Merry December 23, 2014

     It's two days before Christmas 2014. I'm concentrating on the parts of my life for which I feel gratitude. And, thinking of the events that have turned out well, when they could have as easily been disasters.

Happy Thanksgiving Monday

  

Light shimmers 

 in the darkest times.

Sometimes we concentrate so hard on the darkness,

we forget to see the light 

until

suddenly, we are overwhelmed, speechless.

Gratitude.

Winning a Poetry Award

 

Thank you to the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick for continuing to hold the annual writing competition, now in its 29^th year. 

 

Congratulations to all of the winners and to those who received Honorable Mention in 2014.   I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the competition, and am delighted to have won an award this year.

My poem “The Late Season” won in the Individual Poem category.  The independent judge had this to say:

Carol Steel’s “The Late Season” has an Impressionist quality to it.  Her simple and direct language is judiciously chosen, without literary effect getting in the way.  Here is a good example of straightforward language used to maximum effectiveness.  The painting of rural scene offers a picture of the edge of a field “bending” toward the remaining years.  The delicate juxtaposition of “goldenrod and / yellowed grasses” with “the chickadee flits” is Impressionist pigment in words.

Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick

Winner in Individual Poem Category 2014

Judge Sean Wiebe, Prince Edward Island

 I wrote this poem in the late autumn last year, at a time when life seemed fragile.  It took three months of fiddling with it, to pare down to the fifty-five words it became.  I won’t post the poem here or on Facebook, as that is considered publishing and would preclude submitting it for real publication.  I have avoided placing any of my poems on the internet for over a year because of this restriction.  Those poems which do exist on my blog are early work or rough drafts.

Writing is often a lonely activity.  I hunker down after the initial burst of ideas and words, to re-write, again and again, searching for the best words to say what I’m struggling to express.  I belong to a writing group which listens and supports and asks hard questions.  I re-write, sometimes putting the work away for months to return to it with fresh eyes.  But most of this writing is done alone, which is why it is encouraging to receive positive feedback.

Thank you to the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick for the award. 

 I am delighted and grateful.


Apology:  When I transferred this blog entry from Word to the blog site, the line spacing became confused and I am unable to sort it back.

A Gift of Flowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A gift of flowers from my friend

 

 

Gratitude

Gratitude is so close to the bone of life,

pure and true, that it instantly stops the

rational mind, and all its planning

and plotting.

~Regina Sara Ryan

From Praying Dangerously

This is the quote for today from http://www.gratefulness.org/

Reading it made me stop all the "To Do" lists in my head. 

I recognize that the "planning and plotting" are of no importance, beside the fact that my mother and younger sister each received great reports from their doctors this week. 

The alternative to great reports could have been a diagnosis of breast cancer, a very real and ever present worry in this family's genetic make-up.

They are lucky, the whole family is lucky and I am so grateful.

Stop a minute. 

What has happened to you this week that caused you to feel gratitude?  For what are you grateful?