Just eight gals in a warehouse
Setting the world on fire,
Helping Mother Nature sing out from every
Tunic and tee.

With bolts of potential evolving to
Style and panache
Each sees her likeness in the crisp cloth, breeze drying.

The artists treasure their wears.
Their wares split through the air on planes,
Into hearts.

Cherishables are created and renewed.
Like banners of joy and courage
A brushing here, a dash of unstoppable color there,
Jills to whom no Jack can compare.

Each day
They greet dynamo Rose, mapper of a mission.
But special day, Today,
Cupcakes home-baked for the surprise.

True to form she shares this day of birth
With nothing less than 30% off price.
“Sharing largess,” the Flower says,
“That’s what chic is all about.”

Charlene James
Amissville, Virginia 

Give out flags to dimpled little girls
To wave at drumming high school bands,
While other “Stars and Stripes” bedeck streamered bikes
Of bold young boys
In parades that haven’t changed in years.

Eat the brats
Washed down with cold ones.

Remember Uncle Johnny, the Doughboy,
Uncle Caz, the renegade,
Young Ralph freezing in Korea,
Uncle Joe, the sharp shooter,
And Dad, keeping B29s flying out of Biloxi.

Men with Country,  first and foremost, on their minds.

Unquestioned in loyalty
In times of black and white newsreels,
Free postage from the front,
And only good news from home.

All departed,  gone.
None forgotten though,
Living  on in the 4th, each year.

We, Families,
Gather with a quiet
“Thank  you, Heroes,”
Gently on our lips.

Charlene James- Duguid
Amissville, Virginia

Why try so hard to understand ideas
Outside one’s ken.
A star is a star, a window of heaven,
Planetary dust salts and peppers my steak,
Black holes are where I find my missing socks.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Mismatched things, that’s why, that’s how
My universe thrives.
Befriending scientists, analyzing Einsteinium
I pretend I’m bright, as shiny as platinum
Or one of the elements I don’t understand.

So far beyond my neighbors’ thoughts
That distance need not be measured
In rods, bounds or meters, instead
It just sits there like a corner grocery’s aisle
Pretending the final frontier is all mine.

Until, in white, my keeper , the same old orderly arrives,
Tray, dish, knife, all of safety grade rubber.
Pushing it through the slot for the millionth time,
He says for the trillionth time:

“Crazy old lady, still listening for gravitational waves.
Still thinking she understands God.”

Charlene James Duguid