poems by

Barbara Kidd Lawing

Poetry book, 117 pages, $13 cover price

($11 if ordered from the MSR Online Bookstore)

ISBN: 9781599480282

Released: 2006

Barbara Kidd Lawing likes invitations into new zones of achievement. She began writing poems at age 35 while choosing poems for a reminiscence therapy group in a nursing home.

She was living a post-divorce unconventional life at the time and soon decided to give up fulltime work to make time for teaching herself to write and edit. About eight years later she graduated from the ‘La-Z-Boy Recliner School’ – where she studied the best fiction authors, and history, philosophy, religion, psychology, and the arts. Her studies continue (she eschews TV), for she has long understood that an artist can never exhaust creativity.

In 1989 she was invited to instruct a Creative Writing Class for Central Piedmont Community College’s Continuing Education. She still instructs that class, and leads writing groups for seniors (at Levine Jewish Community Center), writing retreats, performance groups, and fiction classes. Her newest ventures include playwriting and storytelling.

It has often been her privilege to prod someone to take a first step into poetry, storytelling, or getting onstage. Via computer, as freelance editor, she helps writers in many states step into better writing skills.

Visit Barbara’s website at: www.BarbaraLawing.com

Galileo

Jupiter has sixteen moons.
The one
in my sky tonight
is too enchanting.
She makes her way across the field
of heaven while the spacecraft Galileo
moves from planet to planet
on a 2.5 billion mile voyage,
with occasional rests in a parking orbit
to soak up energy.

I hope
the monad who lived the life
of Galileo Galilei
watches the course of the craft
from some corner of the universe,
even as I watch my moon,
with inexplicable glee.
I can almost hear his chuckle
at the understanding forced on us
by deep-space perspective.

…2.5 billion…I’m traveling
that long too, with
deliberate fuel stops
every time the road levels out.

Beer Talk

Outside, Jack Frost
blows his arctic breath.
Inside we sit and chat,
cozy over frosted mugs of
Mich Light and Budweiser.
Bubbles rise in the brew
while a bit of jargon
floats about the table:
dysfunctional families.
It does not take us long
to unanimously declare
Beaver Cleaver grew up
in a perfect family,
only one of the species.

Only one of us has read
the authoritative book.
All of us are certain
we grew up underprivileged:
shortchanged when it came to
suckling, nestling, cuddling.
And each is quick to jump
into one or the other
pigeonhole – with those who fear
abandonment, or those who say,
I can get along fine without you.

Even peering from our respective
holes, it is easy to see
how the pairing of these opposites
dooms the perfect family to
life in the film archives.
But our gaiety is not noticeably
diminished: we have lived
inside the hurt so long
we find it easy to remain hushed
beneath the bubbling chatter.

I Felt Eternity

I felt eternity
the other day.
Such an odd
thing. The water
was running and I
stood with soap
and water running
down my back
when suddenly all
my sensors lit up.
It was as
though I’d bumped
against a break in the
skin of spacetime.
I lifted my face and
lived just for a bit
where knowing
runs all the way
through you.