104. HAIKU  moon butterflies play in a garden of dark light dissolve into dreams *comments welcome.

103. DAY 103 - HAIKU The ones that explode into sunny yellow smiles bright dandelions... *comments welcome

I've been deeply affected by the passing of so many of my much loved family members over the years. It seems I have a very strong need to put those feelings on paper, almost as a way to honor them.   102. THE LEAVING I remember the February night my mother-in-law died; four of us in the cramped room at the nursing home, wanting to be with her when she passed as if our being there could somehow make it easier. She fought so hard, the consummate mother, in spite of the horrible toll Alzheimer's had taken on her mind and body. When she was gone, I saw a tiny tear trickle down her cheek. Look, I said, she's crying, but no they said, it happens sometimes. It's called the tear of death. Just six months later my father-in-law left us, too. Same nursing home but different this time. There was no bedside vigil; he slipped away on a quiet Sunday morning. It's August now, the day after his funeral; they're together again, side by side on a grassy slope overlooking Rogers L...

89. HAIKU warmish rainy days leaves sprout in front of my eyes green fills the spring sky *comments welcome warmish rainy days leaves pop in front of my eyes green fills the spring sky

Cinquain: A short, usually unrhymed poem  consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines. 101. SPRINGTIME Breezy cloud tumbling day, scent of honeysuckle, mock orange at the kitchen window, April.

SEPTOLET:  a poem consisting of seven lines of fourteen words, with a break between the two parts. Both parts deal with the same thought and create a picture. 100. CONSIDER I am safe in the middle of today, tucked inside a smooth white shell. *comments welcome.

99. MY BROTHER RAY I was twenty-six when my brother died, driving the car he loved, a small topaz orange Triumph Spitfire, on a perfect May evening, my third wedding anniversary. A station wagon  crashed into his tiny sports car. Closest to me in age, just 13 months younger, named after our father, the one Mother loved best. Small and wiry, while the rest of us were tall,  his eyes blue like mine. When my brothers came to tell me, it was almost morning and he'd only been dead a few hours. Dead, my brother, impossible. I don't know what words they used. I just remember standing all smashed together  in the hallway of my tiny apartment, the three of us wrapped in a single embrace, clutching and sobbing. I'll never forget the gut-wrenching pain. Until that moment, I had not  understood  what loss was  about. *comments welcome