Life Bites

By Karen McCusker

This is a collection of poems, short stories (some autobiographical, some fictionalised) and essays written over the course of the last 40 plus years. It is simply a compilation of a variety of writing I engaged in in the course of my writing career and reflects different moods, some painful regarding lost love, others reflections on the beauty of nature, the joy of motherhood, the pleasure of spontaneity, and dreams gained and lost. As the tile Life Bites suggests, these are just bits and pieces of a womans life...

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491756188

Karen McCusker

Karen McCusker, retired after a career as an international economist, divides her time between France and Florida. A graduate of Smith College, in 2006 Karen published a memoir: “Sagittarians Always Want To Be Somewhere Else” . Besides writing and reading, Karen enjoys spending time with her grown daughter, swimming, tennis, yoga and classical piano.

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Copyright © 2015 Karen McCusker.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5617-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5618-8 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 02/17/2015

Contents

Winter Reverie

colors

at the zoo

no baucis and philemon

austrian autumn

African Afternoon

this day

missing you

motherhood

island love

life bites

restless warrior

another day

The Dinner Party

Late

Girl Talk

Italiano Vero

Friends

Just A Crazy Singer

Gone Tropical

Missing Connections

Possessiveness: Right Or Wrong?

Winter Reverie

when storm-grey waves pound to the shore,

and ripe blackberries are no more,

when all you see is black or white

and you’re sad and hollow in the middle of the night;

then you can’t stop thinking of the summers past:

(seemed to go so slow and went so fast)

the rolling hills and bright blue ponds,

warm air-cold kisses-pale fern fronds;

water stretching far in every way;

sensory living from day to day;

summer waves that washed you, letters you wrote;

in august you learned to sail a boat.

but it’s not the island that you really miss

nor is it the softness of a young boy’s kiss,

you don’t even care to sail back again,

for it’s time for the heather,-the highland’s fen

..the sun will return, the sea undulate in its its glare,

one day again you’ll smell the salt in the air.

there are other oceans, and many lands,

there are deserts of snow and deserts of sand;

there will always be kisses and tears and laughter,

short summers of bliss and the long winters after.

colors

red is autumn,

green is summer,

yellow are the fields;

snow is white

and trees are black

but winter cannot feel;

the purple sky,

now-golden moons:

colors are the yield of what we see

before our eyes

and what our world reveals.

at the zoo

wondering why the walls are there

the bear waits quietly for her mate.

no baucis and philemon

arrows flying along different paths,

libra shaky could not smooth the way,

before the dawn cupid had unstrung his bow

and the sun never lit our intertwining boughs.

austrian autumn

the grey chill comes too soon

but swaying poplars

keep summer in my heart

through the tall grass,

the potpourri of weeds: the apple tree

its fruit reddening in the august sun.

with the perfection of only Nature’s grace

the black-white creatures of the air

glide, swoop to the ground, the dessicated fields,

is it fair to call them magpies?

African Afternoon

Motes bob across