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NaPoWriMo – Day 25 – A Ballad

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I’m fudging just a little on today’s prompt – a ballad – because I did not write this poem today. I actually wrote it some time ago.  However, taking the definition of ‘ballad’ in its simplest form — a rhymed poem that tells a story — this piece fits the criteria perfectly. And since it’s a poem I enjoy very much myself, I decided I’d take advantage of today’s prompt to share it with you.

I should probably add that the poem is based on a true event that I read about a couple of years ago. There really was a couple that had this experience during World War II, and there actually was an operator whose kind heart helped save their romance.

TELEPHONE POLESLOVE ON THE LINE

I read about a Navy guy;
‘Twas during World War II;
He felt that he was so in love
But one thing he could do.

He was on leave, New England way,
And running out of time;
Snowed in, he could not meet his love.
His only hope – a dime.

So in the pay-phone booth, he dialed
The zero. Faith was high.
He told his soulful story to
The operator, Vi.

He gave the number for his love,
St. Louis her address,
And Vi said, “There’s no promises,
But I will try my best.”

So, hanging on the line out east,
The sailor heaved a sigh
And waited with a pounding heart
Till he heard back from Vi.

“I have your party, sir,” she said,
Three minutes’ worth of time.”
“Three minutes!” cried the sailor.
“That isn’t enough time!”

His darling’s voice broke through the wire,
Her voice so light and thrilled,
“What great surprise, your calling now!
I heard you’re snowed in, Bill.”

“Yes, dear, and now I can’t get there
Before my leave is through,
But there is something vital that
I have to say to you.

“You know I’ve loved you for a while;
And I have to know for sure — “
But Vi broke in just then to say,
“We’ve lost connection, sir.”

“Oh, no!” he cried. “You’ve got to help!
I’m ready to propose!
I couldn’t go back overseas
Unless I’m sure she knows!”

“I’ll try again,” Vi said, but then — 
Back on the line, so sad — 
“I can’t get you connected, sir;
The weather is so bad.

“But I can hear your party, sir,
And it seems she can hear me.
If you’d want me to relay your words,
I’d do so happily.”

He heaved a sigh, wiped tear from eye,
And drew deep breath somehow.
“All right,” he said. “It’ll have to do;
I need her answer now.

“Please say, ‘ I’m so in love with you
That before I go to sea,
I’m asking you to be my wife;
Please say you’ll marry me.'”

So Vi relayed the message sweet;
He waited in a stew
‘Till Vi came back online and said,
“She’d love to marry you!”

