PROMPT #156 – “YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER”: GUEST HOST – PATRICIA HAWKENSON

I would be remiss if I didn’t take this moment to thank Connie Peters for hosting last week, and all the guest hosts to date. You have all contributed greatly to the success of Creative Bloomings. It continues this week with the addition of another talented and expressive artist in words and other disciplines. It’s a joy to share the spotlight this week with Patricia Hawkenson,

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Artisan, Poet and Author Patricia Hawkenson

Patricia A. Hawkenson was an award-winning educator before her retirement, but now she is a full-time artist offering a range of skills from stained glass kaleidoscopes, sewing tapestry handbags, creating jewelry, and writing poetry. Check out a few of her crafts on Creative Bloomings ‘CRAFT’ tab:

http://poeticbloomings.com/crafts/

You can follow her Expressive Domain business on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExpressiveDomain

She shares her poetry with a variety of online writing communities such as: Creative Bloomings, Writing Digest’s Poetic Asides, and Hello Poetry. Selected poems were published on e-zines, such as InTheFray and Storm Sage Central. She is published in numerous print anthologies including: Poetic Bloomings the First Year, Prompted, Beyond the Dark Room, Whispered Beginnings, Fandemonium I & II, Four of a Kind, and Royal Flush. Her first full collection, “Magnetic Repulsion, 100 Poems from Desire to Disgust,” is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble: http://www.outskirtspress.com/magneticrepulsion

If it is not jinxing fate to mention it here, Patricia’s poem ‘Plum Crazy’ is slated to be published in the 2015 Poet’s Market! It was originally written for a prompt on Poetic Asides.

Patricia is currently seeking a writing agent and a publisher for her finished historical fiction novel ‘Born with a Tarnished Spoon.’ The novel exposes the social expectations of unwed mothers and the illegal baby trade that exploited their situations in the 1930’s.

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PROMPT #156 – “YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER” – The poem we’re asking for this week, is based on a dream you’ve had. It could be the misty visions we have during our R.E.M. cycle, or it could be an aspiration we hold dear. Write the poem entitled, “I Once Dreamed About____”

WALT’S MYSTIC NIGHTLY VISION:

I ONCE DREAMED ABOUT ANDREA MEETING HER GRANDMOTHER

A DREAM MEETING

My daughters are my pride and joy. I got just what I wanted; I never “wished” for boys. As different as night and day, they both have a way of working Daddy around their finger. The feeling lingers. Melissa holds a seven-year advantage, in time spent and shared. There were many a glad moment when she “met” her grandmother, my mother, spending her last nine months together. But as short lived, they were moments I cherish in my heart. The part that staggers me and saddens this old Dad’s demeanor was that my youngest daughter Andrea had never known her grandmother. I have no doubt that Andi would have had Mom’s special favor. She has Mom’s smile.

I recently dreamed about Andrea meeting her grandmother. Any other dream would have faded quickly in the early morning light. But this dream had the feeling so real that I could feel Mom’s gentle hand leading me through the mystic midnight vision playing in my sleep filled mind. For twenty-eight years she’s been gone, but ever-hopeful, this “one more day” played like it was video taped for posterity. The sincerity of Mom’s smile while she embraced our baby – fully grown and who has only “known” grandma by photos and oft-told memories which she had come to cherish as much as we have in making them. But, there they were a generation removed and settled into the groove that should have had the chance to flourish. It would have nourished both hearts in the lifetimes they would have known. Cuddled close conversing about futures planned and wisdom handed down; secrets shared between two of my favorite “girls”. But all nights do end and dreams do sometimes find conclusion. One final photo, a keepsake to take to my waking moments and beyond. In my dream, my daughter found her missing peace!

Daughters find their way
even in dreams they can feel
moments in their heart.

© Walter J Wojtanik – 2014

PATRICIA’S DREAM:

WE ONCE DREAMED ABOUT GROWING OLD TOGETHER

There was no section
of our colonoscopies
that was scrapbook worthy,
and we had to settle
for pressing dead leaves
as they withered and dropped
instead of your balding hair,
our falling reading glasses,
or my sagging skin,
so our desires for
idyllic porch lemonade
and white-wicker rocking chairs
became improbable fantasies
that have slowly grown
into five o’clock shadows
with eye-opening dark drinks
served from our shaking hands
into old-fashioned glasses.

© PATRICIA A HAWKENSON – 2014