Category Archives: Life Lessons

A ReVerse Poem – Sunday, October 16, 2022

I thought this was a good time for a look back. Autumn has taken hold full force here on Bramlett Mountain, with the leaves blushing orange, gold, and crimson and the trees letting them go to ride the wind. The hummingbirds have set flight to the tropics. The days are growing shorter and the mornings are dusted lightly with frost. 

As I reflected on the past several months of poems that made it to the page despite my too busy life, I was struck by how moved I was to read the words again. It’s been an unsettling time for the world at large, and in my own corner of it, having let go yet another life-long companion to the rainbow. Four sweet souls this year. Gone. I don’t know that I have fully grieved for each of them as their departures came too soon…always too soon…before I could catch my breath, another and another.

Because of all this, it seems my writing is tinged with melancholy. And yet joy has a way of breaking through even in the darkest of times. Nature reminds us it’s time to let go, to slow down, to rest. I’m listening. How ripe am I for resting, for breathing deeply…for letting go!

A ReVerse Poem - Sunday, October 16, 2022

despair is like a tidal wave
there is not much that can be said
your dreams are clinging on the brink
the wind rushed trees, the sky, dark gray
there’s a special place in hell for you,
just beyond the veil, while we weep
joy breaks through
of resilience, audacity, of life..
as most lives go, pendulums swing
as the world grows darker by the day
the bitter and the sweet
you will wonder where time’s gone,
to embrace moments of joy,
how odd it feels
like a whisper summer fades
fall leaves, gone with the wind

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) 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 ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. 

little tree

take care, what you wish for
little tree; don’t rush to blush
amidst midsummer’s balmy
haze, for summer comes but
once a season; take your cue from
elder trees, their lavish manes
of sparkling emerald, chartreuse
and sage, wisdom comes from
weathering life’s cycles, grace and
age, and autumn, with her cool dawn
snap will be here soon enough
you’ll see; so entertain the breeze
and dance, while dusk holds back
the shade of night, your dreams
will keep, they’re never late,
but lie in wait until the time
is right…oh little tree stay green,
let your sprouting limbs grow strong
stretch your roots into the loam
that holds the memories of home
in just a blink your innocence
will be laid bare, as winter’s
snow becomes your hair, the night
will wrap you tight and long and
you will wonder where time’s gone,
and think about the summers passed,
while drifting off to sleep

~kat

stop and smell the roses

Photo courtesy of RoonZ-nl on Pixabay.com
“stop and smell the roses”

stop trying to please
and take some time for you to
smell spring’s sweetness in
the moments after the rain
roses misted, dressed in red

~kat

NaPoWriMo2022 -Day 6 Prompt: write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line.

To challenge myself even more, this poem was created using Original Magnetic Poetry online in the format of a Tanka 😊

falling to pieces

falling to pieces

i’ve been watching the great oak
in my yard for several years now…
she doesn’t play by the rules
of autumn, clinging tightly to
faded, parched leaves against
the fiercest of tempests, through
ice and heavy lobs of wet snow,
though her branches may bend
to almost breaking, she holds fast
i don’t know what to think of such
a tree, is it vanity, stubbornness,
a lapse of memory? for as sure
as summer drifts to autumn and
autumn to winter, spring will come
as the sun grows warm and days
grow long, life will begin to surge
through her veins causing buds
to burst, at long last setting their
departed siblings free to ride the wind,
to taste the earthen loam, to rest,
to rest in peace in a sea of greening

i’ve been known to be stubborn, to
cling too tightly to things not meant
for me, to useless longing for what
once was, my memory forgetful of
the struggles of those glorified once
upon a times, and time again i have
been known to stand full-faced
against a tempest, convinced i held
on and on for virtue’s sake, believing
martyrdom raised me up, oh there
it is, the vanity, how loathsome
to be a tree that can’t let go
when letting go is one’s very destiny…
letting go to ride the wind, to fall to pieces,
to trust the seasons, to know that
whatever is left of me is all i need
and here, now is where i’m meant to be


~kat

mother oak

mother oak

she stands, deeply rooted
amidst a grove of shallow-footed
firs, bursting with fruit; her evergreen
friends taunting her as she blushes
red, surrendering her modesty
to the cool winds of autumn

what dreams she’ll dream when
winter comes, memories wakened
in the deep, dark loam, buried there
where only her roots can taste them,
memories of seasons past, of
seed-burst longing to breach the
grave, to life, to feel the sun upon
her face and the sweet seductive
breeze, the thrill of greening

she stands, deeply rooted
amidst a grove of shallow-footed
firs, some felled by tempests, or the ax
destined to waste away to dust covered
in gaudy baubles and tinsel, their
ever-greenness an illusion laid
bare at the altar of lost souls, and
rendered to ash at vanity’s bonfire

yes, she stands, deeply rooted
in the bosom of she who keeps
this blue orb spinning, sailing
through a sea of sweet milk just
far enough from the sun not
to be consumed and close enough
to the moon to see her reflection,
light and shadow colliding, in
ecstasy, heart and soul all-knowing

~kat

-Inspired by a new book I’m reading… “Seeds From the Wild Verge” by Brendan Ellis Williams