memories of a feral youth

flowers in pots on the window ledge
of a second floor brownstone, 
and me knocking on a creaky 
aluminum screen door,
invited inside, to eat cookies 
with orange juice in a jelly jar
my mother would eventually 
come to fetch me…
they were so nice, the neighbors 
even though I was an escape artist
even though I picked a flower 
from their window ledge garden
to give to my mother 
(I would learn that taking 
things that didn’t belong to me 
was bad, and made people sad that day…)
I would learn about forgiveness too
the next time I escaped, welcomed once 
again, with cookies and orange juice 
in a jelly jar, and my neighbor 
smiling at me from across 
a linoleum laminated 
table with an metal rim
as we waited for my mother 
to come fetch me again…
a seemingly sweet memory 
that years later 
disturbs me as I wonder
how did I, a toddler of two or three,
have such freedom to wander…

~kat

NaGloPoWriMo 27 April 2025 Prompt:

What goes up but never comes down?
Your age. 

Terrible jokes aside, ages and aging make great poetry fodder. Write a poem about a specific year in your life. It can be an age that has passed and is memorable or one that’s to come that you may be dreading or hope to embrace. / Recommended reading: “At Twenty” by Heidi Seaborn and “Two Months Before My 65th Birthday” by David James

Today’s glimmer…discovering a new bug!

I have photos of bugs and plants and fungi as well as animals that wander the woods surrounding my house in the foothills. I love learning new things. Every day there is something to discover. Today it was a bug. I have never seen a bug that looks like this bug. So of course I snapped a photo of it so I could research it later…