April Showers Bring He-pat-ic-as: Poetry, Short Stories, and Wise Words of Wisdom

By Shirlye Helen Bachhuber

My hope is that the reader will glean what they need from the book to achieve a better quality of life. Treat yourself to yourself by being your own best friend. Spoil yourself with your own thoughts and delete other people's. Have your own words and love the skin you're in. Each day, repeat to yourself, "I am a good person, and I have a lot of good qualities." This in turn will help you build knowledge and confidence. Take time to figure out your abilities, interests, and things of passion. Make a list of these items, title them your to-do list, and check one off each day. Just do it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685263959

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

My Inspiration

A Fare Fight

A Glowing Memory

A Mayflower: Named Sharon

A Memory from Grandma

A Nimbus Day!

A Rhyme

A Song

A Valentine

All Alone

An Apartment Lesson Learned

Another Wrong Road Story

Black Night

Breakneck Road

Colors

Cunard Methodist Church, Cunard, Michigan

Dear Rex

February 14, 2003

Forgiveness

Freedom and More Freedom

Frenchie the Lover

Frenchie the Lover: Bunny the Cat

God's Little Note

How to Talk

I'm a Geo Girl

I'm a Nature Girl

I'm Glad

I'm Not Me

In a Second

In Upper Michigan

Intimacy

Isabelle the Beach Mouse

It Wouldn't Be!

It's What Life Is

Just Can't Have

Just Had to Do It

Just!

Just: History of Just

Kathryn Cuva's New View

Lake Michigan's Ice

Livin' This Way in the USA

Love Is in the Air

Midnight Blue

More S'mores

My Kite: 2004—Intro

My Kite: 2004

My Last Day

Nature's First

October Eulogy

Paddy Creek

Prayer

Rivoli: 2019

Rain in the Woods

She Is Michigan

Sing of Spring

Snowflake Dance

So What about You?

Some Advice

Some Don't Stop

Summer Love

Survival

The Bear Facts

The Encore

The First Day of Summer

The Garden Gate

Untitled

Upper Michigan Stars

What Would You Be?

When He Comes Down

Where the Earth Meets the Air

Why Do I Write Poetry?

Your Dreams

Just Me

About the Author

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April Showers Bring He-pat-ic-as

Poetry, Short Stories, and Wise Words of Wisdom

Shirlye Helen Bachhuber

ISBN 978-1-68526-394-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-395-9 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Shirlye Helen Bachhuber

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

I dedicate this book to Alan W. Becker who sat through hundreds of open mic poetry readings. He is the best part of my audience. He helped me write the poem The Bare Facts; he quoted, to me, most of the words, but I had the paper and pencil. It was a collaborative poem.

Maybe it's their color

Sometimes it's their fragrance.

They make your eyes happy,

Like a little giggle of laughter.

And for a brief moment there's

Only flowers in the world.

My Inspiration

My sister, Sharon, was always my inspiration. Every spring, she dragged me through the woods to look for spring wildflowers, and she knew all their names. Through this process, she taught me to get out in the world and find the things I love; things I love would not come to me.

She taught me that timing is everything; trains don't wait, and flowers wilt. One must find them when the time is right, and you will need their habitat address.

A Fare Fight

You should be the solution and not always the problem and

half of your problem is the one sitting next to you.

It's only common courtesy to always tell someone where

you're going and tell everything that you're going to do.

Your mannerisms are gross with no respect for anyone,

logic and reasoning you never use, confused; I hate you.

You ignore and with passive-aggressive behavior you have,

with stored-up underlining anger and that's no way to act.

Lots of nerve, where you don't belong, barging in like that.

Your mind's in a gutter, foul-mouthed, your filthy trash.

Off your lazy ass, and get something done; you're a bum.

Thinking haughtiness and arrogance are what makes you smart,

fight for the last word in a fight, your talk is only pride.

Used to smile more, now you're unhappy and depressed.

Know what I mean? Straighten Up! Use common sense!

Don't sass my ass! You'll do as I say; I'll get you back.

You say, I don't fight fair; you apologize; I do fight fare.

A Glowing Memory

It was a beautiful, warm, starry night in July. I was out on my nightly hiking trail when I noticed a sight that I had never seen before. On the ground, I saw millions of light bulbs wiggling and squirming. So I got down on my haunches for a better look.

I saw a very-large colony of glowing worms; there were millions. So I picked one up, and it formed a glowing circle on my hand. As I set the worm back on the ground, I looked up at the tall grass in front of me. It was then that my memory took me back to my childhood.

I remembered it happened in the driveway when arriving home and in the field of tall grass in front of our house, little specks of sunlight leftover from the day, flying up and down, circling around and around in a corkscrew dance, and blinking on and off.

In the pitch-black dark of night, they were dancing between blades of