Barbara Swander Miller
Honoring the journey in everyday life
Category: Poetry
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The click of her leash.The squeak of the garage door.Brutal wind whips past. Years ago, when I wrote my own curriculum for AP Literature, I included Japanese verse in the poetry unit. I’d been studying Asian literature through the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia and was working to incorporate Japanese, Chinese, and Korean literature…
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Empty plates linger. Snowflakes whirl past slatted blinds. Superflu Christmas!
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Fill the Aegean Blue ripples shimmering with silver ridges, rolling away toward the Sun that brightens the palest azure horizon mesmerize me. My exposed skin browns with freckles, moistened by the late summer rays that burn in the cerulean sky. Those Aegean sailors bound for Troy, fiercely loyal or stupidly tricked by a sailor much…
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“Do your best. Keep trying until you can do no more. Did you do your best? Then that’s all you can do.” ~Sigh~ The words do more than echo. They are the threads that stitch together my daily life. But I’m getting better at asking for help. Covid did that: Made me stress more, doubt…
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It’s Graduation Season: I see my former students and colleagues as I make the rounds to a few select open houses- of those daring, outstanding students who braved sending an invitation when they know it’s not my thing. “Are you glad you’re not teaching anymore?” “Oh, yeah. Things are so different. Even in just a…
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I’ve got to get ready Even though they won’t be coming, I feel my parents nudging me. I kick into Dad mode. Make a list and assign chores to anyone who is standing nearby or is expected to be standing nearby in the coming hours. Used to be that was my kids’ seasonal horror. “You…
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on Spring Break Pull off the mask of monotony, the cloak of routine, and allow the joyful voice of your hidden heart to sing with gleeful abandon. Dance! Fling your arms wide to embrace the fresh day with its newly scrubbed face of opportunity. Then wrap the shawl of serenity around your sturdy shoulders that…
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A shaft of moonbeam pierced the upper pane of glass, so bright that as it hit my face, I thrashed, untangling my restless legs from the crisp percale that imprisoned them. Wadded now where the foot of my bed met the sloping ceiling, my sheets released me to the light’s magnetic pull. Cool, rough floorboards…
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Kids and Their Secrets The errant slice of American cheese that ended up on the bathroom floor has baffled all investigators for more than fifty years. Its softened edges, missing corner, and sweaty surface reside far back in my brain’s mystery album. Not a single one of us four kids admitted to tossing it beside…
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A poem about becoming Mastermind, I once was tagged in my introverted days. Arranging, calculating, quietly driven. Then Field Marshal, planning, executing, holding the torch, urging my battalion into victory. Often Fixer, eager to improve any situation, to declaw a beast, and watch it smile. Sometimes Seven, grabbing every random chance for growth to enjoy…
