It’s #PoetryFriday!
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Our friend Robyn Hood Black hosts us this weekend! Head over and enjoy all the poetry goodness.
Connection is on my mind. It’s a loose theme for the Nevermores this year. I’ve been making mental notes anytime I am surprised by a connection.
Yesterday, I was stopped in the middle of the street during an early morning dog-walk by a neighbor. While always cordial, our vastly different political leanings limit our contact. But that morning, she rolled down her window exuding joy to exclaim in wonder that we are both now grammas. Again, this is before 7am. Before the sun has risen. In the middle of a street. Me holding two leashes and one bag of dog poop. There it is. Connection.
Growing up, my parents reminded us regularly: what affects one of us affects all of us. From worrying about reputations or the ripple effect of not leaving a note to let others know where we were, I came to understand connection as caring.
Last Sunday, I mused about unknown connections:
power red
vinyl floor bore years of scuff
windowless space tired of its multi-purpose
cartooned commandments and slow clocks
waited with me avoiding eye contact
that might connect us to one another
only the stressed tech talking out loud to no one
like a lonely senior dying to talk to anyone
three of us giving up
platelets, plasma, pumped and packaged
uniting life to new life
and me, resentful of the wait
tick-tock
tap-tap-click two pregnancies no contact
with hypodermic lives
check my arms, I’m clean
here to give power red, a two-fer
connected by plastic tubes
and six degrees of separation
once you connect to Kevin Bacon
you’re connected to everyone else
images courtesy of Pixaby
poem ©draft, Patricia J. Franz
Patricia Franz is a kidlit writer and published poet. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
“Connection is caring.”
Patricia, these are words to live by.
The beginning of your poem caught the mood of impatient waiting (it felt angry!)… quite a contrast with the twist at the end to the connection that really binds us all together. 🙂 We are closer than we are conscious of most of the time.
Your post and your poem are both thought-provoking and prompted me to pause and reflect on my own connections. Whose lives do I touch? And who touches mine?
This poem is exactly the kind of writing I adore…what wonderful connections you’ve made here. “resentful of the wait” adds such a connection to me. I’m always too fast, too hurried. Even at times like this. I hear you on the neighbor. Everything I read and see recommends leaning in to people that are so vastly different in views…but I don’t want to. Connection is sometimes a challenge for me. Look at how you’ve got me thinking already!
Wonderful post, Patricia! I love the story about the connection with your neighbor and how you are really leaning into the connection theme.
“connection is caring” — INDEED!
Fantastic, Patricia! I know this is a serious post, but you made me laugh a couple times (with dog poop and Kevin Bacon). So true and so easy to overlook how everything and everyone is connected. Thank you for reminding us to be aware and gentle with our connections.
That ending!!! I also love that you are really noting throughout when you see/feel a connection!
So often I’ve found that when I really talk with the customers who come into the bookstore where I work, we find we have lived near the same places or have family there, went to the same school, and on. I love your own connecting poem, that “uniting life to new life” from your own impatience but realizing how you are making connections. Kevin Bacon – woo hoo!
I can hear the impatience in the “tick-tock
tap-tap-click” and the questions answered with no punctuation in between. The Kevin Bacon connection made me smile.
Patricia, powerful way to highlight the unknown connections made through power red. I always appreciate reading about your life in the beginning of your posts. Sweet gramma connection with your neighbor.
Maybe your grandchildren will give you a positive connection to your neighbor. I hope so. People are separate now, post pandemic and because of politics, so I’m glad you found something to talk about and it might reveal more. Love the bonding around giving blood in your poem, an unusual setting, but familiar. Cartoon commandments, slow clocks, scuffed floors are great details. Hope you are enjoying the winter!
I love that we’ve both used Kevin Bacon in a poem before, Patricia! (Mine’s at https://laurasalas.com/poems-for-teachers/no-degrees-of-separation-poetry-friday/) I extra love the bit about avoiding eye contact.
Blood brothers, blood sisters–your liquid connections flow outward like leashes, the dog of your heart attending to others. Woof!
So original, Patricia – many layers and emotions here! Thanks for sharing, many levels of that as well. :0)
Patricia: I sat in a doctor’s waiting room yesterday, everyone on their phones, or masked, or knitting. No one talking. Later, one of the nurses unloaded her whole work history on me. Feast or famine!
I like the topic and honesty here… thanks.