a freeman’s son bleeds
did you love my dead child?
blood whets shifting dunes

So alone, I lie here
my fingers grasp only sand
my mouth is so dry

a glass of water
is there anyone to hear?
death comes, so thirsty…

does anyone hear?
my heart, it no longer beats
does anyone care?

p. thibodeau-baker

Through Anger to Joy

If my anger tears your heart, stomps your spirit, kills your dreams,
And you love me back with kindness, love and forgiveness.
How do we go forward or am I forever doomed?
You alone cannot lift me.
And alone I should be left
For you to become more in life filled with joy.
How dare I destroy that gentleness,
And destroy I will.
How do I reckon with anger I don’t understand?
Can your kindness, love and forgiveness bring me to a better place?
Or must I go there on my own?
This journey of ours is made anguished
By my traversing a path I need to forego.
Thank you for your gift of time, your gift of love.
And for you I will choose a path with a softer footing, an open heart,
A kinder love, a forgiven past…
All this so that joy might dwell in our home.

p.thibodeau-baker

Fairies

Flit! Flit! Flit!
Amidst the brightness of a sparkling night sky 
Flickering about a starlit universe 
Sweet to be a fairy 
Lovely to be this free
Once like you, we did our time
Gave it the old college try
Flunked out of life
Called home
Chastised for our misadventures
And told that one-day we’ll have to go back
But not until they catch us!
Flit! Flit! Flit!
Dancing through the galaxies our spirits hum
Yes, we’ll have to go back…
God is good.
The secret of the universe?
God loves His fairies!

p. thibodeau-baker

Where You Need To Be

  We move from a Godly kingdom

To find ourselves part of this modern day world

God gifted us dawn and days and days of light

From a sun that heats our hearts

And thaws our humanity

You do not have to walk alone nor fear the dark

Listen to life’s music,

Sounds of early morning and gentle nights

Careful … so as not to miss

God’s whisper of His Love for us

Go where I am needed,

For there you need to be

For your hands, your sweat, your heart and love

Will do My work for Me

p.thibodeau-baker

SOULS

Each soul is likened to a grain of sand
When contemplated within the universe,
Each grain having a unique position:
Each its own journey.
How is it some souls leave footprints in the sand,
While others appear as mist from the sea?
Does God measure the depth and size of the footprints?
Or does He analyze every fragment in the sea?
I like to think He knows each grain of sand
As well as the journey of each of His souls.
It’s enough for me that He knows.

Paulette Thibodeau-Baker 

A short, short, short story...

After entering my home, I quietly close my front door. A cup of coffee followed by a hot bath and a good book, now that’s how to end a day. You see, when you turn sixty-three you tend to settle for the little quiet things in life.

But first things must come first. I feed my aussie Zeke and my three cats, Jasper, Sammi and Honeybunny. The little furry creatures now busy eating, I start my bath running with nice hot water and then pour a hot cup of coffee as I catch a few minutes of news. How lovely…

Ring a ding ding…ring a ding ding…ring a ding ding.  “Hello ? No my house is not up for sale ! No you cannot come by to look at it. Listen…No you can’t ! Who are you anyway? What do you mean you’re in my driveway? ! “

Ding dong…ding dong…ding dong. What the heck…Opening the door I see two elderly people that come up to my chin (I’m 5’3”). Flabbergasted, I just stare at them. “What is it you want,” I ask.

“We want to buy your house,” they answered.

“Why do you want to buy my house,” I angrily asked?

“Because your tub overflows, your coffee turned cold and you are about to enter another realm,” they said. As they said this, my world darkened and I awoke to gentle, sweet, sweet music, and the most vibrant and beautiful colors an artist could possibly imagine. Thank you God for the sweet ending to my day and bringing me home to Your beautiful garden.

