Time to do some summer reruns for those who might have missed the initial podcasts.
Short and Sweet includes 6 short stories and one non-fiction homage to my Irish mother. A special Christmas podcast features poetry and sentiment dedicated to my nephew, Tim, who was born on Christmas Eve. This segues to Trio a trilogy of three books: Ginny, Dinner with Sharon Flynn and Meggie, all primarily set in Ireland and lovingly telling the stories of Ginny and her life.
A Promise Kept is a ballad poem about a young woman writer finding her place.
Songs of my Father is that—sheet music for three of Dads songs performed by me (as best I could) and some special poems included in the book.
The Play honors the community theater buffs and that delightful culture.
Hearts of Shamrock is an homage to my Irish mother.
Finally, The Back 40 is new and leads into 98.6, a selection of which will be shared, prefaced by a new song, Swan Song, which may give a clue to the end of Short and Sweet. As we used to say when I was young—that’s all she wrote, Baby.— until Little Brother’s Quilt completes the Reilly story and hopefully leaves a Happy Dance in all the listeners’ reverie
Hello everyone. It has been a while since I've been in touch with you. I had published some of the other episodes previously, so it may not seem that way to you, but in the interim, I went to Florida and visited the Buzz Sprout, my platform, the booth there at Podfest. It was a wonderful experience for me. I went with my daughter and it was joyous. And I'm I'm happy to say that I'm a podcaster. I feel good about that. So I I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. I'm going to share with you that I had promised to bring in a book that is not on Amazon. Most of mine are, as I've shared with you before. And now I can say to you that in that break that I took of the few weeks, I published two new books on Amazon. And one is entitled The Back 40, which I'll tell you a little bit about. And I'm going to share with you today some of those poems from the Back 40. Eleven of them are new or not included in the 98.6, which is the big book of my uh poems that are in that collection, 98.6. And I published that one as well. So what my plan is, what I think I'm going to do, I'm going to share with you a song I did already, uh entitled Talon. Uh Talon is my grandson. He's um 50% Native American and I'd say 100% in spirit Native American. Wonderful, wonderful young man. And this song was written for him and for his then uh person, significant other, and I share it with you because it has a heartbeat of the land that we are given. We don't own it, as they say, as the Native Americans say, we just are allowed to use it. And so I thought it would be a fitting preface for the Back 40, which is a new poem I wrote um to entitle the book, this uh selection of 30 poems. I'm going to share 11 with you today. I think I'll have enough time to do that and won't wear you out in that process. Um but they they center around our relationship with our planet and and how much that means to me, it truly does. And the back 40 is something that usually we uh reference as oh, put it out in the back 40, or that's out in the back 40, or something that is not significant. Whereas if the back 40 is allowed to define us, we need to track out to that back 40, the big boundary on the outside of our intellect and see who we really are. So that's what this is all about. I'm going to read 11 of the poems from the back 40. It is available on Amazon if you choose to. And then after this, I am going to delve into 98.6 as I promised you. And there are so many that I'll just pick a few as we go through. And that one, too, now is available on Amazon. Here I go with my plugs again. But I want you to enjoy them in any way you can if you do, and I hope you do. And I wish you the very best, and I'll be back in touch soon. But now we're going to delve into the back 40. The back 40. At the edge, unattended and forgotten, but an integral part of the whole, is commonly referenced as unimportant. But it is the back 40 that creates the boundary, excuse me, that defines us. Visiting the back 40 in our daily lives means digging deeper and putting in the effort to get there. Slogging through the mud, guessing how far away the iron pin is to reach. But it is that process in difficult terrain that teaches us that we can do it. Our efforts are not in vain. And the physical map will stay with us forever. And another selection from the back 40 is entitled Step Lightly on the World. Gentleness lives within us, a sweet feeling of contentment, tranquility, and goodness inherent in us all. But our struggle for perfection, adoration, and affection distorts our mind to seek ambitiously our goal. Ironic then our failure, our success brings only strife, when the answer to our pleasure we've had with us all our life. This one I especially like as I'm an October girl, and it's entitled Visual Feast. I think you can all relate to having this experience if you've walked in a beautiful autumn woods. It's entitled Visual Feast. Bathed in color, I am immersed and radiant too, surrounded by golden leaves, still on the trees, with only a few underfoot. Cars appearing redder than they do at any other time, even looking almost new. Crazy blue skies so deep and clear, cloudless, and of such a hue, cerulean, I think it's called. A visual feast of color, I'll never get my fill, and deepest urdent evergreens, popping the rich landscape, adding texture and definition to the luxuriant cranberry orange border. There's a fragrance too, like cornbread or cinnamon toast and apple cider down the hill at the cider mill. Short lived New England autumn I'll never get my fill. This one is entitled Ignoring Gold. Beside that wall an ancient chest was found, jewel encrusted, lion sculpted, finest gold. A child unearthed it and fell upon the ground. She lost her shoes