BLUE TELEPHONENow many years have come and gone;
The couple made their home.
And in every room the pride of place
Goes to the telephone.

~~~

To join the National Poetry Month Fun, visit this link:
http://www.napowrimo.net/

Bob’s Frameable Keepers – Week # 15

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I don’t often enter a photo in this challenge, but this is one of mine that I would seriously think about framing and keeping, so I’ll share it this week. To join the fun — and see some of Bob’s unbelievable photography — visit at this link:
http://pacificnorthwesttravelerdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/bobs-challenge-framable-keepers-week-15/

 

Exif JPEG

 

A Few of My Favorite Things: More to Come

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

BLACK SMILEY
It’s been about a year since I posted a list of some of my favorite blogs. So I think it’s past time I did that again. However, I’ve discovered so many new ones and made so many new friends in that time that the list is HUMONGOUS!!!  What to do?  What to do?

So here’s the plan:  This week, I will list 12 of those blogs — in no particular order.  And, yes, some of them will be blogs I mentioned last year as well — because I have so many new followers who may not know them. Next week I will list more of my favorites.  I won’t tell you individual things about each one. I’ll give you the links, and you can have the fun of checking them out.

I figure this is better than an award, because this way there are no rules and absolutely no obligations for the recipient. So here goes.

12 of MY FAVORITES:

Lucid Gypsy:  http://lucidgypsy.wordpress.com/

Lee’s Birdwatching Adventures Plus:  http://leesbird.com/

Restawyle:  http://cobbies69.wordpress.com/

Hearing His Voice:  http://learning2hear.com/2013/03/23/3327/

The Lint In My Pocket:  http://thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com/

The Dorset Rambler:  http://thedorsetrambler.com/

The Bard on the Hill:  http://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/

Sunday Post:  http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/

The Poetry of Dennis N. O’Brien:  http://dnobrienpoetry.wordpress.com/

Northwest Photography:  http://pacificnorthwesttravelerdotcom.wordpress.com/

Cee’s Photography:   http://www.ceephotography.com/

This, That, and The Other Thing:  http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/

~

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 18, Poem # 2 — ‘Liquid Color’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

This is the 18th day of National Poetry Writing Month, and the prompt today is to write a poem that begins and ends with exactly the same word. If you want to join in the fun there’s still plenty of time. Visit this site:
http://www.napowrimo.net/

I was inspired on this challenge to use free verse, which I rarely use. Moreover, I was inspired to write two separate poems for this particular prompt.  This is my second poem. The first appears in its own post previous to this one.

GREEN SWATCHLIQUID COLOR 

Green is a liquid color.
It flows over my soul in a gentle way.
It runs through my feelings like a child at play.
It springs up in me like an April day.
The most liquid of colors is green.

~

NaPoWriMo – Day 18, Poem # 1 – ‘Ecouter’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

This is the 18th day of National Poetry Writing Month, and the prompt today is to write a poem that begins and ends with exactly the same word. If you want to join in the fun there’s still plenty of time. Visit this site:
http://www.napowrimo.net/

I was inspired on this challenge to use free verse, which I rarely use. Moreover, I was inspired to write two separate poems for this particular prompt.  This is my first offering. The second will be in its own post.

Ear 2ECOUTER

Silence.

Nothing stirs the air.

Nothing breathes.

No vibration oscillates.

No frequency receives or carries movement.

No sensation touches auditory nerves.

There is no deafness;

There simply is no hearing,

Because there is no sound.

There is only

Silence.

 

Friday Fictioneers – 4/19/13 — ‘The Gift’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Friday Fictioneers, that 100-word story challenge, has rolled around again. This week the prompt comes from a lovely photo by Janet Webb. To join the fun visit Rochelle Wiseoff-Fields’ site here:
http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/

Wasp nest

The Gift

Each morning 8-year-old Aran, his mahogany skin warmed by the sun, trekked to the shore to play with his stash of sea-polished rocks. Eagerly, he collected new ones, always anticipating some special treasure deposited on this tiny island by his best friend, the ocean.

Today he’d found that gift. Coral? It didn’t feel like coral. Scores of tiny hollows inside formed a pattern and offered a mystery.

“What is it, Poppy?” he’d asked Grandfather, who’d traveled to distant lands.

“A wasps’ nest,” was the reply, and then, because the island had no wasps, Grandfather explained.

Aran held the delicate structure close. Here it was! His anticipated treasure from another world! His connection with people and adventures that were beyond his ocean! He would treasure this gift … keep it safe … and some day ….

~

Hatred & War Cannot Quench Love

| Sandra Pavloff Conner
Civil War Soldier Sullivan Ballou Echoes King Solomon.

The Song of Songs, by King Solomon, says, “Set me as a seal upon thine heart … for love is strong as death.  … Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”  (Songs of Songs  8:6-7).   Those words were penned many centuries ago by an Israelite king, but during the American Civil War, a Union soldier penned words that echoed those of Solomon, almost exactly, in a letter to his wife about one week before he died.

FLAG & CANNON EMBOSSED REDMajor Sullivan Ballou poured out his heart to the one woman he knew would understand it, his wife Sarah.  He told her, “Sarah, my love for you is deathless.  It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break.  Yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me … to the battlefield.”  In another statement he describes the level of his commitment to his love of country as well as his wife: “I know … how great a debt we owe to those who went before us, through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am … perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to maintain this government and to pay that debt.”

In those words, Sullivan Ballou spoke for every American soldier who has left loved ones safe at home to go into hate-filled, death-filled foreign lands and willingly give everything he had — including his own life — to make sure those loved ones were kept safe — and that the nation whose constitution undergirded that safety was defended and secured from all that would try to destroy it.

SOLDIER COLLAGE SEPIA JPGIn every war that America has fought, thousands of her soldiers have gone courageously into harm’s way because they believed in the truth that “love is strong as death.”  They believed that all the hatred and all the wars this world will ever know cannot quench love.  And they have been right:  ALL THE HATRED AND ALL THE WARS THIS WORLD WILL EVER KNOW CANNOT QUENCH LOVE — because real love comes from only one source: the eternal, unfathomable, unquenchable Creator of the universe.  It is He who gives soldiers like Sullivan Ballou the unquenchable love that he writes about in his letter — love for his wife — and love for his country and all it represents to millions of people who long with all their hearts for freedom and security.

