Greetings, Plexiglass fruit,

I have chosen "Be; So That".

I am so glad I took you up on this invitation to revisit your words at work. I had forgotten the depth and clarity in the cleverness of the way your words play together. "Be; So That" grabbed me right in that sweet spot with a stab of recognition, admiration, and a little envy.

"Be; So That" is a personal reminder of the range of human emotion. So many of these emotions I have wished obsolete, yet I wonder, if they were to become absent, would I miss them and understand their necessary role?

"See, I am tilting windmills

So that I may be productive"

captures me particularly; peculiarly. There is a certain, I guess I shall have to use the wearied, yet apt phrase "je ne sais quoi" here, if I were to attempt to explain the draw to your reference to desire.

Thank you for these words; the decision you made to share them. I have been referring myself to them in the quest of personal comfort, and thus far, I have been sated and hungered simultaneously.

Cheers to you, Plexiglass Fruit

Your almost-haiku, Procrastination, at https://www.theprose.com/Plexiglassfruit has me a little concerned.

First, the middle line has only six syllables. Perhaps you meant to get back to this and wedged in another morpheme into that line. That's dangerous, because the clock is ticking. Remember, you put a pin in it. But like all pins meant to be removed, you can be assured the shrapnel is coming next.

Things procrastinated, thus, tend to blow up on us like hand grenades. Is this pin strong enough? Long enough? How do you know it won't just fall out, like that syllable must have when you were constructing your anemic haiku. Anemic? Give it a transfusion of another syllable. Bring back its color. Otherwise, something sinister might grow there, as a fungus tends to do in dark, moist places that are ignored.

What could grow?

Angst could. Even chagrin. And angst isn't what put the grin in chagrin. I am NOT chagrinning right now! Remember, a poem that isn't whole is just a bunch of words.

Sincerely,

Dr ;

Dearest Plexiglassfruit:

I saw a caterpillar today. It was slowly moving along the sidewalk, headed toward a freshly bloomed azalea bush. Immediately, my mind drifted to my grandmother, and I welcomed the insect with a resounding, “Hello, Grandmama!” My goodness but how she hated caterpillars, and I can still see her shiver at the sight of one. Still, without fail, seeing one always brings her to mind.

Unlike you, my memories of my grandmother are much stronger than those of my grandfather, who was only present until my 7th year in school. My grandmother, on the other hand, lived to be just shy of 104 years of age, so I was more than blessed with her presence in my life for about half a century. Grandmama's been gone for twenty years now, but while reading your piece, “Grandpa and Grandma’s House Sold Today”, I was vividly reminded of the woman she was and how dearly I miss her.

I was only sixteen when my mother, a single parent, died, so at that point, I went to live with Grandmama. She was almost 80 years old at that time, but she remained steadfast and ever strong, enduring through my last years of high school, then college and the first two years of my working career before she sold her home and moved 100 miles away to be near her only living child. Just recently, and for the first time in over fifteen years, I rode by the home I shared with her following my mother’s death.

The memories evoked by the sight of Grandmama’s home are difficult to express. It didn’t look much like I remembered. Admittedly, the years had made a difference and some of the structure had been redone, but it was so much smaller, so much plainer than I remembered. That house was pivotal in my life for nearly a quarter of a century, well beyond the years after my mother's death. I recall sitting in the tiny kitchen, eating Eskimo Pie ice cream in a crystal federal petal glass bowl, as well as sharing Sunday dinners every week around the table – sometimes with just my grandmother and mother, but upon occasion, also with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I remember the small silver Christmas tree she placed in the living room’s large picture window, with its kaleidoscope wheel reflecting colors as it spun slowly around. I still have a precious mercury ornament that was Grandmama’s; it hangs every year, front and center, on my own tree. I remember Easters with a yard filled with an overabundance of beautiful dogwoods, camelias, daffodils, and azalea bushes. Grandmama was immensely proud of her yard each spring, and we always took pictures in our Easter finery, posing in front of the flowers.

Needless to say, the memories of my grandmother and her house are too extensive to detail in full. Still, after reading your piece, I was overcome with an urge to say to you that yes, your grandpa and grandma are still fishing and making lasagna. More than anything, though, they’re still missing you, too, but finding peace in knowing that they remain alive through love and memories housed in the depths of your soul, as evidenced so beautifully in your writing. I know they are immensely proud of you, understand the loss you feel, and long to soothe the tears you cry. As they were brave in life and death, I am sure they see that same strength in you and all you do.

Life goes on despite the losses we incur through the years. From treasured memories and those we’ve loved and known, we take valuable, hard-learned lessons that enable us to be courageous and propel us forward. Thus, the legacy that your grandpa and grandma, as well as my own grandparents, created vibrates with a resounding life. May you take comfort in remembering that despite struggles and scars, yes, it is always worth it.

Dear Plexi,

My grandparents house sold not that long ago. Last Sunday we were all there, picking it to pieces, taking sofas and paintings off the walls and piling them into vans. leaving only the bare bones.

