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Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant Poem
Quick, rapid, urgent, longing turned to silky detached bliss, comfort, home.
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Copyright © Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant Poem
Ugly Orange Shutters
It’s ½ past midnight when I ease my 1989 white Nissan Sentra into the long driveway of Horseshoe Rd. A decade past its prime but its engine is still strong. I’m late, but no one ever waits up. The lights are off, but the moonlight reflects an abnormal glow off the ugly orange shutters that line the front of the house like a crazed jack o' lantern’s smile piercing through the darkness of a July night. Not my Dad’s finest moment, and according to my mother, not his only mistake.
He got a deal on the paint back in a time when pumpkin paint still wasn’t a big seller. At a time before the street caught the disease they call divorce. A time when children played outside, neighbors knew each other, and everyone was too polite to say anything rude about our house looking so “festive”.
First, the people up the street caught the disease and people talked like it was an isolated incident. Then my parents discovered the sickness in their own home. Within five years ½ the street had fallen victim. No longer alive with children riding bikes and neighborhood block parties, single mothers locked their doors and went to work. Farms were sold and the land developed.
That’s when the mansions came like an abnormal growth. The first ones stuck out like a sore thumb. Then they spread. Now, our house sticks out like an abnormal growth. A reminder of a time when people were too polite to comment on ugly orange shutters and someone left the lights on.
Copyright © Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant Poem
Dirt Driveways
Who knew that dirt driveways lead to happy homes?
That Prince Charming’s white horse is really a black BMW.
That our kingdom would consist of his, mine, and ours.
Who knew that fairytale castles came in split-level houses with cathedral ceilings? That the beauty in the house comes from the twists and turns in the architecture. That such warmth could come from gray walls...I never knew gray was so warm.
Who knew that 4+2 equals 7 or at least it did when we added 9 more months…
That little pitter-patter feat could inspire such joy in all the kingdom's subjects. That this blended family isn’t blended at all but each whole with its parts making up something more extraordinary than any traditional whole.
Who knew that mud rooms decorated with boots and shoes of different sizes, shapes, and styles strewn about in a pattern called “life” could rival any grand hall. That my glass slippers would come under the Christmas tree in a box labeled Uggs and not be glass at all but still fit just right...more right than glass.
Who knew that white picket fences or castle walls have nothing on simple rocks stacked and aged with moss, filled with timeless tales, a foundation that has stood a hundred years maybe more. Holding the secrets of what has been and what will be.
Who knew that sleeping beauty wasn’t lying still at all but sleepwalking through life...following a path laid out before her by other’s expectations. That when she awoke it wasn’t his kiss that held the power but the smell of a flower and the feel of the grass beneath her feet.
Who knew that it was presence that would allow a brighter future to be written. Her storybook didn’t have an ending. That happily ever after meant happy right now.
Who knew that dreams were built on wishes but fulfilled by perspective. That dirt driveways lead to kingdoms. That open minds lead to open hearts that give space to be filled by pitter-patter feet, not-so-white horses, and a split-level home that has nothing split about it.
Copyright © Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant Poem
My Mother’s Hands
I remember a quick moment in my 20’s
I was getting ready for my first “big girl” job halfway across the country from my childhood home.
I looked down from my reflection in the mirror and the hands I saw were not my own.
There attached to my 20-something-year-old body I saw with certainty my Mother’s hands.
So vivid it shocked me I quickly raised my hands to inspect them thoroughly. It’s not possible my mind raced, and after looking them over for a few good minutes, the feeling faded and my hands were just hands again.
Now, In my late 30’s I have accepted my hands as they are. They have changed to resemble the hands of my mother more so now. Any denial that once was, has found itself drowned by a pool of appreciation that has poured over my vision and opened my eyes.
Of course, I have my Mother’s hands...
I have birthed two children of my own. These hands have given many baths, rocked little souls to sleep, fixed countless boo boos, and helped to create many memories.
Today, I look at my hands, and my vision blurs as tears of gratitude well in my eyes.
I have my mother’s hands.
She arrives at my home to watch my babies now two years old and eight. I find my eyes falling on her hands. “Wait” the voice in my head says as my mind compares the many differences I see in our hands up close.
Then it hits me. A warm wave of emotion washes through my body cresting in a smile that breaks slowly across my face.
My cheeks raised and still, every moment reinforcing what is to become beautifully defined smile lines.
Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to have the hands of a Nana.
Copyright © Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant | Year Posted 2025
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Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant Poem
Saved
I feel the presence, the calm that resides inside me through the storm. Waves of emotions try to shade the light with darkness, but the light will prevail because “It is finished”. I am not alone in this sea but held safely in the arms of a higher power. Remembering who I am is not the problem. It is the forgetting, the blinding waves, but the more I reside in the light the harder it is to lose my path, the path laid out before my birth, my way home. I am like a child at night calling out “Abba” assured that he will come and all will be right when day rises again. I know He is never far, he will hear my cry and comfort my fears as I give it all to him. His embrace sweeps away the dark and I am home once again. Let me be the light because it is good, let me not forget how You see me. Shine brightly in the face of the darkness that plays tricks on my eyes and shatter all illusions that lay before me. For there is one truth that produces fruit, let my harvest be bountiful, let my branches stay healthy, quench my thirst. For You are in all and All is in You.
Copyright © Rebecca Lake-Bonenfant | Year Posted 2025
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