Gratitude: Days 29 & 30

Prompts: Self-care & Myself

I’m grateful for the quiet of a cool morning light,

For fields that awaken after the darkness of night.

For root beer, for pages, and time to reflect,

For giving my weary heart some respect.

I’m thankful for moments I don’t have to race,

For slowing my steps and reclaiming my space.

For books on the table, a song in my heart,

For walking through life at my own chosen start.

I’m grateful for hands that have planted and grown,

For stories and histories I’ve gathered and sewn.

For voices I’ve carried, for truths I have told,

For memories treasured and tales yet untold.

I’m grateful for me, for the road I have walked,

For the courage to write and the courage to talk.

For every small kindness, each lesson I’ve learned,

For bridges I built and the pages I’ve turned.

I’m thankful I’m still here, still dreaming, still free,

Still becoming the person I’m meant to be.

Through seasons of sorrow and storms I have known,

I’m thankful for me, this woman who has grown.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 28

Prompt: Letting go

This is not a new poem. This is a poem that I wrote a long time ago. But it works for this particular prompt.

Daughter by the Tomb

A Villanelle

Be still, mother, I pray for rain.

I am not the one to curse the day

Nor ask the dark to be light again.

The thunderous strikes are foreordained

and all winds blow a separate way.

Be still, mother, I pray for rain.

I shall not kneel where you have lain.

I will not lift you from the grave

Nor ask the darkness to be light again.

The rose thorn pricks but brings no pain.

The leaves grow brown, I cannot stay.

Be still, mother, I pray for rain.

The sun has dried the yellowed grain.

With withered face you felt each ray

And asked the dark to be light again.

The dew has left its glossy stain

And blends with tears I've wiped away.

Be still, mother, I pray for rain.

Don't beg the dark:  be light again.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 27

Prompt: Kindness

I am grateful for the kindness

my people show to me.

The type of love that softly sighs

like a quiet harmony.

Someone who brings an apple pie,

someone who calls to say

I'm thinking of you at this time

You're on my mind today.

The folks who remember I exist

that I'm not theirs to use

The ones who ask me how I am 

and listen to my truth.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Days 25 & 26

Prompts: Movement & Stillness

I move with purpose in my pace,

A quiet stride, a grounded grace;

I follow truth where it resides,

And walk with clarity as guide.

Yet stillness settles in my mind,

The calm where sharper thoughts unwind;

A pause that lets the dust descend,

So what is real can stand again.

I shift, I stop, I weigh, I choose;

Not rushed by noise I didn’t use;

My motion starts where calm begins,

A balance held beneath my skin.

For both are how I stay aligned.

The steps I take, the peace I find;

Two halves that keep my truth supplied:

My stillness is my center, movement is my stride.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 24

Prompt: Intentions

I seek the truth in every thread,

To name the thoughts that go unsaid;

I gather meaning, piece and part,

And turn the scattered into art.

I hold the world in clearer view,

Make chaos small and insight new;

My purpose lives in what I find.

A quiet order, cleanly lined.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 23

Prompt: Peace

Peace is the moment where I don’t have to brace,

No chaos arriving to crowd out my space;

No printer rebellion, no tech going rogue,

No nonsense that forces my patience to go.

It’s clarity landing in clean, steady lines.

No riddles to parse, no hidden designs;

Just itemized truth in a world that behaves,

where competence smooths out the everyday waves.

It’s safety from hazards that lurk in the grass.

No snakes in the shadows, no ticks as I pass;

No poison‑oak worries, no wildfire sky,

No high wind that howls as it barrels on by.

It’s freedom from people who drain or demand,

No emotional storms I must bravely withstand;

No heart‑shaped weight pressing hard on my chest.

Just distance that finally feels like a rest.

It’s room for my writing to spark and to play,

For dragons and heroes to wander my day;

For blogging, for poems, for my journalist mind

to shape the small truths that others don’t find.

It’s my home as a buffer, a boundary, a keep,

where the outer world’s noise stays politely asleep;

No dogs in the aisles, no knocks at the door,

Just quiet that settles and asks nothing more.

Peace is skill, clarity, safe release;

Autonomy wrapped in a soft kind of ease;

It’s the life where my shoulders can finally drop down,

Where the ordinary shines and the chaos leaves town.

It’s the rare, gentle moment where I fully exhale,

a world without friction, a day without scale;

a space built of calm where my energy’s free

That’s peace in the shape that is perfect for me.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 22

Prompt: Purpose

I gather scattered bits of days,

Then shape them into steady phrase.

I'm a keeper of the small and true,

who turns the world to something new.

I sift, interpret, make things clear,

give fleeting moments form and gear.

