Straight From The Hart

  Ode To The Foods of Summer Written by Joan Rowden Hart ©June 2018 Nothing works better to relieve summer’s stress Than preparing the season’s first beans Sitting in a recliner with bowl on your lap Anticipating the meal of your dreams Those delicate green pods are awaiting the mantle Of bacon’s smokey goodness just right Vidalia’s sweet onions add just the right touch To whet even the least appetite Small pearls of potatoes so tender and white Are the next layer of this tasty meal They will melt in your mouth in a buttery flash Creamy sweet with just a hint of red peel. Tomatoes of red sliced thin and arranged On a plate with red florals to match With white and green onion stems artfully laid To provide a bright color contrast. Cucumbers cut neatly in quarters or slices With a rich sour cream dip on the side And a second mixture of vinegar marinade Sometimes it’s hard to decide. Yellow cobs of sweet corn steaming hot from the pot Draped with butter and pepper and salt Those glitt...

  Feeling a little melancholy and nostalgic tonight. It’s been an emotional day for many reasons. While working in the silence of my office today, I kept hearing sounds, even got up once to check and see if something was going on in my yard. But there was nothing there. So now with my husband in bed and in silence again, I felt this poem coming on. It’s probably not my final draft, but I needed to get it down on paper while the thoughts were fresh in my mind. (May 29, 2017) THE SOUNDS OF OLD HOUSES There’s something about an old house As its age begins to set in Faint sounds you barely can hear them But they speak of things that have been. Sounds of the past when you’re walking As the floorboards complain in the night; Seems like I can still hear the footsteps Of days so happy and bright. When children played, laughter still ringing; Piano surrounded by singing. The walls pick up echos of family The food and the fellowship sweet The sounds of happy communion As loved ones in the ha...

  Weekends are a time of reflection for me.   I was listening to Gaither gospel this evening and it brought my mind back to thinking about heaven, something I do a lot anymore. I know it can’t be far away and my mind goes there often.  I have peace about that but the enemy of our souls loves to put thoughts into our minds that can be disrupting and I have to fight that a lot.   I have failed in so many ways and at so many times.  When you live 79 years and be involved in as many things as I have, and interacted with as many people as I have, you have an opportunity to make lots of mistakes, say many things you regret later, and I just thank those I have offended knowingly and unknowingly, and certainly unintentionally, for extending grace to me even though I didn’t deserve it.   So many times my zeal far exceeded my wisdom.  I’m glad the Lord knew my heart and I am grateful for His grace but also for His mercy.  There is a big theologica...

Monday will be Memorial Day. The mere mention of the holiday generates swirls of memories in my mind. Our observance of the day has probably undergone more changes in the seven decades I have lived than any other holiday we have throughout the year. Tradition tells us it started as a way to honor the Civil War dead, but soon included all military graves, and now we decorate the graves of friends and family, too. Graves have been replaced by urns containing ashes, and today many people have memorial services instead of funerals. I’m not making a judgment with regard to that, just recognizing that once again things that were familiar to me so long ago are becoming more rare today, like the fact that it is mostly the older generation who now decorates the graves. My Grandma Dame always called it Decoration Day. That was back when we observed it on May 30, regardless of what day of the week it fell on. I dislike the fact that it was changed in 1968 to the last Monday in May and...