

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 1, 2024

Art/Arts, Emotions, Health/Illness, Stories

What Was I Doing?

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What was I doing lying on the sidewalk?

At Fifth and Chestnut?

Didn’t I just cross the street?

From Independence Square toward the Arden?

What happened?

Why do I see legs, a pole?

Instead of pedestrian faces?

What’s that scrape on my palm?

Who’s the man offering help?

Thanks. Yes, I’m fine, as I grab the outstretched hand.

Pulling me onto my feet.

A little disoriented.

Your shoe hit the cutout in the curb, the stranger pointed.

Sure you’re okay?  he asked before moving on.

I assured him I was fine, dusting off clothing.

I spun to walk with Bob.

Hoping I didn’t rip my slacks.

Thinking, they’re new.

Strange, what goes through the mind.

After an accident.

I looked down.

Slacks, untorn.

Only the leg underneath skinned.

So, we proceeded.

Stopped at CVS for Purell.

To apply to the bloody scrape.

Then off to see Once on this Island.

Fairytale to distract.

Grateful to stand up, move.

Walk away intact.

 

Lynn Benjamin

May 29, 2024