I wish for peace.
I wish for change.
For the world to care about cleaning our air,
getting rid of plastic, purifying our oceans,
saving endangered animals, including us,
for coral reefs to stop dying,
for us to take action,
to place a ban on rapid fire rifles,
to take steps toward peace, even baby ones,
to greet our neighbors when we walk,
to uplift conversation when we talk,
to have compassion for the oppressed,
for all children to feel safe when they go to bed.
(prayer for New Year 2026)
This semester,
One student’s grandmother died,
another had an untimely family death,
one wants to be a counselor for LGBTQ+ teens
and was encouraged to find research
Another told me his father lost a Federal job
and could no longer pay his tuition,
This semester they wrote paragraphs with pen in hand,
in order to find their own voice,
and not use AI as an automatic knee jerk reflex,
and I taught double negatives, run-on sentences and fragments, because they are juniors and seniors and had not learned it,
and they are not stupid,
and I told them they had to be bilingual
and use the King’s English in a job interview,
one left school because her boyfriend beat her up,
she returned in 3 weeks and got a B.
This semester, no one failed,
everyone took their final exam,
4 earned an A,
3 earned a B,
2 earned a C,
no one plagiarized an assignment,
and I call that a success.
This morning I will turn in grades,
and I feel sad that life is so hard,
that we all experience loss and hardship
at the worst of times,
that some won’t graduate,
that some didn’t care enough to do their assignments
and come to class.
But I embrace all life as it is
and give thanks to God
for His unfailing love.
This morning I am thankful for those who finished,
for those who will graduate,
for those who persisted through it all
to do their best,
and I am thankful
that I found
my calling.
cfblack, 11-24-25
I remember the day you came to us,
Excitement intense and real,
I was the one who mastered you,
who played for hours on end.
Four years learning to play your keys,
to lift my fingers,
prance them along,
to play with emotion and haunting beauty,
There were times I would stop, sit in silence,
cry, tears rolling down my cheeks,
Frustrated, not moving,
staring at the keys,
until my Father called to me,
“Later, take a break,” he said,
“Come back to play it later.”
and I thought, one day, you might be mine,
to play in joy and solitude.
When my mother passed, there was no way
to bring you to the South,
so you went to our oldest daughter’s house
and lived there for awhile,
Until one day, she gave you away, to another family,
their daughter wanted to learn to play,
and so, you went to them.
There was too much symbolism
to bring you here, even if we wanted,
the meaning of you took on other hues,
of shadows and of sorrow,
so once again, I now release
the pain of former years,
Detach myself from physical things,
thick with meaning and memory,
You travel on, away from me
to the home of a total stranger,
while I am left, as a little girl,
with memories that haunt, and linger.
cfblack, 2-7-14, revised 2-19-25
If anything keeps me up at night
besides worrying about my kids,
it’s worrying I haven’t done enough,
no matter how much I did.
Enough connecting,
caring for someone in need,
enough praying,
painting, reading,
texting grandkids,
But who decides, what is enough?
what if I’ve done what I could?
I HAVE done SOMETHING, even if small,
We are not perfect,
we don’t have to do it all,
and I may need to learn
what’s enough relaxation?
enough free time,
for just being me,
staying in tune with my own body
and doing what it needs,
taking more time for other things
— and enough time for SLEEP.
cfblack 7-12-2024
Dear peoples of the world,
I love you all.
I love the different shades of us,
all the different ways of us,
those who worship, those who don’t,
those who eat meat, those who won’t,
mothers nursing their newly born,
old ones who won’t leave their homes,
North South East and West,
which part of the world do you love best?
The tropics, where it’s always warm,
or Northern lands of ice and snow,
Dark brown, cinnamon, tan, and light,
Blue eyes, Brown eyes, looking bright,
Let’s stop the madness, stop the games,
End the needless suffering,
End the wars and children’s cries,
End the never ending lies,
Our leaders left it up to us,
WE must come together, at all costs,
What is more powerful than greed or fear?
