How to Open a Door

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash

 

It’s really such a chore.
First: Put on your shoes.
No wait, back up and choose
socks thick and woolly
or cotton thin. Choose fully
aware that at the end is the door.
So perhaps your long fuzzy socks,
or those colored like phlox,
or socks with bold polka-dots?
Carefully arrange your thoughts
ere your feet hit the floor.
Second: Examine the shoes,
for again you must choose,
before you can grasp the handle.
Glass slippers or boots or sandals,
it all depends on what you intend
to find on the other side of the door.

Burnt Cross Buns

 

Sitting in the oven are the hot cross buns
Where the heat is rising and it’s hotter than the sun
Watch them blacken, watch the growing smoke
Alas, the fire alarm is blaring and it’s no joke

Call your daughters and your sons
Come and weep for the hot cross buns
After such a tragedy, what can you do?
Start all over, make another batch or two.

 

 

Sadly, this poem is based on a true story. And if you're looking at the picture thinking, "Those don't look too bad," those are the hot cross buns that survived. Pictures weren't taken until after the charred ones had been donated to the trash can. Luckily, the redemption batch was perfect.

 

 

Before the Magic

Woman using a swift. Photo by Les Triconautes on Unsplash

 

Before the magic of hooks and needles
dance through stretched out string
forming curving pathways,
there’s the whir and work and magic of the swift.

Whisking thread from hank to ball
thus molding the universe
and preparing for triumph
long before the work begins.

 

 

A swift is used to hold a hank of yarn while it's being wound into a ball.