I felt in my bones the way your poem, 'Grandpa & Grandma’s house sold today' never once mentions the house. It made me think of how, on Sunday, when we gutted each room, it wasn't sad. Because the house was already soulless, already gone, and the sadness is not in the loss of the house, but the loss of everything it contained. The memories of the loss. I ramble, I fear, but your poem stirred up so many feelings.

My grandparents too, were Christian. Are Christian. I don't know how the tenses work when they are meant to still exist in some form up there. I hope that everything they believed is true. I hope both of our grandparents' are up there, somewhere, together, maybe.

It is so wonderful, though the positive words taste wrong in this context, that you were there when they passed. I was not there. My granny passed in her sleep, quietly I suppose, because grandpapa didn't stir. The nurse told him in the morning that he'd been dozing next to a corpse. I'm glad she went peacefully, though in truth she'd gone long before then, succumbing to dementia, forgetting our names.

Grandpapa died of a heart attack. It was quick, a shock. Three days before he'd sat with me and my brother in the garden, drinking tea. He still walked to get the newspaper every morning. He would've been 90 this year. I'm glad he went quickly, but I was angry at the time. He was meant to see me graduate, maybe make it to my eldest brothers wedding, in a wheelchair, in a decade.

Your poem made me remember all this, so fresh again. Your poem is so beautifully, heart wrenchingly written. I would say I'm sorry for your loss but that seems wrong. You gained so much from having them in your life. Maybe not for as long as we would have liked. But to grieve is to love, and be loved. I won't say sorry about that to you, or me.

Your grandparents would be so proud of you. In a way I hope, if they are up there, they can't remember you because if they do they must miss you so, so much. But then again I know they would disagree with me and proclaim that the pain would be worth it to remember how loved they were, and how they loved.

I'll stop myself now, I do go on.

Sending you much love, Plexi.

From,

Rose.

Dear Plexi,

How do you do? I like writing letters in general and am glad I found you. I went through your posts and without a doubt enjoyed reading them, tho sadly there were too many to finish. To be honest, it was hard to only talk about one of your posts. I didn't know which was the right choice.

But, I did make a choice and that was 'all of my first fruits to you'.

Starting off, I noticed you posted it in Religion, but it was too late. I had already finished reading and the pictures were already drawn in my head.

Do you get it? Like when you think of something or read something, a picture is drawn inside your mind. An easier way to understand the lines. A fun way to make it worth. It actually leaves a lasting impression. And that helps my messed up memory capacity.

So, that poem now was in the romance section inside my head, and knowing you gave us the liberty of any tone we like, I couldn't not let you know and write.

This letter might turn out to be long, I'm afraid. But, I think you are someone who would read this anyway.

When I was reading your poem, I got reminded of the countless romance stories I've read before, still doing so. There was a deaf girl in one. A princess in another. There was also a cursed prince. And one of another species.

But, in my picture, it's a blind girl and her beloved soulmate. But reading again, even a man could think the same. And they are sitting in a bench on a hill top. The sun is setting while the wind shakes the cherry blossoms to their direction. Their hands are interlocked and they smile. The girl, bright and fulfilled, and her boy, masking his tears. The next image my mind forms is at night. The same bench, but the landscape so different. The blossoms are gone as if they followed her, and the winter cold weather freezes him. Yet he stays there, smiling as if he forgot how to. And I think it was because winter was her favorite.

And now I think I'll be able to write a poem on this.

I wonder if you got to picture what I wrote or you found this boring... but It's not like I can choose not to send this to you after writing this much. So I hope this was something you enjoyed, just like I did with your works.

Wishing you a great time ahead!

Thankyou! For this opportunity and giving me an idea.

Gratefully, DimDim.

Reading over your “What is the job of a poet”, I cannot help but feel a sense of reflection in your words. I myself am not much of a poet, though I do dabble in song-writing from time to time which some may protest is poetry in itself, but as a writer in general I have struggled with many of the things you outline in your piece.

I can’t help but create things, it's my natural human instinct to leave this world with more than what it had when I was born - a point I believe you make very clear. Writing is an outlet for me as well, for whatever emotion I may be feeling at the time as if I don’t pour out my feelings onto the page (or rather the screen many times) they will continue to be bottled up in my mind until the bottle threatens to explode from how crammed it is.

Writing, creating, connects us all together. We share our joy and our pain and pray that there is someone else out there who has felt the same. Again, this is our instinct as people to find community and cling to it with everything that we have until we are too weak to hold on any longer.

I aspire to one day rock people with my work as you describe in your first stanza. That is a writer’s job after all, to birth something from the muddled mess that they feel and experience and formulate it into something beautiful.

Beauty can be found in the most unlikely places.

- cfrestal

Poems open and defect the soul,

some let out to much although some let out to little,

sometimes we do rot. And you are the perfect balance

something in between wishing for both to be in pain and wish not

grief is sorrow and sorrow is grief

contentment comes not as often because of this cruel world.

beauty is something few of us are, some see, and most know

Fear haunts our every step, and it is so honest

until we tip to the side then it hits us in the gut with a jagged lie

so jagged that it feels real

sucks our breathe from our lungs.

be; so that whatever may you wish not fail but fulfill and most of all smile, even if its not