LOVE and COMPASSION for all you see, and hear.
Moon steps in front of Sun,
Insects flit about wildly,
Doing their own dance,
Sensing the magic
In the heavens up above.
—
—
Haiku for the eclipse in SC:
In the afternoon
Sun is dancing with the Moon
A slight shadowing.
My parents made it fun,
the chocolate and eggs
in a basket beside our bed.
It was second to Christmas in our house.
We colored eggs the day before,
a family time of celebrating
colors, design, new creations,
a custom from Mesopotamia,
where Christians dyed eggs the color RED,
to symbolize the blood of Jesus.
There is also the symbol of the EGG,
Springtime, rebirth, new beginnings,
the Pagan goddess, Eostre, worshipped the Sun,
a time of warmth, the end of Winter,
a turning of the Earth.
I don’t mind connections to
ancient times,
Our humanness unites us,,
Christians, take notice, the renewal of faith,
the coming of Christ, return of the Spirit,
the Message reborn again, and again,
the Sun rises on the horizon
at a different point from yesterday,
the same Sun, the only One,
who created us all from dust.
cfblack, 3-31-2024
Sometimes I imagine
my brother’s still alive,
he did not die of liver disease,
and he was never homeless,
I imagine him healthy, I imagine him, whole,
being the big brother he wanted to be.
I also imagine
the four of us, friends,
posing for a picture together,
laughing because, we never get it right,
one of us not smiling, or turning our head,
Boy, girl, girl, boy,
16 years from start to end,
We are all getting older now,
We don’t have much time, to lose.
It’s just the 3 of us now,
In the end, we all walk the path, we choose.
cfblack, 3-24-2024
I lived through it, covid,
this dreaded disease,
the panic, as it spread worldwide,
(It will never reach here!), and the lies–
(it will be gone soon!), the denial,
and the gloom.
We all watched, as numbers climbed,
I printed them out, stuck them in a book,
for my grandkids, later.
We all watched in horror as loved ones died,
and none of us knew who would survive,
our family, our neighbor.
Nursing homes closed to visitors,
A friend of ours brought her violin
And played to her mother,
from a window,
They wouldn’t let her in.
Schools closed, we sent kids home,
leaving them isolated, and alone,
staring at friends online.
Later, we would see the scars,
the lack of learning,
the paranoia,
the fears of being together again,
in person, face to face,
The loneliness they could not erase…
And then came the vaccine.
People no longer died alone,
No one has to stay at home,
Cities came alive again,
Masking went away.
But covid doesn’t play.
It is very much alive today,
shifting, changing, rearranging,
Shedding parts, growing others,
Continuing to make us sick.
but it can only go so far…
And now, in early 2024,
I find myself having to isolate,
As COVID finally found me.
I call my doctor, and because of age,
Get antivirals for the next 5 days,
Prepare to wait for it to pass,
Spend a few days at home.
On day 2, I test positive,
Wait the required number of days,
On Day 5, a very slight T line,
Day 7, one we could hardly see –
And then the cold returned.
Wake up with a stuffy nose,
Headache, taking Tylenol,
Day 8 strongly positive,
We are now on Round 2.
I go online to GOOGLE IT,
and find to my surprise,
Something I didn’t know before,
called COVID RE-BOUND exists.
This thing never dies.
It finds another way to make itself come alive.
It’s not like vaccine for small pox
that made it go away,
or the measles, or chicken pox,
This thing returns in another way.
10 days or more to stay at home,
10 days of not going to a store,
Of not being able to see a friend,
10 days of ordering groceries in,
Tonight, as I spoke to my children of this,
a message comes from a daughter,
She had covid a couple years ago,
She just tested positive.
Covid doesn’t play. It doesn’t go away.
We have found some ways to reduce the deaths,
Science has figured it out a bit,
But we have to continue to fight it off,
Get the shots, Keep it at bay,
Covid wants to mess with us,
It will come again, on another day.
cfblack Day 11, 2-10-2024
Doctor Grandma 