Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Who said life is a bowl of cherries?













Today is Poetics day over at dversepoets.com   and we are given a choice of 4 questions to write about. They are:

 Who are you and whom do you love? What else are you, that no one has seen before? Describe a morning you woke without fear. What lingers when all is said and done?
         This was written as a stream of consciousness, my answer to the last question.



Who said "Life is like a bowl of cherries?"  And what was their rationale?


To me, it is a day like yesterday, 

a perfect day with sunshine,
blue sky, a soft breeze;
it's skipping a rock,
birds singing,
flowers in bloom,
and a friend to go walking with 
Three days before there was rain,
when gray clouds suddenly parted
with a downpour of hail
Tiny white crystal balls 
bouncing like mini rubber balls, 
so high,  maybe three times again

They appeared to enjoy their time,

some bounding off at an angle;
others rolled down roofs,
traveled a bit more,
stopping at the grass,
Most gathered in crevices or 
became a temporary white coverlet,
wetting the ground, then melting
And when the sky cleared, 
the sun staged a summery feel
of thriving and enduring

Perhaps too simplistic,

but when all is said and done, 
we are caught in life, 
it seems to me,
between storms and paradise
One day exquisite things happen,
the next day can be lonely and cold.
Yet this earth holds so much more
Under a giant magnifying glass 
we appear as colonies of billions of ants,
 with tiny homes and cars,  
the tiniest of books on our shelves -
yet with incredibly complicated lives

There is the unseen world 

that is felt and dreamed,
full of meaningful thoughts, prayers
All flows into a beautiful common sea
of human talent and gifts,
for the betterment of said physical world
What we learn and with new ideas, 
we recycle,  as nature or God would have it.
Moreover, the art, music, and technologies, 
created with so much joy and pain, 
cannot result in nothingness -
can NOT be in vain

To this my point and now to say:

we are energy unleashed in human form
But sometime we must leave, 
taking with us what lives inside
It's value is from a sacred place,
the center of the heart of everything, 
a safety net of love, 
where nothing is forgotten or lost
Like a fiddler dancing happily on the roof,
so the hail dances in it's glory,
both playing until they run out of steam
Engaging, then impacting the earth,
but never really gone
Hail becomes water, evaporates, 
but can put on quite a show .


 Life is just a bowl of cherries; 
Don't make it serious; 
Life's too mysterious. 
You work, you save, you worry so, 
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go. 
So keep repeating it's the berries; 
The strongest oak must fall. 
The sweet things in life 
To you were just loaned, 
So how can you lose what you've never owned? 
Life is just a bowl of cherries, 
So live and laugh at it all.  


Original song written for a movie in 1931 with Ethel Merman.   Also, there was a phrase in the 17th century, "Life is but a cherry-fair", but that meant "Life is very short."



15 comments:

  1. haha... yes.. hail can put on quite a show... love the fiddler dancing image... and all has value... i agree... the sunshine days and those with the downpours... i've been getting wet a lot those last days - but then - it has some cleansing power as well

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  2. so true in how we recycle our wisdom...and life is a stream of storms....the calm in between we can enjoy, but it is about endurance on some level...the storms bring rain which nourishes growth as well...& at the center of the heart is everything...true that as well...

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  3. live, and laugh, and love - and take shelter when the hailstones fall. This was full of energy and zest.

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  4. but when all is said and done,
    we are caught in life,
    it seems to me,
    between storms and paradise

    Love this, love it

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  5. This is quite beautiful. You've gone with perfect metaphors and the allusion to the fiddler on the roof was a joy, only now some of those songs will be playing in my head! Not bad ones to entertain I suppose.

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  6. I like the progression in this...and the message. Yes, live and laugh at it all is the way to go.

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  7. I love the reflections specially the last stanza of energy & water ~ And yes, life is just a bowl of cherries, smiles ~

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  8. Life with all it's up and down,, sometimes we just have to enjoy the ride. The imagery of the joyful hail was very nice..

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  9. Life can indeed be storm one day and paradise the next. We need to learn to navigate between these two poles so we can enjoy life to the fullest.

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  10. Beautiful Kathy - for me the core of the poem is this:

    "It's value is from a sacred place,
    the center of the heart of everything,
    a safety net of love,
    where nothing is forgotten..." Or ever lost? Inspiring and heartfelt writing - thank you With Best Wishes Scott xxx

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  11. Caught between storms and paradise indeed, and I like your perspective from a higher vantage-point - how puerile our frantic rushing about and self-importance and problems must seem.

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  12. hail can certainly put on quite the show...and the noise it makes, beating down on the roof! Great analogy!

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  13. I love this. What a beautiful view of life - realistic but balanced with humor, sensitivity and spirit. Life - a bowl of cherries. I'll never view this as a shallow cliche.

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  14. Yes indeed... having just lived through a hailstorm a few nights ago that took a tree down in our front yard... I was struck the next day by how beautiful the weather was, life always goes on, the energy swirls and reswirls... a lovely write!

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  15. at least it's getting to be stone-fruit time. rain and hail to the east, scorching heat to the west, and melting ice caps. oy... ~

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