NaPoWriMo Poem #13

                                                                                                                                         
Life is simply crazy-busy...as usual for this writer/poet, homeschool teacher, online educator/cheerleader, co-op poetry and expository writing instructor, former university professor, etc. My online class is taking up so much of my time as it's a class I'm writing as I go as well as responding to the students' analysis of the short stories. And it's definitely getting in the way of my writing daily poems during National Poetry Month. And in the way of my keeping up on reading other's blogs which which I usually keep up.

So here's a short poem to "hold me over" for tonight (it's after 11PM), and I hope to have time to compose a poem before leaving for Lake Murray's annual women's retreat at Pine Valley Bible Conference Center (a mere two miles from our house).

My Grandmother's Clock
The mantel clock clicks its rhythm,
counting the minutes, hours, days, years--
a household god in its pagoda,
centered over the rising heat of our stone hearth.
Its antique face smoke-kissed by home fires
and my grandparents' thousands of cigarettes
when it settled atop their family room bookcase
over their droning television--
their god, worshipped day and night--
beside World War II commendations and photographs.
This clock still marks passing time
as surely now as then,
watching over us with impassive face,
not judging--just absorbing everything
with beautiful, ancient eyes.

Copyright 2010 by Susanne Barrett