~~~

NaPoWriMo – Day 15 – A Pantun

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

Just in case we have new readers who are not familiar withNaPoWriMo, perhaps I should explain again. It’s been a couple weeks since we talked about it in detail. April is National Poetry Month, and Maureen Thorson, in Washington, D. C. hosts a blogsite that invites all poets to participate in a special challenge in celebration of that fact by writing a poem a day for the 30 days of April. Thus NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). Maureen gives us a new prompt for each day, but the prompts are totally voluntary. We can follow them or write some other kind of poem entirely. We are only halfway through the month, so anyone can still join in the fun. Just hop over to this link and get started: http://www.napowrimo.net

Day 15:  Pantun is a Malay form of poetry. Although it has been changed and adapted into a slightly different form by the French and English, our challenge today is to write a poem following the exact formula of the original Malay Pantun. That formula consists of a quatrain with 8-12 syllables per line and a rhyme scheme of abab. Furthermore, although there is no formal logical connection required between the two halves of each quatrain, there is supposed to be some degree of “imaginative or imagistic connection” between the two.

I decided, in the interest of time, to limit myself to one quatrain. The following has 10 syllables per line, and I think I’ve met the other requirements as well. Moreover, I’ve shared a powerful truth.

SWORDSWEAPONS

One man may wield with ease a sharp-honed sword,
And drawing blood, strike death with that long knife.
Another for his weapon chooses words,
Yet with dead aim, he too destroys a life.

~~~

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 13 – Along The River

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

The prompt for Day 13 was to take a walk and incorporate the elements of that walk into a poem.

Exif JPEGALONG THE RIVER

The sun is playing hide and seek with clouds
Along the river.
The clouds are gray, but friendly, soft, and free
Along the river.

I move unhampered by the flirting breeze
Along the river,
Breathing deeply of the moistened earth
Along the river.

Quiet now invades my mind and soul
Along the river.
I’m letting go of tumbling, troubled thoughts
Along the river.

My past recedes; my future quiet rests
Along the river,
And water speaks to waters deep within,
Along the river.

I sit and contemplate historic days
Along the river:
The generations served by this same stream
Along the river.

And sense that I belong to something great
Along the river:
A part of something bigger than myself
Along the river.

And far beyond my power to understand,
Along the river,
An elemental knowing I am known —
And I am loved —
By the Creator of the river.

~~~

Here’s the link to join the fun: http://www.napowrimo.net/

Friday Fictioneers – 4/12/13 – Grandpa’s Invention

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Friday Fictioneers this week offers a unique photo (from Sandra Crook) as the prompt for our 100-word story. It could take you into many different worlds. My imagination took me to long, long ago . . . .

Sandra Crook

GRANDPA’S INVENTION

“Gramps, what ya buildin’?”

“Well, son, I calls is a tri-cycle.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Means it has three wheels. See here?”

“What’s it fer?”

“To get me places that’s too fer to walk.”

“What makes it roll?”

“I pushes these two little pads down here with my feet, and the wheels’ll roll.”

“But … will it go where you tell it?”

“These here curly-lookin’ handles’ll let me turn left and right.”

“Where’d you git all them parts?”

“Took apart the old tractor and your gram’s still.”

“Oh-oh … Uh … Gramps … I think you better get on and start pushin’ them pads now.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“Gramma’s comin’ down the hill … with her shotgun.”

~

Come on and join the fun. Visit Rochelle’s site to get the easy rules:
http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/