Tag Archives: Week in Review

Shi Sai Sunday – A Look Back in Re-Verse – 1 May 2016

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Happy May! It is Sunday time to look back as I do each week in a Shi Sai poem (a new form I coined yesterday that explains the odd collection of lines you see below…each one a favorite taken from this past week’s previous poems). I’m liking the new look of my Sunday post title. 🙂

It has been a busy week, complicated by a few days of being down, thanks to the generosity of my coworkers who love to share and who insist on coming to work when they are sick! That is certainly not me. When I am sick I like to crawl under my covers in a darkened room and sleep until whatever it is that I have has passed.

At any rate, I am relieved and quite excited to have completed my daily poem and new poetry form challenge to myself for the month of April. (I had no idea that it was a thing when I decided to give it a go…so I didn’t link to any similar challenges.I wasn’t being antisocial…just oblivious.)

I like today’s Shi Sai (Re-Verse). The week was indeed quite magical. There were several new poetry forms to learn, close-ups photos of flowers, celebrating the freedom flight of my garden faerie, and a successful google search for the mystery writer who first penned the word of the day on Friday. Not to mention, on a side note in cubicle world, I cracked the equation codes for an elaborate spreadsheet my boss asked me to develop…Haha! Bet you didn’t think this right-brained dreamer had it in her did you? That said, my first love will always be words. My relationship with numbers is, let us say….complicated!

And as the week came to a close…a rant. It was good to get the words and feelings out of my head so they wouldn’t fester there and cause me to do or say something I might regret…but I am generally a positive person. I try to live my life simply, respecting and having compassion for others. Life is too short for ugly. So the line for the poem below could only be the one I chose. Grace is new every morning after all. And I still hope.

Simple pseudo-handles work just fine.
waxing poetic perfection in words
graced in amaranthine blush
There once was a faerie held captive in clay,
if I were a faerie…it might look something like this!
as you looked away, blushing
when she was young and flowers bloomed… 
Sleep on waves of red velvet
birdsong, wind-tossed forest whispers…
turn to ash aching for warmth
souls revealed line by beautiful line
The truth is just a breath away.

~kat 1 May 2016


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 24 April 2016


Good morning world! It has been a week of entertaining the muse. She fills my busy brain to the brim with lovely words, knowing that I can’t resist letting a few spill out onto hungry blank pages. This week was about about embracing the fact that I see a world that exists between the lines. Each moment is a lovely comma…a selah.

Of course I know this in my heart. I’ve always known that when others see gray, I see silver…when others see chaos, I see Fibonacci swirls. I am odd (though I prefer  the word eccentric).

And I have a choice. I can force myself to color inside the lines, to blend in as I am expected to do. Or I can surrender to the exhilaration that comes from each wild stroke that breaks free. It only takes a moment. For me, it is an obvious  choice. 

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 24 April 2016

Find lasting peace
and burrow deep
love is in bloom; we must take a selfie!
but clearly this takes a bit of practice.
she fills my hollow head
what do they have in common
for me to forget
waterbending orbs…
a hypothetical glass,
promise in a glass half full
bestowing grace
but you had already gone
goodbyes are temporary woes.
that year for him…and for her…spring never came.
some don’t give one iota
this odd little place is in my neighborhood
heavy droplets descend
waning runs red.

kat


Sunday’s Week in ReVerse ~ 28 February 2016

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Happy Sunday to you this Leap Day’s Eve! What a week it has been! I missed participating in a few of my favorite challenges this week being otherwise occupied while attending to my partner who had surgery. It made for a short work week which meant cramming 5 days of work into three, a very early, long into the night, hospital day and a flurry of prep to bring the patient home.

Here we are beginning a new week and I am overwhelmed. Not because of the detour from our routine, but because I feel so blessed! The surgery went well, I got all my work done, I was able to fit a few naps in between the craziness and I am blessed to have people in my life to care for and who care for me. And btw…the sun came out today!

Life happens. Despite our best attempts to plan and schedule, things can change in an instant. Even when we know a detour is coming up ahead, there is no way to fully prepare for every twist and turn of the revised trip. We might even find we arrive slightly off our intended destination point. Life happens.

I have learned that it is best in these situations to go with the flow. To pause along the way to take in the new scenery. To embrace the blessings to be found in the unfamiliar (sometimes those are the best kind) :).

The circumstances outside may be a chaotic jumbled mess but if I remember to pause, to breathe, everything I need is tucked away in that moment waiting for me to notice, centering me in peace.

The coming week is sure to be full of surprises…I’ll write when I have a window, nap when the lulls give me a wink, and go with the flow of this beautiful, messy thing called life. may you too have a week of surpising blessings! Here’s a quick look back…

Sunday’s Week in ReVerse ~ 28 February 2016

Prone to incessant word churn
Lips, on the cusp of a smile
mischievous poltergeist,
’twas me who blinked first.
Like a dull needle skipping clumsily
across a broken record, they repeated
the same words.
And we wait…
Engage in futile stances,
Grace
embracing
Undeserved
Heart murmuring
Trusting
Peace.

