Category Archives: Shi Sai

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 2 April 2017


It’s a beautiful Sunday here in the Blue Ridge valley. The horizon is wispy white fading upward into a crystaline cerulean cloudless dome. The air is crisp and cool.

I forget to breathe most days, gulping in pitiful bursts only when my lungs complain that the stale air I’m hoarding needs to go. And so it goes, burdened with survival, I dig my 9-5 rut deeper and wider.

I know it’s not healthy. Living for sleep to be savored in that elusive omega-alpha 48-hour threshold called weekends. I sleep in the daylight while others play between brief bursts of energy as I try to make up for everything didn’t have time to do during the week.

It’s exhausting, but I suspect even more exhausting because I forget to breathe. It’s such a simple thing. A mindless, instinctual reflex that when coupled with mindfulness makes all the difference. Breathe. 😊

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 2 April 2017

if only I could rid myself of them
know every rock by name
hidden in the footnotes of history
seeds from muddy crypts
reality, a pity
presence, just a breath away
like a skipped heartbeat
the salty air, the fishy smells and slimy ooze
moments slip away
long past their demise
smile, but remember
the gloaming lingers on

~kat

A shi sai or ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 March 2017


Another week, another Sunday. It was an emotionally exhausting week. I realized late on Friday that I have been holding my breath since November. Well, not literally of course. That’s not something I would recommend. But I have been holding my breath, figuratively, watching the world crumble with each executive order, congressional bill and lie that has gone unquestioned and unchallenged.

Some of us dodged a bullet this week. We, as in 24 million people still have healthcare; we, as in senior citizens, immigrants, the mentally ill, refugees, women, mothers, and those who hope to be. It was a tiny victory, but the battle rages on. While I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, the world lost innocent souls to terror from radicals as well as from coalition forces. “Bombing the hell out of them…” as our fake president likes to boast, is not a sustainable nor advisable foreign policy, especially when innocent victims are part of the collateral damage of such actions. It only makes things worse.

I breathed on Friday. For the first time in months I didn’t feel helpless or hopeless. Resistance to this speeding runaway train is not futile. Still, those wielding power in the name of privilege, greed, hate and yes, even religion, will not let go of the reigns willingly. But they mustn’t win. It’s personal. It’s important that those who are suffering know that they matter. It’s important that they feel loved and that they know there is a seat at the table for them, for all of us. Because we’re in this together; because…Love is all. ❤

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 March 2017

what are your intentions?
it is the sweet things
heaven’s awaitin’
selling love over death
death disguised herself in fleeting sweetness
sometimes what you search most for
(is) first to root in frosted earth
breeze by, nose upturned,
they whisper in soft kisses
sleeping with me, then leaving,
what was it with these people
proving they are fools
especially one whose gentle nature informed her conscience early in life
Love is all

~kat

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A shi sai or ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 March 2017


Happy Sunday. Though I try to spin goodness and hope into my day to day I must acknowledge the fact that I am also a creature of my environment. I imagine that I am given a clean slate to write upon each morning, new in its graces, but it is not long before I realize how daunting that is. It is a balancing act on a fragile tight rope. It is exhausting. It’s impossible to blot out the never-ending stream of lunacy that bombards me even on the sunniest of mornings. Even if I try avoid all media and the cacophony of negative spin, lies and negative vibes, it is always there. Reality.

How does one rise above? How do I continue to press toward the light when I know that darkness is an inevitable end of each day. This week we turned our clocks forward to save the daylight, but the night still comes, cold, dark, sometimes scary, haunted by shadows that block streams of artificial light. Even the moon is a reflection. Try as I may I cannot hide from the darkness of the night any more than I can hide from the dark elements of reality.

But I’m still an optimist at heart. It’s there. The ugly. It will always be there. At the risk of appearing totally bonkers I still greet the blank slate I am given every morning with hope because beauty, goodness, love and truth are also realities in this crazy world of ours. They may be harder to find in the harsh light of day or hidden in the shadows of the night, but they’re there too. Today, every day, has great potential.

I leave you with this week’s Shi Sai and the paraphrased words of the Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the frantic little man behind the curtain.”

Have a great week. Spring is almost here! 🌱🌸🌻🌸🌱
Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 March 2017

like breathy kisses
the old house was a writer
ever chasing the light
those who twist the truth
impossible to hear
it’s better this way
a fading memory
set in rock and sand
blossoms of love
from heaven’s vantage
stones etched mysteriously
eden softly dawning

~kat

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A shi sai or ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 5 March 2017


Happy Sunday. Wow! Normally I would be trying to make sense of the lines that I lifted from the past week’s posts. But today, as I sit outside in the bitter nip of winter, the birds are trilling as if it is spring…like mercury colliding…moments of unexpected clarity…consume me…

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 5 March 2017

Simplicity, just being it, is best
Everything happens for a reason,
the past best left to ashes
but I always smile as if…
to have a do-over
Touched by the divine
its light burns fog into mist
A life of worry
It’s a waste of time
The cruelest fate
It is such a waste
But plenty
had to see if the rumors were true
to slip anonymously through the crowds
feel their presence ever so near
as a great flash of light consumed them
beware of the glitch
I see your heart
the loveliest flowers
Color me

~kat

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A shi sai or ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the shi sai features the words of one writer,providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week. 😊


Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 February 2017


Happy Sunday! Today’s Shi Sai is a bit like a ping pong ball that has pinged out of play and is now ponging off random surfaces. It happens. Sometimes my little experiment with words goes off track. At least at first reading.

It is only after a second read through or a third…maybe a half dozen more that I am able to decipher what spilled out of my brain over the course of the past week.

Sometimes I wonder why I do it. Why it is so important for me to write day after day; words upon words and more words. I tell myself I do it for myself; that it keeps me sane. That much is true.

And there is this other thing. I suppose it’s also true, for me at least, what they say about writers and artists. We long to be remembered, to be understood, to be known. I admit this part is true, too. I am entering the last decade, or if I’m lucky, the last two or three more, of my time on the planet. My life has mostly been about deepening the rut of survival, raising kids, sleeping, working, sleeping, working.

And there is a third reason why I create words, art and the like; to counter the negativity best expressed in the saying, “Life is a bitch and then you die.” I don’t believe this; that nothing matters. Everything and everyone does. Matter, that is. Like renegade ping pong balls we bounce off as many surfaces as momentum and gravity will allow because inertia is not an option, because not ping ponging is death.

Oh…and we bounce off each other too. That’s the best part. The messy, magnificent part. My words, this blog allow me to bounce off more of you than I ever imagined possible. And so I write. A lot. It’s as if I am saving the best part for last. When all is said and done…and written, it’s not a bad way to go.

Have a great week in and out of the rut. keep pinging! ❤

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 26 February 2017

I think I’ve missed the point.
we call it prayer
the power was ours all along
pools of vibrant life force welling
at water’s edge
fire meet ice
the heat was rising
what of the shattered remains?
I can be spontaneous
it’s not that I’m not strong, you know
it’s early morning drenched in dew
breathtaking
elusive
hear the truth
be windows
truth
nectar of the
fog
she had a mind and wasn’t afraid to use it
you likely know a scapegrace
when days grow long
memories of dying stars
we’re all but lost but for the brave

~kat