Intermission

 Intermission

 

What better than a star,

a light to show the way

of lost and lonely,

a gathering of spirit into cluster,

a zenith of the very breath of life

while we are waiting

on that gathering of souls?

What better than a star,

to wait upon the family reunion;

wait with those who’ve gone beyond,

out there into the deepest blue

of God’s forever,

to keep a watchful eye

on us below

 . . . we, who wait to sparkle

in his love?

Could it be that stars

which can’t be numbered,

are watchmen, clad in luminous array;

that tonight a new star sparkles

in the vaporous Milky Way

with someone snatched

from terra firma glory

or freed

from all its terra firma pain?

Are constellations only families of spirit

in gowns that billow,

soft as cirrus clouds,

embroidered

with the rich brocade of gold;

fashioned by the archangels of heaven;

woven of each lightly wafting word

and garlanded with love we gave away?

What better than a star,

with imperfections,

during intermission of two lives?

Joy Stalvey Barefoot

 

 

 

 

(This was originally written when my Mother died but has been shared with others)

Happy New Year

 

                               

A new year comes, leaving us older,

with memories to ponder about.
There’s no turning back the hands of the clock
but that’s never reason to pout

for with each year that passes us over

a sprinkling of wisdom descends,
leaving us richer than ever before
as we reap all the year’s dividends,

New friends we’ve made, places we’ve seen,

new revelations of truth,
a knowledge of living, not known in the past
and not to be learned in our youth.

Yes, a new year comes, and an old one goes,

We bequeath to history, the past;
'though we can’t turn back the hands of the clock.
We can hold treasured memories fast.
                                            -Joy Stalvey Barefoot

Nursing Home Manners

 

(Example Two, from Miss Kathleen McNutt)

Finger foods have changed , she said.

Miss Post should be aware.

Mashed potatoes, macaroni,

are finger food affairs.

Manners at the nursing home

are different than I learned.

Forks and spoons and utensils;

quite often, there, are spurned.

So, if you come to visit me

just kindly call ahead

They’ll set a separate table for us.

We’ll dine alone, instead.

 

Joy S. Barefoot

Fisticuffs in the Nursing Home (News from Miss Kathleen McNutt)

 

There was an old lady

laid up in her bed;

annoyed by an old man,

not right in the head.

He came calling one night,

acting very ill-bred.

With an empty bottle

she cracked him on the head

 

Not easily dissuaded,

upon his first try

he returned again

with a gleam in his eye.

 

On this unlucky eve

as he climbed on her bed

a water-filled bottle

cracked him on the head.

 

"I've been in a fisticuffs!"

she blithely told me,

"with a feisty old man

who tried to bed me;

 

now when I see him,

'Don't hit me', he'll say.

He covers his head

and  gets out of my away."

 

(This was told to me, on a visit to the nursing home, by my "feisty" poetry writing friend in her ninety-fifth year.  She had an amazing mind and had self-published two poetry/prose books of her own collection.)