Today’s Post

I am hit with a multitude of thoughts as I try to decide what to say and share. At the forefront of my thoughts are the thoughts of the storm last evening. All around my house there were multiple lightening strikes for an extended period of time. It was a strong storm. The weather reports gave several warnings. There were warnings for flash flooding, warnings for high winds, warnings about severe lightning, and last, but not least, there was a tornado warning for several communities north.

I did a quick survey of my house this morning. My yard got flooded, but my basement stayed dry. Several months ago, a rain like this would have filled my cellar with water from the deluge. My roof and chimney are still intact. My thoughts and prayers go out to those who were in a more direct path of the storm.

Yesterday, I shared my two poems of The Chair and The Sink Window at my Greensburg Writers Group. The meeting was to be over at 4 p.m. and lasted until 4:30. They decided to review my poem at 3:45. That gave us fifteen minutes to review my writings. The critique was intense with members being drawn in with what they liked and disliked. They were telling me the emotions that they felt and with the way it was written, they weren’t sure that young people could connect. Some thought it didn’t connect with people today. Multiple discussions broke out saying why it did and why it did not give a true description of the elderly today.

When most things were shared, I explained the poems were written as a portrait of certain people and not an overview of the entire elderly population.

I draw and paint. My writing often does the same thing. I want to share what I see with others. I want them to see through my eyes, whether it is done with words or by strokes of paint, pen, or pencil. The one complaint was that I was very descriptive and the person who made the review said she wanted more of the emotion that the man and woman in the poem thought, who they were looking to see and more of what they felt.

To me it was obvious that they wanted to see someone that they loved and the emotion that I tried to portray was the deep loneliness and near loss of hope that the old man and woman felt. Yet, daily, they clung to that slight chance that they would see that loved one come up the drive to visit. Desperately, they waited from sunrise to sunset for that visit. That spark of hope lasted until the chair filled with dust and the sink became dry.