Poets Salon: A Child at Heart

POETS SALON

– 6/05/19

Hosted by Kath Abela Wilson

A little girl in pink in Shanghai looks like me. We smile. She looks admiringly at my hair flowers and points to hers. She is six.

looks up to me
How old are you?
I say 6 1/2

~ Kath Abela

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Birches, oil on board painting by Michele L. Harvey

Michele L. Harvey

swinging so high
that my feet touch the sky
playground swings
still my go-to remedy
to shake the weight of this world

the scrawled chalk
of a sidewalk hopscotch board
before I know it
muscle memory
hops me through every box

playground swings
touching the clouds
with our toes

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Trumpet Vine, oil on Panel by Michele L. Harvey

Briony James

a simple spray
a bubble of memory
where vanilla
teases me at 12
and childhood treats
become Lolita perfumes

“You smell like cake”
she cried, laughing
and I nodded
reaching back in time
to vanilla heaven

playing in the sand
when cookie treats
were sweet anticipation
vanilla perfumery
time travel

sunny first days
lost in LA
hippie vanilla oil
I became the treat
smelling like a cookie
honeymoon cuddles

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Childhood Fairytales by Natalia Kuznetssova

Natalia Kuznetsova

childhood fairytales…
looking to a happy end
all through life

what a joy
to play with grandchildren–
a child in yourself

a faded photo
the shy girl I once was
still smiling at me

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“Birthday Cake for Mom’s 100th”
by Nan Rae

Willie Bongcaron

birthday cake…
chocolate hanging
on both sides of my lips

birthday gift…
blowing laughter
on her cake

slurping
the twirled pasta…
mama mia

cherry blossoms…
the giggles
of little angels

the frailty
of human flesh —
paper boats

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Mom at 100 (Photo – Nan Rae)

Nan Rae

a 100 year old’s birthday cake
Playful (vanilla) cake for a hundred year old with personality:
from the base:
Hermes box, sunglasses,
Ferragamo shoe,
the hatbox with announcement of my work included in an exhibit at the Grand Palais,
Ferragamo shoebox with pearls,
Chanel handbag at the top

“it was i who kissed the panda” a brush painting by Kath Abela Wilson

A Child at Heart: Quotes and Credits

Michele L. Harvey: “I’ve always been aware that the door of life swings both ways. I’m fully conscious of the fact of what is changing and changeless in myself. Some call that changeless self the inner child. Others call it the soul, Buddha-heart or Para Brahman. But by whatever name, it’s there, constant, unchanging, eternal. It’s what I prefer to operate from as it’s most natural & authentic. Some think this comes off a little ‘airy-fairy,’ but that’s their problem. For some of us, it’s the only way to be!” Miche L. Harvey has won many awards for her haiku and tanka and is well published in journals and anthologies worldwide. She is also a prolific lifelong artist working in Brooklyn and Hamilton NY. See her website catalog for new work, galleries and an archive of poems and awards.

Briony James: “It made me so happy when Kathabela said I smelled like cake! I used to wear a rather heavy ‘hippie’ vanilla oil that my husband Rob always said made me smell like a cookie! It was wonderful to hear that again…and my mind played tricks on me, tumbling back to childhood treats, the first recognition of how perfume’s power, yellow-drenched mornings of more adult treats. Cupcakes, hot cakes, babycakes all in love and dancing through decades.” Briony is a Puchcart Prize nominee 2018, for her poem in the Altadena Review, and publishes her poems and fiction in anthologies and journals. She has been writing poetry and stories since she was four. See my interview with Briony James for more delicious insights on her artistic development.

Natalia Kuznetsova: “Childhood, with its fairytales, builds an invincible belief in your heart for the rest of life that ‘good’ will overcome ‘evil,’ and there would be a happy end after all. True, life is much more complex and… But this belief from childhood does help. And if you haven’t discarded it, there would always be that innocent child inside you. R.L. Stevenson, the British writer and poet, wrote this beautiful book A Child’s Garden of Verses. I love it and I love his introduction poem which is, exactly about this, about ‘a child of air that lingers…there’ (in other words, as I understand, always present in your life.)” Natalia Kuznetsova( Moscow, Russia), is a university English instructor, translator, interpreter, and a poet published in many international journals and anthologies..

Willie Bongcaron: A haiku poet, government employee from the Philippines with a wife, three children and three inspiring grandchildren, and having lived 6 + decades, has published happily, his poems in journals online and in anthologies. His playful humor, thoughtfulness and charm shine through his poems. His volume of haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun Missing You is available on Amazon.

Nan Rae is a prolific, brush painter, teacher, artist and world traveler who lives joyfully and delights in serendipity. Her mother left the world at 105, several years ago. She celebrated her mother’s 100th birthday in style! See Nan Rae’s beautiful art and journey on her website. Kath Abela studies with Nan Rae as often as possible. It was in her class that Kath Abela serendipitously painted “it was I who kissed the panda”.

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♣ We welcome and encourage your response, especially in the form of a short poem, by leaving a comment below.

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