Category Archives: poetry

I Gather My Memories Around Me

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We created this home together –
my love and I –
and filled it with warmth and joy
and now I sit in our “green room”
and gather my memories
around me like a soft blanket
this is where Dad sat
on his 98th birthday
and reminisced with his old friends
and there is his painting of Rainier
and Mom sang and danced over there,
and lived and died under this roof
that last day,
and over there is where the sons
played the piano and laughed together
and, later, their loves joined us
under this roof and joined in the laughter
while the pandemic made of our home
a safe island and refuge

I feel all the love with me still
Dad’s love and Mom’s
and the sons’ and their partners’
and the love of the man
who helped make this home
with me

I feel the wholeness
and fulness
of my life
and am grateful
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

I Am the Boss of My Thoughts

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I have a whole universe in my thoughts.
And I decide what happens in there.
I am the boss of me.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Hold steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

NASA image of the Carina Nebula

Comforts of Home

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driving to the comforts of home
imagining a warm fire in the woodstove
a cat curled in my lap
and a pie in the oven
I know there is love
waiting for me in my home

and then I feel a grin come to my face
as I realize that I don’t have to wait
to get to a house to feel a home

like a turtle carries his home on his back
I carry my home in my thoughts
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Home is the consciousness of good
That holds us in its wide embrace
The steady light that comforts us
In every path our footsteps trace.”
– Rosemary C. Cobham, Christian Science Hymnal #497

Will That Help the World?

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If I
stop loving because others are at war
will that help the world?
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Doodled rainbow flowers by Karen Molenaar Terrell.

T’was the Day After Christmas

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T’was the day after Christmas and all o’er the earth
people were waking to find there still seemed a dearth
of peace on our earth and to all good will
– we wondered if the promises would ever be fulfilled.

And then a someone shouted, “Hey! I have a thought!
Let’s celebrate Christmas every day – let’s celebrate a lot!
Let’s keep kindness and sharing alive in our hearts –
not just at Christmas, but in all the year’s parts!”

And we thought this was wise, and we thought this was good,
so we celebrated kindness all over our earth’s ‘hood.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

NASA photo

The World Is Calling for Help

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I’m deep in sleep
and suddenly there’s a voice
right outside my window,
insistent. “Hello? Hellooo?!”

And I wake.
But I’m on the second floor
and, unless someone’s on a ladder,
no one is right outside my window.
Someone was calling for help
in my dreams.

I’m groggy, but waking now.
The world is calling for help.
“Hello? Hellooo?!”

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Ode to Boxing Day

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It’s a humble holiday, tucked in between
Christmas and New Year’s, but it’s really keen.
Things look a little bedraggled, it’s true
The tree’s a little droopy and no longer new

The movies and music of the Christmas season
Are getting on our nerves now, and we’re seeing no reason
To eat even one more sugary oversweet sweet
It’s time for broccoli and carrots (maybe hold on the beets)

The pressure for perfection comes off on this day,
the toys have been opened, and it’s come time to play.
And if before we were wearing faux holiday cheer
to blend in with the others and not Scroogey appear

It’s time now to be genuine, and honest and real.
The food banks are empty, people still need a warm meal.
The homeless and hungry and jobless and alone
still need love and care, still need a home.

So maybe we can celebrate the day after Christmas
by keeping the spirit of hope alive,
we might make that our business.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from *A Poem Lives on My Windowsill*

Bountiful Blessings

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I look around the table
and see bountiful blessings
there is a vegan feast here
and family
and love
and I have a flashback
to forty years ago
before marriage
before the sons
before the daughters-in-law
before Clara Cat and Sparky
and for a moment I am in awe
of the bounty of today

O! The blessings!
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Breaking News: I Just Found Christmas!

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Christmas isn’t hiding in the tree.
Christmas isn’t hiding in the lights.
Christmas isn’t hiding in what we see.
We don’t see Christmas through our eyesight.

And it’s not hidden in rhyme –
which rhymes with time, dime, climb,
clime, lime, thyme, mime…

Is Christmas hidden in the past
when Mom and Dad were still here
and the sons were little and scampering
around in their footy pajamas
and waiting for Santa?

Is it hidden in the office Christmas parties?
The community caroling, the tree-lighting, the Christmas sales?
The Christmas cookies, gift-wrapping, Hallmark movies?

Breaking News: I just found it!
And you know where it was?
It was inside ME all along!
And I just needed to be still
and listen to hear its song.

-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Christmas Peace

T’was Two Weeks Afore Christmas

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T’was two weeks afore Christmas and all through Eff Bee
not a creature was stirring – not a they, she, or he.
We were prostrate and spent from the holiday bustle
not a twitch could be seen from the teeniest muscle.

We lay all unblinking in our respective beds
while visions of gift-wrapping swirled through our heads.
And clad in our jammies and our way cool madcaps
we had the vague hopeful hope our bodies would take naps.

Holiday jangles and jingles pinged through our brains –
Presley, Crosby, and Mathis taking us down memory lanes –
and would we remember every member to be gifted?
We mentally went through our lists, hoping none were omitted.

There were homes to be decorated and cards to be sent;
parties, caroling, and cookie-making, and we hadn’t made a dent.
But with a collective sigh we remembered there and then
that it’s really about good will to all creatures – every they, her, and him.

And so our thoughts finally settled and our bodies relaxed
as we thought of those we love and a world festooned in pax.
With our hearts wrapped in kindness and the world as our ‘hood
We’re all brethren and sistren – and verily, It’s all good!
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book