Day Eleven
NaPoWriMo

Restitution

“Thanks for the handcuffs, Grandma.”

A little boy and his grandma
A bus ride in celebration
A joyous reward
For hard work well done

He was excited 
and my mind raced
back to the days
of cowboy shows
and sheriffs 
saloon brawls 

TV offerings in my childhood

The jingling of spurs 
boots hitting the dust
the click
then the shuffle off to jail

Restitution 

I’m breaking those images
ingrained from long ago
of criminal and hero
what it means to make a mistake
be sorry
forgive

And I wonder

On that bus ride
an innocent gift
from grandma of my TV years
to grandson of justice today

how do we elevate forgiveness
and compassion
in simple acts of love

….

Today’s prompt: “And finally, our (optional) prompt for the day. This prompt challenges you to play around with the idea of overheard language. First, take a look at Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “One Boy Told Me.” It’s delightfully quirky, and reads as a list, more or less, of things that she’s heard the boy of the title – her son, perhaps? – say. Now,  write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made you laugh, or something someone told you once that struck you as funny. If you can’t think of anything, here’s a few one-liners I picked out of the ever-fascinating-slash-horrifying archives of Overheard in New York.

•             So I asked my priest, and he said “I think you should see other people.”

•             Don’t say “no” to drugs. Say “no, thank you.”

•             You smell like you want to be alone.

•             Oh hi! We were just speaking very poorly about you!

•             I feel so elated! Wait…no, I mean, “violated.”