Tag Archives: Remember

August 28, 2016

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 29 August 2016

by Kat 2016 ~ A yellow rose invites us to remember…”

Sometimes a week can whiz by in a flash, and then there are times when the week crawls by at a snail’s pace. This past week was the latter for me.

I feel I should be glad for weeks like these the older I get. Why in the world would I wish for days to fly by. I’ve passed the halfway mark based on average life expectancy. I have less days left than I have lived. And yet when a work week drags on like it did last week, I kept hoping it would go faster because I had big plans to take a trip to celebrate my grandson’s sixth birthday. It was so worth the wait and a wonderful fun time! Like many good times, over way too soon!

Many of us live for the weekends, for vacations, for mornings we can sleep in and for cool starry summer nights, for break time, lunch time, for the closing bell. Just thinking about all this makes me want to slow things down and focus on savoring every moment of everyday. And I am thinking, the next time I try to wish my work week along, I might actually need to pause, breathe deeply and count my blessings.

It’s Sunday and this week’s Shi Sai has nothing to do with my present reflections. But it was the week that was just the same. To summarize, I was very focused on world events, which always hits me in the gut. My deepest wish is that each person would know their value and be treated with honor, respect and acceptance. We all deserve love by virtue of our humanity. So that’s what last week was about, according to my ReVerse. And I almost missed it waiting for the weekend.

This coming week I’m adding to my to-do list. When the world starts crawling by, I shall imagine it to be a great opportunity to notice my surroundings…to notice who happens to be sharing that space with me and to extend kindness. It’s not enough to breathe deeply and count my blessings…I need to be a blessing too!

Have a wonderful week my fellow WordPressers. I’m smiling right now just thinking about you. Yes, you! ❤️

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 29 August 2016

curl your tongue and twist your face cut deep to the heart this end can be avoided
anything less is showy fluff
but I have to yell you
rhyming soothes the soul
how high would you climb
for love of neighbor
for there is inspiration to be found
and a dusty old tradition was shattered by an antique, just like that
worth every penny
what a bloody mess this is
all of our blood runs red.

~kat

The Shi Sai, (formerly known as a ReVerse) is a new form I came up with during Poetry Month in April 2016. I’ve actually been writing shu sai for years but was inspired to give it a prooer name. It is a poem created by taking one line of verse from several poems of an author’s own collection. The shi sai is done as a review of a series or collection of poems and therefore, each line should flow in chronological order of the dates the poems were written (from oldest to new). The lines chosen should be the author’s favorite from each poem. This form works best if the author resists the temptation to read the full new poem before all the verses have been added. (It helps one to resist the impulse to change a line to make it “fit”.

11 Comments | tags: Remember, Shi Sai, week in Reverse | posted in Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Random Thoughts and Musings, Week in Review

July 21, 2016

D-Day Memorial – Echoes of my Neighborhood

By Kat Myrman

Happy Thursday and welcome to my neighborhood. It’s been a few weeks since my last post to Jacqueline’s Echoes of my Neighborhood Challenge. To be honest I ran out of micro, macro, oddities to show you…and it is likely very clear that I do not get out much! 🙂 Besides my day job and taking care of my critters, I rarely wander past my front door. But this past weekend I had the honor to visit an historical site to hear a concert. With all the unrest in the world today, it is good to reflect on the past to realize that we have the capacity to come together, nation to nation to defeat a common enemy. Even when the price is great, good eventually overcomes evil. And that gives me hope!

From the National D-Day Memorial Website: On June 6th, 1944 United States soldiers, in one of the most pivotal battles of World War II, invaded the French coastline in order to propel German soldiers out of Western Europe and lead the way for victory against the tyrants of that era. Dedicated on June 6th, 2001 by president George W. Bush, the National D-Day Memorial was constructed in honor of those who died that day, fighting in one of the most significant battles in our nations history.

