PAD Day 18: For Frances

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem entitled "Little _______", and (2) write an elegy, "one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail." The prompt seemed to beg a short poem today, and since my time is short in preparing for the upcoming holiday weekend, it's a good idea anyway. This triolet was inspired by my late mother-in-law, who was a little woman with a big heart.

Little Elegy

The little things she left behind -

pearl earrings, hand-scrawled recipe -

again I have her on my mind,

the little things. She left behind

some trinkets, but I wish I'd find

her giant heart, her legacy.

The little things she left behind -

pearl earrings, hand-scrawled recipe.


I'm going to post this older poem here, too, because it fits the NaPoWriMo prompt so perfectly.This one won a "Poetic Form" contest several years ago on the Poetic Asides blog, and was published in Writer's Digest. It's a French refrain form called the quatern.  This one, too, was indirectly inspired by the passing of my mother-in-law, but it's in the voice of a grieving husband.

Purple Heart

I gave away your clothes last week.
A truck rolled up and took six bags
to some forsaken warehouse where
they’d be passed on to people who

cannot afford to buy them new.
I gave away your clothes. Last week
I couldn’t stand the closet full
of coats and dresses, hung like ghosts

and so I yanked them off their racks,
stuffed plastic bags with memories
I gave away. Your clothes, last week,
went to a world that never knew

how fine you were, how beautiful

in that red dress, that silken blouse
some stranger walks the street in now.
I gave away your clothes last week.