My purpose lives in what I write

as I try to make the ordinary bright.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 21

Prompt: Passion

I chase the truth in each line I write,  

A lamp held steady in the muddled night.  

My pen sorts chaos into something clear,

A voice through static that we all hear.

I shape the story, trim needless noise,

Find quiet facts beneath louder joys.

I stitch the pieces into something true,

A map the reader didn’t know they knew.

And still, creativity slips in to play;

A dragon’s shadow brightens the day.

A puzzle solved, a rhyme takes flight,

A spark that turns the ordinary bright.

My craft is clarity with heart inside it:

A journalist who must rewrite it.

The world, the moment, all that’s in my sight,

Until it finally feels it's shaped just right.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Days 19 & 20

Prompt Day 19: Something fills me with love

Prompt Day 20: Something I accomplished today

I saw my husband’s face today,

And something in me gave way

A bit of warmth, a gentle shove,

A simple moment filled with love.

And later, when I took the time

To tend this body, spine and rhyme,

I felt that same soft light appear;

A whispered “good job” in my ear.

So, love and effort met today,

In one small, ordinary ballet.

His smile, my strength, the steps I take,

Two wins that make my whole heart ache

In that good way that says, you’re fine,  

I'm healing, loving, both divine.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 18

Prompt: Something that fills me with hope.

I find my hope in quiet things

like a puzzle solved, a truth that sings,
the moment chaos steps aside
and lets me take the wheel and guide.

I find it when the small things shine,
a pattern forming clean and fine,
a story rising from the dust
that says, you can, because you must.

I find it in the spark that stays,
imagination’s steady blaze,
the proof my mind can still create
a brighter path, a lighter weight.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 17

Prompt: Something that makes me smile

When I see the number on the caller ID

and know it's a caller just for me

then my heart does a tiny little smile

because I can sit and chat a while!

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 16

Prompt: Something that makes me laugh

I confess I giggle hard

when Monty Python's Holy Grail

offers up a bunch of monks

and not-dead-yet men wail.

This is a movie so endearing

that I can speak the lines

of the Black Knight as King Arthur swings

and it's "just a flesh wound" he cries.

The movie's just so darned absurd

with a subject so ingrained

that Englishmen who love lakes and swords

must always wince in pain

at the very idea of this silly tale

of King Arthur and his men

For who could have foretold an eon ago

that a rabbit would win in the end.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 15

Prompt: Music

Give me my guitar

and a good song to croon,

I'll be forever grateful

to the dark side of the moon.

Let me belt out verse

with my voice still in key

and you'll know that it is music

that brings out the best in me.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 14

Prompt: Color

I am thankful for the colors

that splay across the land

when Autumn comes or winter leaves

and life renews again.

I am grateful for the pale blue sky

and the gray one that brings rain,

The color of love is a touch of gray

With purple in each refrain.

I love the greens of summer

the whites of winter too

but the color I love most of all

is the one that reminds me of you.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because

Gratitude: Day 13

Prompt: Smells

Me with my man

I love the way my husband smells

when he's showered, fresh and clean

It's a comforting scent of only him

old shirt, hat and jeans

I also love to smell the rain

when it falls down from the sky

because it means grass will grow

and things are better for a while.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because

Gratitude: Day 12

Prompt: Texture

I love the smoothness of chocolate

how it plays upon my tongue

It brings a smile to my solemn face

and makes my heart go, "yum."

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 11

Prompt: Noise

Nearly every morning when he rises

he drops something on the floor

and I smile to myself when I hear it

The same clatter as before.

Sometimes I hear him mutter

sometimes I hear him curse

but I think if I heard only silence

it would really be much worse.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 10

Prompt: Quiet

Silence is my place to think

the time I am alone

It's when creativity calls to me

like ET with a phone.

The quiet brings me solace

though I'm happy when it breaks

because that means someone I love

has walked into my place.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 9

Prompt: Technology

I started computing on a Commodore

And moved to a Radio Shack

By the time Windows was a thing

I knew there was no going back.

The Internet and AOL

let me to worlds unknown

And look at us now, with information

stashed away in our phone.

While data centers may not be great

I'm thankful to have been around

when I could look up anything I want

or make smileys :-) look like frowns :-(. 

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Gratitude: Day 8

Prompt: Family/Friends 

My friends come from everywhere

places near and far

I've writer friends, artist friends,

friends who play guitar.

My friends are the ones who hold me up

in times both bad and good

My blogging friends, my pen pal friends

And folks in the neighborhood.

I am friendly to everyone

teachers, judges, or queens

but the truest friends are the ones who stay

through all the in‑betweens.

_____

Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.