~ kat


Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 31 January 2016

 

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This is Maxwell who has mastered the art of living life to the fullest! 🙂

 

Happy Sunday to you. I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d find the time to write much this week. Work proved to be a bear…with digging out from the snow to hosting out of town guests for hours of meetings, requiring me to schedule, compose notes, cater lunches and dinners, etc, etc. It pays the bills, my day job, but some weeks it can be quite a challenge to keep my head afloat.

Enter this week’s challenges and verse! Wisdom led me to start the week off cooking a warm pot of soup. It sustained me for several days. Then we launched into a variety of lovely poetry and fiction challenges. Past weeks have presented darker prompts that left me no choice but to tell tales of sadness or to pen poetry deep in melancholia. But this week presented sunflowers and words like sleep (ah lovely sleep), tales of celebrations, and triumph. Oh there were a few less uplifting headers, but I managed through these balanced by the incredible upbeat other verses and prose.

I suppose that this week could best be summarized by the word balance. Or if you want to take a really broad view…LIFE. 🙂 Life has ups and downs, celebrations as well as mourning and choices…always choices. We can choose to be happy no matter where we find ourselves on the journey. And there is something to be said as well for allowing ourselves to be wrapped in exquisite sorry…to give ourselves fully to it. It is so cleansing for the soul!

Because the truth is, every moment, the full piercing emotions of each, are fleeting. There is always another chance at happiness, peace, goodness and grief. The trick is not lingering too long. Life is best lived when we are moving. 🙂

Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 31 January 2016

And oh my, it was-a mighty good-a!
It was her moment!
as if it’s a thing one finds
They wait in obscurity
To sleep anywhere…
fits of hysteria,
Maybe I’ll just stick with butterflies.
she closed her eyes and imagined him listening.
All tucked in for another night!
Wishing you sunflowers!
Best viewed from afar.
The track doesn’t end at the bottom.
enlightened pilgrims understand
‘Tis heaven on earth…like a soft morning kiss!
Triumph!
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever makes you happy!

kat ~ 31 January 2016

If you’re new to this blog, a bit of background to explain the verse above. It is a line from each poem or prose from the previous week. Lifted and placed in the order written. A snapshot review of the week. It helps me to prepare for the upcoming week with a clean slate.


Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 24 January 2016

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Happy Sunday! Well now…what an interesting look back in verse and prose. This week’s re-verse truly captures my favorite thing to do! I love watching the world go by. I get lost in the beauty and the quirkiness, the drama and the joy. Not that I don’t also participate. I do. But I am truly fascinated by what makes this world tick. Everyday offers opportunities for a front-seat view and there are always lessons to be learned.

This week I studied the odd behavior of my pets playing fetch and chasing their tails, but I also stumbled upon the realization that my dogs are also observing me in a very unique way. Apparently we see the world in this way too…a bit of a left gaze bias…which affirms my own trust in the reality of intuition while also reminding me of my animal nature and the ancient mysterious connection I have to all living things.

Where I live we had our first snow of the season (a real doozy by all accounts!), coinciding with the Full Wolf Moon. Mukluks and parkas are the new black. There is something to be said for comfort and warmth. And there is also something to be said for the many modern conveniences and innovations that we take for granted in the 21st century. We’ve come a long way, while remaining intrinsically connected with the universe at our core.

And so it was a week spent in observation, anticipation, nostalgic recollections, revelations and exhilaration in the realization that where I am in the here and now is right where I am meant to be! Life is good!

On then to this last full week of January 2016. I do hope your week presents you with an abundance of spectacular “-tions” (-tion – a suffix occurring in words of Latin origin, used to form abstract nouns from verbs or stems not identical with verbs, whether as expressing action ( revolution; commendation), or a state ( contrition; starvation), or associated meanings ( relation; temptation) from dictionary.com.

Though I started this bit extolling the virtues of passive observation, life is best lived when we move from the abstract into an active state of of participation. That is living!

Sunday’s Week in Re-Verse – 24 January 2016

Dogs fetch…
…guilty pleasure
Watching paint dry…
brimming with stardust
hard-wired to perceive…
mukluks and parkas
sashaying about en vogue
all the rage on store shelves
Silly me…I watch!
Well I guess we’ll never find out unless we try.
But I have noticed this strange light…
Our days are numbered
Time will pass though I won’t care
I am quite happy in my little corner of the world
as I sit here grinste wie ein Honigkuchenpferd
…water cooler powwows
With teeth made of wood
luminous.

~kat

If you’re new to this blog, a bit of background to explain the verse above. It is a line from each poem or prose from the previous week. Lifted and placed in the order written. A snapshot review of the week. It helps me to prepare for the upcoming week with a clean slate.