Elise Skidmore

It’s been two months since the grand opening of eliseskidmore.com, and what a whirlwind it’s been! In that time, I’ve written more than a dozen blog posts, sharing stories, poems, and some of my thoughts. I also started an author’s page on Facebook. On October 10, 2015, A Dance of Dreams was released, simultaneously in print and digital formats, which was very exciting, since both of my previous books were only available as ebooks for quite a while. While I’m a big fan of ebooks, there’s something very special about holding an actual book in your hands, especially one that’s got your name on the cover. I’m very proud of Poems From The Edge of Spring and When Leaves Fall, but A Dance of Dreams is even more beautiful in my opinion. Judging from the feedback so far, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Now the mission is to get the word out to the rest of the world. I hope you’ll do your part.

Along with all of that, we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary and Halloween, turned back the clocks and screwed up our sleep patterns, and I started the November PAD challenge. Many writers get involved in National Novel Writing Month in November, which I’ll grant is no easy task, but take it from me, writing a poem a day for thirty days is no walk in the park either. So far, I’ve managed to keep up, in fact, on day one I wrote 3 poems so I’m ahead of the game, but with Thanksgiving coming up, things can change drastically. Twenty percent of the way there, only 80% left to go! Stay tuned to see if I make it!

While I’m not going to share all of these PAD poems on a daily basis, I thought I’d share the one I wrote on day 4 that I like quite a lot, just to prove I am writing and encourage any of you writers out there to keep at it. So here it is.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time
a young man dreamed of children.
He was a father,
holding hands with two blond girls,
walking on a sunny beach.

He pondered the dream
a while, then put it away.
Not far from childhood,
fatherhood was faraway
and the world was his oyster.

But his future held
sadness, tears, war, blood, and death.
His nightmares lingered.
Until he met the woman
he had never imagined.

She held his hand and
his heart found its home again.
Together always,
they shared the burdens of life
and embraced its happiness.

Déjá vu hit him
on the beach with his daughters,
building sandcastles.
He recalled his boyhood dream;
his heart overflowed with love.

~Elise Skidmore
November 2015