Monthly Archives: November 2018

Garden In The Bathtub Legacy: Revolutionary Family History Prose

Maria Vogt or Weidt GEERDTS, early 1900s, by her chicken coop in Sheboygan, WisconsinThere is an old family history story that my Grandma Bertha Geerdts Kuhns used to tell me about her father’s mother, a little old immigrant German lady who lived in Sheboygan Wisconsin at the turn of the century. My Grandma Bertha said that this woman (Maria Vogt or Weidt Geerdts) had chicken coops, a garden, but what Grandma Bertha most remembered about Maria Geerdts’ house in Sheboygan is that her large clawfoot bathtub was never used for bathing.

Instead, it was always full of garden plants.
Plants in jetted bathtub, Nov 2018
Sometimes I wonder if my great-great Granny Geerdts is looking down on my giant jetted bathtub …
and smiling.

I’d Forgotten It’s Because It’s What I’m Supposed To Do: Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Poem

It’s been so long
since I’ve done
what I should do,
daily,
that I’ve almost forgotten
how;
I’ve almost forgotten
why;
I’ve almost forgotten
who I am.

Because I became
because I did
what I was asked.
Because I struggled
even when the words
weren’t flowing.

Because often
the mere fact of
doing the thing
that you’ve been told to do
is what you need
to discover
and maintain
who you are.

So once again I launch
back into my Obama-era goal:
Write
and blog
a poem
or prose piece
each day.

The words may not be
insightful
or deep
or moving.
Or they might be.

Most importantly,
they will be
and are
who I am
and who I will be,
so as long as I write
and post
and am,
I exist
much more deeply
than I ever did before.

Maybe that’s why I feel
as though I’ve gone
into hiding.

Look out!