and cried out weakly, we are told. Ignoring creeping cold and trembling fear, she ran home shoeless to tell them of her find. Her feet so fleet she ignored the echo in her ear. No one believed her and thought she lost her mind. From that day on the child was not the same, and never again beside the wall would play. The sound she feared became her very name. Only dreams followed her to relive that day. Our children's truth we often will deny The treasure lost is more than meets the eye. This next one is entitled A Different Color Flower. And I wrote this for the town or the town of Winchester where I live. And it was used on Memorial Day. They used it, so I'm I'm proud of it, I guess you'd say. It's called A Different Color Flower. Poppies grew by the small crosses where the land had been churned and turned from boots digging in and shells stealing lives that were buried in the ground. The decoration day, lore. The land healed and offered bright red poppies after the war. And so we decorate the graves of those we've lost and now call it Memorial Day. 2020 Memorial Day is such a strange war still stealing lives as we fight hard, fighting the unseen COVID across the globe, and burying the ones we love sometimes in hasty graves. What will the bright colored flower be when this war is done? One thing is certain there will be one in summer. Will come. And this one is entitled Granting Wishes. White lights on the little sleigh, small bells on the reindeer. It won't soar up to the midnight stars, and it isn't full of wished-for toys. The sleigh is for the children though, to fill up with their Christmas wishes. The big bell rings by the downtown kettle to help us make their dreams come true. This year more than ever, the empty sleighs call out to you. And this one is entitled The Gift of the Lake. Love my lake. My dreams have come true. The yellow pontoon goes around the perimeter, and nothing can compare to this. My infinite immersion in my ultimate Christmas gift to me. This one is entitled Wendy. Wendy the kind one, they say, who looked after those who were hurting and those who needed her. Wendy the sweet one, they say, who found humor and positivity in her outlook and her smile. Wendy, you can now fly free like the Wendy and Peter Pan to never never land. Where there is never, never any pain and never, never any suffering. Just kindness and sweetness. You will never, never fly from our hearts. You have made the world a kinder place, and your sweetness lives there forever. Wendy was the daughter of my next door neighbor, and I wrote that for her. She passed away at a very young age from cancer, so that's it was a commemorative to that, Wendy. Tsunami. This is the next one I'm going to share with you. Had such an impact on me when I saw that on TV. Mesmerized by unfamiliar sights, frozen into inaction and gripped by fear, the land became the sea as I watched from the balcony. It was rhythmic, lush, colorful, and surreal as buildings folded into the meringue of the whitecaps, just as I would fold meringue atop a lemon pie. If I don't run, I will die. Some part of me that was my very own watchdog screamed in my ear, and I ran. I didn't feel the ground beneath me. I didn't care about my purse, which I always secure. I ran and ran and others were running, and someone said, Here this way, and I followed this angel in colorful shorts, as did others from the hotel. I knew people had died and wanted to live and see things and love my children. My beautiful, powerful sea I now know must be respected as well as revered. This one is entitled Footprints in the Snow. As they begin to tread where they know they shouldn't go, their instincts boil inside them and they focus on the light footprints left behind them shown clearly in the snow. Children stuck together against a common foe, stumbling on the pathway, as fierce winds take their bite, darkness spins around them and they question what they know. Running off, they felt their power would never ever brightly glow, proving to their parents how wrong they were to fight, and this would show them clearly as there were their own footprints in the snow. Fear held them frozen as they couldn't see where to go. Nothing now was shining and nothing guided them with light. Was that someone calling for them? Please? They hoped that it was so a small flicker from a flashlight shone across the snow. Mom, Dad, they hollered. We're over here, just up on the right. Oh could they not hear them, please? That must not be so. And in a flash of warmth and love, as children only know, their parents scooped them up and hugged them oh so tight. They only cared that they were there and that they were not a foe. They were just mom and dad and how they loved them. So this is two lotuses. My little great granddaughter. Such a beautiful name. Two lotuses opening her iridescent petals as life begins. I cherish her sweet beauty as she blooms into maturity, nourished always and forever by our everlasting love. This is the final selection, or rather, this is the final poem in the collection that is not contained within 98.6. So I wanted those to be a part of the recordings as well. So that's why I'm doing it separately. So this is um entitled Christmas Song. And these, as I said, are all contained within the back 40. And the next episodes will go into 98.6, which I've also finally gotten around to getting onto Amazon. So with that, we will conclude with a Christmas song. Cardinals call a sweet song of approval as you walk by. I wish I had a special song to sing to them as they brighten a November tree or flash across the snowy land. Thank you, bright red birds, is all I say. But please know my heart sings as you fly by, and I thank God for his Christmas gift of you. That will conclude our episode. I hope you've enjoyed it. And I so look forward to meeting with you again, and we'll delve into 98.6, which is normal, after all.
