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Time, it’s been awhile

December 14, 2025 by terrypetersen

…Yup, Time, It’s Been Awhile

I chose large print with the hope that these words will stay in my memory longer. I sit by the heart monitor that lets hospital staff know my heart bypass is operating A-okay. However, I feel best when I’m not thinking about it. My mind is young. Young!

Since I was born with reddish hair, I see only a few gray streaks in the mirror. At the age of 79. And a few wrinkles that age developed in my smile.

My five-year-old granddaughter calls me her young grandmother. I believe that is because I play with her. And refrain from laughing when she puts a stuffed animal under my shirt and says I am going to have my sister.

It’s winter. The grass waits under the snow. It knows warmth will reappear. So do I. The difference is that I wonder how much longer that will be. Someone I knew for many years died a few days ago. I am grateful that my last words to him were kind, before his illness appeared.

Kindness. Strange. Snow embraces bare trees and does no harm. When snow embraces skin, it is dangerous. Words of correction spoken with kindness are not the same when expressed with a critical tone.

Peace. I am beginning again. To write. One breath, one word at a time…

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Cut

July 22, 2025 by terrypetersen

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future. (Robert H. Schuller)

CUT—

The little girl stands

on her imaginary stage

made of ordinary maroon carpet on an everyday Thursday afternoon

sometime in mid-1950. A popular song

drifts into the living room

from the kitchen where Mommy cooks,

scrubs the floor, and complains about how quickly

three kids get it dirty again.

She thinks she may be pregnant with her fourth child. 











The girl mimics the trills, the rises and falls,





and emotions in the melody,





her gentle vibrato promising a





clear soprano voice one day.










Mama appears, wielding her wooden spoon.





So-who-do-you-think-you-are?





Mommy turns away without striking.





Yet, the girl hears the warning





and retreats into the dark, silent spaces





between the lace curtains and window.





The song will not disappear.





She hears it inside her head





and saves the sound for a safer moment.











									


				

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An Argument With Me

				
July 11, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					






An Argument with Me At 2AM





Overactive Subconscious mind, stop.





This is not a suggestion.





Me, I am talking to you.





Eyes close. Now.















Memory and imagination,





you can have the computer tomorrow.





Lay off the coffee and fears,





and I will do what you say.





It is time to sleep.





Know-it-all voice,





it is too late for abstinence.





Ask a storm to disassemble.





I cannot hear you.





You hear me fine.





Think about moments of joy.





Live them again.





Then breathe in and out,





out and in.















Smile. We’ll play again tomorrow.






									


				

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Fog, Sun, and Hope

				
July 1, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					






“The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.” (Plato)










Fog, Sun, and Hope















Bare, black trees stand out inside a low cloud of fog.





Headlights hide the vehicles they lead





until they arrive close enough to be





seen by other drivers.










In political fogs, fact and factoid blur. Alternative facts,





lies that wear well-constructed masks. Fear wins.





Each lie repeats often enough to be used as a light beam for





followers. The mask asks folk to scoff at non-believers.





And the non-believers respond with taunts labeled as vague





stupidity, inconsistent logic. A no-win war.










In the natural world, sun, blue sky, and clouds reappear.










Sun hides behind the fog. As headlights point out need





can we carry hope and respond with an ear instead of censure?
















									


				

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Yup, I am that old

				
June 22, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					






The Typewriter





Technology was not part of the everyday world in the 1950s and 1960s. Our phone was attached to the wall. We had a party line. No celebration was involved. Several people shared the same line.






If you wanted to make a call, and someone else was busy discussing how terrible a neighbor looked with hair the color of an orange cat, you could interrupt or wait. Neither was a good choice.






When I needed to write a school paper, I went to the library and rummaged through the card catalogue. One row of drawers next to another. If the subject wasn’t boring, this task was!





The librarian found the research book I needed via the information on the card. Then I copied what I needed along with the reference onto my notebook.






Sometimes, the material was available in the World Book Encyclopedia. Our family bought a set from a door-to-door salesman. The series contained anything you wanted to know about aardvarks to zippers, provided you didn’t need in-depth information.






Typing the final result made Atlas’s job of carrying the Earth appear easy. I started with a manual typewriter. A sheet of carbon paper was placed between the original and the copy. Since the backspace didn’t provide an eraser, either the entire page needed to be retyped or the error needed to be covered with a white blob cover-up.