It is located in Bedford, Virginia (about 45 minutes from where I live). Why Bedford? Here is a second excerpt from the Memorial’s website:

Bedford, Virginia…  Like eleven other Virginia communities, Bedford provided a company of soldiers (Company A) to the 29th Infantry Division when the National Guard’s 116th Infantry Regiment was activated on 3 February 1941. Some thirty Bedford soldiers were still in that company on D-Day; several more from Bedford were in other D-Day companies, including one who, two years earlier, had been reassigned from the 116th Infantry to the First Infantry Division. Thus he had already landed in both Northern Africa and Sicily before coming ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach with the Big Red One. Company A of the 116th Infantry assaulted Omaha Beach as part of the First Division’s Task Force O.

By day’s end, nineteen of the company’s Bedford soldiers were dead. Two more Bedford soldiers died later in the Normandy campaign, as did yet another two assigned to other 116th Infantry companies. Bedford’s population in 1944 was about 3,200. Proportionally this community suffered the nation’s severest D-Day losses. Recognizing Bedford as emblematic of all communities, large and small, whose citizen-soldiers served on D-Day, Congress warranted the establishment of the National D-Day Memorial here.

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All photos by Kat Myrman – July 2016

8 Comments | tags: Challenge, D-Day Memorial, Echoes of my Neighborhood, essay, Remember | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Life Lessons, Random Thoughts and Musings

July 10, 2016

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse ~ 10 July 2016

By Kat Myrman

I look forward to Sundays. I truly do try to pause, reflect and recharge. Especially on weeks like this when the world felt chaotic and nightmarish. I remember thinking to myself, as I wrote lines of poetry and prose throughout the week, that today’s ReVerse would likely evolve into a chaotic, incohesive jumble of randomness. Living through this past week was a chaotic mess with raging summer storms that sent us all seeking shelter and raging civil unrest against a backdrop of political firestorms that sent us seeking answers.

In retrospect, I wonder why I had a hard time imagining that this week’s Shi Sai would somehow make sense, because surprisingly it does. I don’t know how or why it does. But it does.

I could say, likevi always do, that I’m hoping we all have a great week, but that would be rude considering the elephant in my peripheral view. They say elephants never forget. Not forgetting for me means acknowledging the elephant. It’s not that I’m not hoping that you have a great week. I hope you have a spectacular week. I hope we all do. Including the elephant. Once he catches your attention he’s hard to ignore.

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse ~ 10 July 2016

Forgive me for not giving you a proper goodbye
I am feeling slightly grounded right now and not in a good way
steamy sapphire sky
So…what do you think about all this rain we’ve been having?
tender waves, exquisite bliss
dreams flood the gray void
from endless nights of terror’s rage
What are you thinking Lady Blue?
they are afraid
desire growls in their belly like poison
hoping for love’s bliss!

~ kat

The Shi Sai, (formerly known as a ReVerse) is a form created by Kat Myrman in April 2016. It is a poem created by taking one line of verse from several poems of an author’s own collection. The shi sai is done as a review of a series or collection of poems and therefore, each line should flow in chronological order of the dates the poems were written (from oldest to new). The lines chosen should be the author’s favorite from each poem. This form works best if the author resists the temptation to read the full new poem before all the verses have been added. (It helps one to resist the impulse to change a line to make it “fit”)

7 Comments | tags: chaiis, elephant, hope, Remember, Shi Sai, week in Reverse | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Essays, Life Lessons, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues, Spirituality, Week in Review

June 12, 2016

Do You Remember?

By Kat Myrman

Do you remember when you lost your way?
For some it was disguised as childplay
In cool divisive shades of pink and blue,
the lines were drawn according to the rules
And differences were judged in stark display.

Some fragile hearts were broken in the fray
of bitter battles between us and they
And lines were blurred obscuring every truth.
Do you remember?

How magnificent you are in every way.
Your life’s a precious gift infused with grace.
Don’t let world fraught with fear subdue
the beauty of your soul that makes you, You…
Do you remember?

kat – 12 June 2016
(a Rondeau)

A Rondeau is a French form, 15 lines long, consisting of three stanzas: a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet with a rhyme scheme as follows: aabba aabR aabbaR. Lines 9 and 15 are short – a refrain (R) consisting of a phrase taken from line one. The other lines are longer (but all of the same metrical count)

16 Comments | tags: fear, Poetry, Remember, Rondeau, truth | posted in Poetry, Rondeau, Social Issues, Spirituality