Category Archives: poetry

Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Better than Christmas.
Better than Easter. Better than Halloween.
It’s pies made from berries I picked myself, and golden
squash Scott grew in the garden, and healthy food smells
filling the kitchen. It’s family and friends and love
and laughter over old memories and memories in-the-
making. It’s Aunt Junie’s china and Aunt Elsie’s teacups
out of Grandma’s old maple china cabinet. It’s the sons
playing music on the piano I learned to play on fifty years
ago. It’s improv in the living room, and board games
on the dining room table after the food’s been cleared.
It’s wearing Moz’s sweater and feeling her arms around me
and Dad watching football while he eats his pie
with ice cream on top. It’s a fire in the woodstove and a cozy
room filled with amber light as it grows dark and cold outside.
It’s being filled up with gratitude so rich I want to cry
with the joy of it.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Ode to Black Friday

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Ode to Black Friday

I do not like Black Friday, sir
I do not like the brrr, grrr, whirrr
I do not like to fight over socks,
I do not like to get crammed in a box
store, you will not see me at the Mall
I do not like it, no, not at all.
The crazy, scrambling, hunter’s race
doesn’t fit my ambling, gatherer’s pace
I like to feel, I like to sniff
I like to take my time and if
I take more time than Sally and Sam
it’s the way I shop, and it works for me, ma’am.
So you will not find me camped outside the store
You will not find me standing at dawn at the door
You will not find me wedged in the mall’s lot
or crammed in traffic, with wares newly-bought.
For I do not like Black Friday, friend.
Well, except online shopping maybe – they’ll send.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

And now some shameless family plugs – because we wouldn’t be entering the holiday season without some shameless plugs, right?
To order any of Karen’s books, click here.

adventures with dad book cover

Latest book!

To order Dee Molenaar’s books click here.
BookCoverPreview - Memoirs of a Dinosaur Mountaineer

To order Xander Terrell’s books, click here.

xanders-book-cover-dream-voyage

 

 

The Cosmos Couldn’t Have Picked a Better Tool

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The cosmos couldn’t have
picked a better tool
to rouse her people
from their slumbers
a caricature of a fool –
word-lazy money-crazy
who’d

unite all thinking folks
of every gender and race
against a common foe
and brace each one
to pick up the pace
and move past  color,

sex, religion and non-
religion, political party,
and geographic location,
to save the earth, save
the ocean – can’t be tardy
to revive the notion that

everyone matters – not
just the rich, nor the white,
not just the”Christians”
or reality stars, or corporate
bigwigs – time to do what’s right
for the rest of of the folks, too.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

light in the forest

Lake Padden Forest (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

 

Kinship in a Grin and a Nod

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A runner jogged up the boardwalk
from the other direction and got caught
behind three laughing young women
and a dog stretched to the end of his leash
across the width of the boardwalk, oblivious 
to the runner behind them, and oblivious
to me in front of them. The runner stopped
and waited and caught my eye and smiled
and I smiled back as I halted for the trio
and their dog to move past me. Then when
we were both finally able to move again,
the runner and I acknowledged our kinship
with a grin and a nod, and continued on
our respective journeys along the boardwalk
in the sunshine on a sunny autumn day.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

More than Hope

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What I’m feeling is more than hope –
I’m feeling a presence of Truth so
formidable there’s not a question,
or room for doubt. Truth majestic,
omnipresent, omnipotent, joy-filled – 
unassailable, unstoppable, unflappable.
Truth that gives no acknowledgement
or recognition to lies, and fears no false-
hood; Love so pure that hate quakes
and disappears as It arrives – like
the sun rising over the hill and effortlessly
displacing the darkness with its light;
Unrelenting Good that won’t be obstructed
and won’t be denied and always wins.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

A glorious day is dawning,
And o’er the waking earth
The heralds of the morning
Are springing into birth.
In dark and hidden places
There shines the blessèd light;
The beam of truth displaces
The darkness of the night.

The advocates of error
Foresee the glorious morn,
And hear in shrinking terror,
The watchword of reform:
It rings from hill and valley,
It breaks oppression’s chain.
A thousand freemen rally,
And swell the mighty strain.

The watchword has been spoken,
The light has broken forth,
Far shines the blessèd token
Upon the startled earth,
To hearts and homes benighted,
The blessèd Truth is given,
And peace and love, united,
Point upward unto Heav’n.
– N.T. Munroe

 

Bow Sunrise

Sunrise on the way to work. October 2, 2017. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.

Things that Drift and Flutter and Twirl

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I love things that gently drift
and flutter and twirl around me –
tawny maple leaves in autumn
and glittery snowflakes in winter,
cherry blossoms that pile up
in pink drifts in the spring
and butterflies flitting
among alpine flowers in summer.

But it is hard to get a picture of drifting,
fluttering, twirling stuff. So words are all
I’ve got. The end.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

To the Cottonwood Tree

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To the cottonwood tree near my work:
I listened to your brothers and sisters
as their leaves sang in the breeze by a river .
I met your cousins in the Grand Canyon –
they gave me shade on a blistering day.
I know your kin well. They are my friends.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Only Half of What Makes America Great

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We’re all twisted-up logic-wise
like a bunch of guys
who can’t stop telling lies
My veteran friends went to fight
for our citizens’ first amendment rights
but now we’re told to honor their service
we can’t use the rights they fought
to preserve us
If we honor the person who’s kneeling
somehow that dishonors the feelings
of the veterans who fought so they COULD be kneeling
But why can’t we honor both?
Why do we have to make an oath
to only honor half of what makes America great?
Is forcing people to stand going to get rid of hate?
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, proud daughter of a WWII veteran

Places, everyone!

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What magic will we find between the book ends
of today? What adventures await between sunrise
and sunset? We’ve been gifted another day
to love, to learn, to live, to care. Let’s make it
happen, people! Places, everyone! And… action!
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

Sunrise over the Outer Banks
Sunrise over Bow, WA
Sunset over Bow, WA

 

 

The Other Night

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The Other Night

It was a strange and beautiful thing
I’ll try to describe it
I’m lying in bed at 3:00 in the morning
and my nose starts running
not like with little feet
but the kind of nose-running that involves
snot and toilet paper
So I get out of bed, blow my nose,
and settle back under the covers
again, try to fall back to sleep, but my
nose is still running, and my throat
is starting to feel scratchy, and I’m like
No! No, no, no, no, no! There is no
reason for me to be sick. No cause
for this, no purpose to it, no time for it.
And I do my mental prayer-thing as
I’m falling back into slumber. Praying in
my sleep now. Knowing myself as the
image and likeness of Love – whole and
perfect – the expression of Good. I say that
“There is no spot where Love is not”
thing. And I feel a breath come through
the curtains, through the window – breathing
on my face – like the breath from my babies
when they were newly-born and lying
in bed next to me. Or the breath of my kitty
with her nose on my skin – only this
breath doesn’t smell like cat food.
This breath is clean and cool and blows
over my skin with the touch of Love.
Comforting me. And I feel Love
tucking me in. “Rest in the arms of Love”
a healer once told me, and I remember
those words now, as I settle back into sleep.
And when it’s time to get up there is no trace
of the scratchy sneezes. Only Love remains.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell