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Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.-Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is when emotion has found its thought and thought has found words--Robert Frost

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance--Carl Sandburg

I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry--John Cage

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you--Joseph Joubert

Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own. ~Dylan Thomas

joybragi84
May 7, 20232 min read

A Special Guest Poet and Photographer: Marty Gerlach

Yes, it has been a while, my friends and blog followers, but today, I am not going to showcase any of my work. Today, I am going to share a poem written by my Aunt Marty, expressing some of the feelings that bubble up when a loved one is lost. Aunt Marty's mother Stella Almblade, passed away April 10 this year at the age of 106. Aunt Marty has shared many of what she calls "narratives" about her mother with me, and I hope to help her collect, edit, revise, and share them with others over the next few days, weeks, and months. She graciously allowed me to share this poem with you, my gentle readers.


Feelings of grief, loss, and simply what we do with our time that was often devoted to others are very difficult to articulate. I think that Aunt Marty did a wonderful job of expressing these feelings in the most basic and relatable of terms. This is a peculiar type of challenge that I have never really even attempted because of the difficulty, and she managed to do it very well on the first (I am assuming.) try. Please let me know what you think.


She also shared some photos with me. The first is of Mrs. Stella Almblade and Sunny. The second is of the cake that the poem is about. Enjoy!



I Baked a Cake Today

By Marty Gerlach


I baked a cake today

The first since April Ten.

It is her favorite; chocolate,

That's what it's always been.


I baked a cake today.

I cut a piece for her.

She won’t be here to taste it.

That thought’s hard to endure.


I baked a cake today

Such a simple task.

It's not easy on this Monday

Do you even have to ask?


I baked a cake today

To bring it for her lunch.

"I can always eat," she'll say.

Yes, she said that a bunch.


I baked a cake today,

Sunny licked the beater.

Her bright eyes seemed to say,

"When will we go to meet her?"


I baked a cake today.

I told myself to wait

To let time slowly heal me,

My heart, my soul, and fate.


I baked a cake today.

It will not be the last,

But each time will get easier

Realizing mom has passed.


The tears in my eyes are soft

But hard to wipe away.

It's weird what feelings stirred

Because I baked a cake today.



Comments

I find that I cannot exist without Poetry--without eternal poetry--half the day will not do--the whole of it--I began with a little, but habit has made me a Leviathan.-John Keats

We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value.-T. S. Eliot

A man may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which pleases.-George Gordon, Lord Byron

The great beauty of poetry is that it makes everything in every place interesting.-John Keats

Our faulty elder poets sacrificed the passion and passionate flow of poetry to the subtleties of intellect and to the stars of wit; the moderns to the glare and glitter of a perpetual, yet broken and heterogeneous imagery, or rather to an amphibious something, made up, half of image, and half of abstract meaning. The one sacrificed the heart to the head; the other both heart and head to point and drapery.-S. T. Coleridge

The purpose of rhythm, it has always seemed to me, is to prolong the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake, which is the one moment of creation.-W. B. Yeats

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