[stylist] Barbara's response to writing prompt

[Jackie Williams]

Barbara,
I liked your poem. The first part might make us fantasize, then there is
your turn, " It yanked me from a dream of riding the merry-go-round." The
last part is a heartbreaker about autism, or other conditions. Yet you have
made it a comfort, a happy place, and it is no longer a heartbreak. 
This is just my interpretation. Hope it is close.
I have just lost my kid brother to Pick's disease, and I will soon send the
two poems that might my own head knocking for comfort.
Jackie

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Barbara
Hammel
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 1:28 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Barbara's response to writing prompt

I put it as an attachment, but here it is posted below, too.  O, and I saw
mistakes so this version has the corrections and proper line breaks.  And it
is single-spaced, if it turns into double when I send it.

Barbara


    WHAT IS THAT?
  By Barbara Hammel

This morning I awoke to the sound of a squeaking bed,
Its very rhythmic pattern brought images to my head,
Of college years, of wedded bliss, of soaps and hotel stays,
I rubbed my eyes, the clock said four,  I laid there in a haze,
Trying hard to remember why I even hear that sound.
It yanked me from a dream of riding the merry-go-round.
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! And then it comes to me,
I've heard that sound quite frequently since he was almost three.
When he is in his "happy place" he's rocking on his head.
I try to close my eyes again and snuggle in my bed.


Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.--Robert Frost