Living in a new city is sometimes daunting. Where are the grocery stores, the restaurants, the music, theatre, poetry? My new city has a newly remodeled senior center. I took the risk of asking if they didn’t have any, could I lead a writing group. So now, once a week, one hour a week, one or maybe even four of us spend time writing to prompts I provide. It’s a “gathering of story tellers” and there are many stories that we share. I use, among other examples, a poem I have written in ten minutes or twelve, no revisions (okay maybe one or two). For me, it fits right in to my current frame of mind of first drafts, not worrying about, and seldom revising. Here is my first draft (no revisions) for this coming week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s something I have learned from what I’ve lived\u201d Searching for love is love is the routine of making the bed I\u2019ve learned I should have kept at least one childhood friend I\u2019ve learned the sun is worth waking early, it warms the Love is the journey. When I stop traveling what might be I\u2019ve learned choice is what keeps me moving in and out I lie. I exaggerate. I talk talk talk. When no one is listening I\u2019ve learned children love more deeply, Children outgrow their childish selves.<\/p>\n I once was a child. I had childhood friends. I\u2019ve learned Sherry Quan Lee Living in a new city is sometimes daunting. Where are the grocery stores, the restaurants, the music, theatre, poetry? My new city has a newly remodeled senior center. I took the risk of asking if they didn’t have any, could I lead a writing group. So now, once a week, …<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAtaol Behramo\u011flu<\/strong>
\nFor Pat<\/p>\n
\nEach morning, is opening the blinds and seeing the hostas
\nFlower, the grass grow. I am love, or else looking for love
\nIs like looking for a needle in a haystack, I can\u2019t find what
\nI don\u2019t already have.<\/p>\n
\nTucked under my arm and carried her across decades because
\nI can\u2019t retrieve what I didn\u2019t have. I\u2019ve had friends, many,
\nMany friends-come and go, come and go, faded like photos
\nDiminishing my past.<\/p>\n
\nGhosts that haunt me, but the rain, the rain I can hear;
\nA rhythm that rocks me or terrifies me. We need both
\nQuiet and storm.<\/p>\n
\nA difficult road, a rocky road, it is not love, but it\u2019s not fear
\nEither. I name it lazy. I name it forgiveness. I\u2019ve learned
\nIt is temporary. A breach of time. Self-doubt.<\/p>\n
\nWavering like a chicken with its head cut off. Sometimes
\nMy choice to go North or go South is the wrong choice,
\nBut a wrong choice is better than indecision. Choice is
\nFreedom. <\/p>\n
\nI write. I have learned no one can give me love, no one
\nCan love me the way I demand that they love me. I\u2019ve
\nLearned I can only talk to myself in the way I want to
\nBe talked to. I can only love myself, the way I want
\nTo be loved.<\/p>\n
\nAre more sincere. They don\u2019t have boundaries. They
\nListen to each other. Children, with no shame, cry.
\nChildren laugh. Children dance. Children are empaths.<\/p>\n
\nSometimes they return. Full circle. <\/p>\n
\nJuly 2, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"