p.thibodeau-baker

Awakening

With a heart, heavier than air,
I walk through days as if among the dead.
No event touches my soul,
teases my spirit, arouses my passion.
What difference this
from she who has passed on?
She who exited into the other realm
no longer walks the dead woman’s walk.
Can I bring life back to this spirit,
unshackle its weight by shedding its past,
tweak my soul telling it here we go?
And from within, can I measure out courage to change?
Death surrounds unless I do.
Resurrection, I promise myself, is today:
vitality and vibrancy become my new mantra.
Yes, today I will grow.
To know that each day
is an open page to fill,
to note the revelations of all I sense
and my human responses.
The bluest of sky, the dazzle of a blazen sun,
the richness of earth’s colors and all of its scents:
its golds, sea greens fragrant in it's salted air ,
and deepest soil browns heady in smell and moist to the hand.
Shouting away this pain caused by others, I live, I feel:
the wind as it tousles my hair,
the heat of the earth as it sooths my feet,
and the warmth of another soul who smiles in passing.
After all, the difference of she
who has crossed over into eternity’s other realm
and I is not so great:
She has awakened to a new life and I the same
Paulette Thibodeau-Baker

God and The Big Bang

I wonder how the world began:
Such blues, greens and visions of gold,
Glorious to behold!
Animals of great loveliness, size, majesty,
This I understand…
But why oh why, did God make man?
What we do to His earth
And to His lovely creatures,
All in the name of survival
And sometimes,
In the name of God.
Yet here we are, created by Him.
No!
Wait…
Now I understand!
Bowling energy into matter
God thundered out His universe,
And the Big Bang created man!

Paulette Thibodeau-Baker

HAIKU

an old lit lantern
white whiskered furry feline
a moth’s wings go limp

newborn puppies
an old dog sleeps on
a young boy’s heart breaks

greens turned gold
dried veined leaf crackles
to busy i never looked

a loved friend moves on
hold tight a treasure
diminished circle still round

bad people exist
lethal injection
and for us God weeps

I see I hear I feel
life fades to nothing
death is a contrast

paulette thibodeau-baker

Remembering a gentle soul

your heart we hold close to our own...
impish taunts to a brother you loved well
and youthful secrets shared he swore never to tell.
we remember the bright colors you loved to wear,
purple coveralls, pink tee shirt, green high tops
and perfume sweet as a pear.
how you changed outfits at least three times a day.
we promise not to dwell on the choices you made,
choices, had we been able, we would have undone.
we thank you for your exuberance,
your gentleness, your love,
and, with time, we’ll forgive you this pain.
your life’s cadence hummed to the rhythm in your head,
music performed by a one-woman band.
each soul writes its own diary -
each one of us has our own shout.
you danced with defiance,
for the glory of living your own life.
dare we not judge, for few of us knew,
your heartaches, your sorrows, your joys,
your little triumphs over strife.
today, my sweet Kristen, we hold you in our hearts
as God holds you in His arms,
for He loves a gentle soul,
and we thank Him for that.
~p. thibodeau-baker~

Ramblings...

Oct. 21, 2010

This represents my first attempt at blogging. I have no idea where this will lead, but maybe we can have some fun. I use to write (years ago) for newspapers while attending the University of Connecticut and had a blast doing it. I wrote a couple of lead stories for the Hartford Courant Sunday Magazine and for the newspaper itself. I wrote for my college paper the Connecticut Daily Campus, the Willimantic Chronicle and the Journal Inquirer.

Of course we’re talking some forty years ago, but my mind still remembers. As there is no editor reading my work I know I will certainly embarrass myself from time to time if not more often than that.

My organizational skills are weak but my insights into people and events tend to be keen (at least in my mind). My political views lean conservative although I recently found out that I’m still registered as a democrat in my town. Maybe someday I’ll do something about that. Then again, maybe I won’t. I do know there is not one democrat I’ll vote for this election cycle which is not my usual way of voting. I just don’t take to the idea of our political representatives lying to us and I can’t subscribe to the notion “that they all do it”. That just seems to me to be too cynical as well as setting the bar too low.

I enjoy the law. When in college I thought about becoming a lawyer but never did. But, my very best male friends did. I always wondered if I had something to do with that as I always seemed to engage them in debate over lunch, over dinner, over beer…and so forth. I think you get the idea.

Now, what do I do about this blogging thing? Let me think on this and I’ll get back to you. Maybe I’ll start out writing about the Bush v Gore US Supreme Court Case. I’d be willing to bet most of you do not really know why that case was so interesting…I can tell you most of our journalists failed to appreciate the interesting parts.

I’ll leave you with this for today:  Did you know that the man who represented Bush before the Supreme Court became our Solicitor General and lost his wife on 9/11? Mrs. Theodore Olson was on the jet that slammed into the Pentagon.

Until next time…

p. thibodeau-baker