Erasable paper eventually came onto the scene. However, it smudged. And, of course, the biggest mistakes appeared at the bottom of the page. I didn’t keep track of the time needed to complete one five-page assignment. On my father’s Royal typewriter. In a basement corner.






It was a royal pain. The advantage? Only one I can see. I sure learned discipline. And gratitude. When the task was completed. Eventually.





.






									


				

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Asthma Story

				
June 11, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					

















Take a deep breath and let it all go.  Oprah Winfrey





ASTHMA STORY





The word b-r-e-a-t-h needs
more than one syllable when an attack begins,
air struggling to flow in and out, a sudden drying, shallow water. 





I think about free ocean waves
as a passage opens through my nose, out my mouth.
A new power. Whispers could move mountains.
The smallest birds embrace the sky. And I am grateful,






									


				

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Lost Again

				
June 2, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					






“We make a lot of detours, but we’re always heading for the same destination”
―Paulo Coelho





Lost—Again





The directional app on my phone
remains mute, while the road twists
and my mind twists with it
into lost places I’ve been.





Memories explode bully-style inside
my brain synapses, creating panic.
No sound, but an arrow on my screen says
turn left at the next corner. I remember





the shop with the worn yellow sign.
And space in my head and heart opens.
I know to move through uncertainty.
Celebrate my detours. Consider





the possibility that others hide pain
behind strange, sour, surly behavior.
May peace be made from pieces,
one imperfect turn at a time.





Originally published in For a Better World 2020






									


				

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Hunger’s Cousins

				
May 23, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					








Hunger’s Cousin










When her baby was born,
someone whisked her boy away
and placed him in an incubator
sterile, touch free.





And Mama brought her child home.
They grew, separate and fat,
looked similar yet knew
of each other as strangers.





Mama stands now at a deli.
She orders three pounds of ham
and 24 ounces of cheese.
Two women behind her snicker





at both her and the chubby child.
A third woman mentions
the shade of her worn blue coat.
A weak compliment. Mama fakes a smile.





Then another customer says she recalls
the date and hospital where the boy was born.
She recognizes her son’s name.
Mama gasps and the woman smiles.





I took care of your son in the nursery.
For 47 days. She touches both Mama and her boy.
And prays for a miracle. She knows
Mama and son live hunger of a different kind.






									


				

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Haibun for a Father

				
May 14, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					








“Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”
― Maya Angelou










Haibun for a father





One quick kiss for your daughter and you and your new red walker head for the dining room where Sunday’s fried chicken and sweet potatoes wait. No cauliflower. You will watch to see how many residents leave their boiled vegetables on their plates, gifts for the garbage, your hatred for vegetables universalized. “No room at the table to chat,” you tell your daughter and son-in-law. “It’s okay to leave now.” 





She wonders what thoughts you drag with each slow step. Your doctor doesn’t take long-term nursing home patients; his associate does, and he is on staff. Your daughter told you this less than an hour ago. You want to think of home as the place where you raised your kids, where you did your woodworking, and where you loved your wife. 





But you knew, you’ve always known it is different now. You said you could sleep for 24 hours and never get enough rest.






Your daughter replays your words as if she could change them. She enters the key code to exit and pretends they are only lights and buttons.










One leaf falls on water
It will float across or break
into new parts like seeds.






									


				

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Birth, an Imagined Memory

				
May 5, 2025 by terrypetersen  

				


				

					






The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. 





Mark Twain





BIRTH





Swollen, toxic, ignorant of motherhood,
you lie in your post-World War hospital bed,
and wonder if you’ve heard lies.
How can a newborn, untouched
by her life source, be fine?





You see, hear, touch, smell nothing but
bleached sheets and ward antiseptics.
The baby develops away from you
in a nursery. You return home. Without her,
cord leaked into your severed womb.





At home, baby grows fed on evaporated milk
and rules made of rules. Should-be’s without question.
The child reaches for you, to break the barrier, 
but not until long after she delivers your grandson.





Does the touch feel real?
By then your weakness has led to the inevitable.





Your great-granddaughter finds your photo in an old album.
“That’s my mother,” your daughter says.
“You would have loved her.”
The chasm finally closes.
For no good reason at all.






									


				

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