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I Said a Prayer for You Today
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I forgot to freeze time . . .
My baby is 17 years old today. I swear when I tucked him in just yesterday he was still my baby boy, but when the sun rose again today he stood before me, almost a man. He still smiles at me with the same precious grin, his eyes still twinkle the way they always have, and when he puts his arms around me, they still wrap around my heart. It’s different now though, before, it felt like I was holding him, now it seems he’s holding me.
I still look at him and see the little man he used to be, I’m sure I always will, but I also see the young man he has become. He is smart and kind, gentle and generous. He fills me with pride and joy and the purest of love.
He is his own person, unique and courageous, forging his own path rather than following one well-worn by others. His wears his faith for all to see, he leads instead of follows, and he takes every step with confidence.
He’s always been the baby brother, but he somehow knew in his earliest years he would sometimes have to gently guide his older brothers every now and then. He learned patience and compassion before he could understand the concepts of them. His brothers taught him many things while he was unknowingly teaching them. I know it isn’t easy to have siblings with special needs, but he embraced the role with grace and love.
I respect the young man he has grown to be, I admire him. I know there will come a tomorrow when I awake to the simple silence of an empty home, so today, I will cherish the fullness it still holds.
Crystal R. Cook
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The Chaos by G. Nolst Trenité
They say if you can properly pronounce each word with proficiency, you’ve mastered our marvelous language with honors . . . Read it aloud and see how well you do!
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!
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What if we chose?
It begins within, listening to our hearts, not the world around us. I choose . . . we all have a choice.
How much of how we feel about our fellow man has been dictated by the prejudice of others? Resentments from the sins and sorrows of those who have come before us remain, festering and growing in their absence. We feed them, we nurture them and we pass them on.
We copy and paste them into our own psyche, we adopt them without question. Sheep following an unseen shepherd to the slaughter. I too often hear people trying to justify and defend their attitudes and opinions with false arguments and phony indignation.
The thoughts they think are not their own, merely recycled resentments inherited from family, friends and foes of people they may have never known. Willingly passing on these ideals to the next generation without questioning why.
If we stopped to think for ourselves, would we see their experiences are not our own? Would we realize we have shaped our world based on the broken model of theirs? Would we notice we’ve damaged it even more in the name of progress and change? Would we see we can’t look at our own experiences through the tainted lenses of the past?
Our country is more divisive and separated and prejudice than it was before many of us took our first breath of life. Our society has managed to twist the dreams that once were, we have found new ways to undermine each other, to build walls of separation as we pretend to tear them down.
We say we want equality in this country but equality is just a concept, it can never be achieved, especially when everyone who cries out for it seems to want more than the rest. There can never be equality while there are those who have no means to even stand in line to receive it.
We use the word acceptance when what we really want is applause. We fight for what we call human rights when we have forgotten what human rights really are. We fight for freedom of expression but place restrictions upon it. We right for freedom of religion but we really want everyone to agree with our own beliefs . . . at least that is what we accuse each other of, slowly molding it into a reality.
The needs of the some have become more important than the needs of the many. We champion the criminals and forget their victims. We shout platitudes to placate the masses in a cacophony of false hopes and empty promises. The ones who fight for our country are now second in line to those who invade it.
We are broken by the choices we’ve made . . . Soon, their won’t be enough to mend.
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In The company of Angels
I seem to run a cross these words whenever someone needs to hear them, I have learned to never ignore the small voice that gently urges me to share. If this is meant for your heart, I hope it brings some comfort.
I know you cannot see me, but I’m hoping you will hear,
the message I am whispering, so softly in your ear.
I know I left too quickly, there wasn’t time to say goodbye,
for when the angels came, I simply had to fly.
I caught a glimpse of Heaven in the twinkling of their eyes,
and I couldn’t help but follow, as they began to rise.
Heaven is so beautiful, how I wish that you were here,
I would hold you close, and softly wipe away your tears.
I’m in the company of angels, for eternity I’ll remain,
free from earthly sorrow, from fear and doubt and pain.
In the company of angels, I will stand and wait,
I’ll be keeping watch, near Heavens pearly gate.
I know the day will come, I will see you enter in,
as angels sing in praise, we’ll be together once again.
I love you oh so much, please try not to cry,
I have the softest wings, oh how I love to fly.
Maybe you will feel them, wrapping round you as you sleep,
I will live forever in the memories that you keep.
I am in the company of angels now, please do not despair,
I’ll meet you at the pearly gates, I’ll be waiting there . . .
Crystal R. Cook
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My Favorite Things
Beauty and music, sunshine and light,
the wings of a dove, softly rustling in flight.
The smell of the morning after summers rain,
crackling campfires, and bubbling champagne.
Voices of children, singing songs of praise,
the evening mist, and long autumn days.
The changing of seasons, a moment of prayer,
goosebumps and laughter, my favorite chair.
Being lost in a moment, the voice of a friend,
being held in a hug I hope never ends.
The way my cheeks feel coming in from the cold,
the softness of hands as they begin to grow old.
Sincerity and honesty, faith, hope and love,
knowing that God is somewhere above.
The presence of angels, a wonderful dream,
having a bowl of my favorite ice cream.
Snuggles and cuddles and soft babies feet,
that fleeting moment my house is tidy and neat.
Sweet memories to cherish, tears of sadness and joy,
pictures in albums, my childhood toy.
Sharing a secret, shouting out loud,
laying back in the sun, guessing shapes in the clouds.
Rain on the rooftop, silence so still,
meadows and forests, lacy frost on the sill.
The power of prayer, uninterrupted sleep,
making a promise I know I will keep.
Sitting and thinking of my favorite things,
like cupcakes and flowers and angel’s wings.
The innocent sweetness of love’s first kiss,
and simply sharing my thoughts with a friend like this.
(c) Crystal R. Cook
The Qwiet Muse 