In My Nanu’s House (by Cheryl Lynn Moyer)

Cheryl Lynn Moyer in Maui

In My Nanu’s House

The wood floors were daily swept clean.
In a cast iron pot, cabbage soup slowly simmered.
In moth balled boxes, colorful hats with feathers waited.
Newspaper filled the cracks around the chimney.

Crooked hands curled around rosary beads.
cracked lips mumbled “Hail Mary’s” for contrition
from shrouded priests, confessing sins of omission.
Most of our secrets were never told.

Water that splashed over ivory soup, bubbled me clean.
She kissed the places that caused me pain.
“Fatherland” songs kept the dark nights away.
She taught me how to fluff pillows, over sweet sheets.

Stories filled me with mental pictures of family.
Flower beds were watered before the dawn.
One day when we buried her under gray skies,
We swept the floors, shook the rugs, scrubbed the pots,

then we perched her brightly colored hats upon our heads,
and danced right out her door.

* * *

“In My Nanu’s House” (c) 2009 Cheryl Lynn Moyer, all rights reserved

CherylLynn Moyer is a retired FEMA inspector, environmentalist, activist,Unitarian Universalist, special education teacher and poet who livesand writes in Montgomery, Alabama. “I have attended workshops withFranz Wright in Provincetown, MA in Oct.2005 and with Robert Pinsky inCamden, NJ at Rutgers in 2005.  I am published in Write On, PoeticHours, Penwood Review, Down in the Dirt, Distinguished Writings, Bell’sLetters, Alabama Anthology 2006, the Birmingham Arts Journal and theAlabama Poet’s Society 2006.  I am an Al Gore trained Climate Changepresenter. I have a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from PennState University and am currently enrolled in the Master’s of EducationProgram for a Special Education at Alabama State University. In myspare time I write grants for non-profits here in Alabama, playscrabble and a mean game of pool.”

Please check out her blog at www.poetryagainstpoverty.vox.com.

You can reach Cheryl Lynn Moyer at remaxxclm@aol.com.

Manifestation of a Buddha (by Cheryl Lynn Moyer)

Cheryl Lynn Moyer in Maui

Manifestation of a Buddha

A child missing for a year in remote Nepal,
re-emerges now ‘The Enlightened one,’
the reincarnated Buddha, cross-legged
beneath a tree. No sign of ten months
of hunger or thirst for anything but silent prayer.
Bamjon, last seen by tens of thousands
in 2005 now has shoulder length hair
with his body wrapped in a simple white cloth.
People are walking to see him, to be touched
by a God, some believe. These terrible times
have called him forth, molding him into
Buddha himself, who said, “All that we are
is the result of what we have thought.
The mind is everything. What we think
we become.”
And so he has.

* * *

“Manifestation of a Buddha” (c) 2009 Cheryl Lynn Moyer, all rights reserved

Cheryl Lynn Moyer is a retired FEMA inspector, environmentalist, activist, Unitarian Universalist, special education teacher and poet who lives and writes in Montgomery, Alabama. “I have attended workshops with Franz Wright in Provincetown, MA in Oct.2005 and with Robert Pinsky in Camden, NJ at Rutgers in 2005.  I am published in Write On, Poetic Hours, Penwood Review, Down in the Dirt, Distinguished Writings, Bell’s Letters, Alabama Anthology 2006, the Birmingham Arts Journal and the Alabama Poet’s Society 2006.  I am an Al Gore trained Climate Change presenter. I have a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Penn State University and am currently enrolled in the Master’s of Education Program for a Special Education at Alabama State University. In my spare time I write grants for non-profits here in Alabama, play scrabble and a mean game of pool.”

Please check out her blog at www.poetryagainstpoverty.vox.com.

You can reach Cheryl Lynn Moyer at remaxxclm@aol.com.