Love Is Always Willing to Carry You Home,

 

There is no timetable for grieving —
      Grief is a snail
      It's a shooting star
      A walk around the lake
      It's eternity
      Or frost 'til bloom —
Memories coursing through the heart
It lasts as many heartbeats as it takes;
      sometimes all of them.
~Terri Guillemets

 

My feet are heavy with the weight of places my heart could not leave.

For it is a slow journey when loss comes along.

Memories stay with us like a canary in a cage.

Chirping and swinging on the same old perch.

Like the hardest of goodbyes, they never truly leave.

They remain right at the hip like a child whispering in our ear,

I am hungry.

Waiting rooms can still be sat in, and last words heard just as clear.

I want to hold each one tenderly.

Remember every smile.

Hear every mundane sentence than I once took for granted.

So, I let them stay up late and carry each and every one no matter how far.

You see, love is always willing to carry you all the way home.

So, I shall do just that.

Until we meet again.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #223

Deaf Girl in a Powerful Song

 

Khatia Buniatishvili at Piano

I found another world in my deep pockets.

I reached in my hand for my keys, and I pulled out a distant dream.

I was no longer the person I remembered.

I was a deaf girl in a powerful song.

I could feel and see the sounds like colors.

When I tossed my arms into the air the pinks and blues wisped up with me like scarves in the wind.

The more I kept in motion the more it was like a dance.

Time seemed to be frozen and moving soft and slow,

 for that moment was all there was to know.

I twirled and raised my hands

I no longer needed the words.

The rumbles of the beat were all I needed to hold,

but all who sleep soundly eventually do wake up.

Sometimes dreams are for sleeping and others are for living.

Now I blindly search for words to write to a song I have never heard.

***********************************

🎶Note:

I really struggled writing this week. Not sure why I am having such a dreadful dry spell, but the last few months have been brutal that way.  On a positive note, I am delighted we had such a wonderful response this week to the theme. Thank you everyone!

Have a great week writers!

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #222

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Full Moon In A Hungry Sky

 

Image Source ~here~

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see,
 except standing there leaning on the balcony rail,
 holding the universe together."
  ~ J. D. Saliner

We cradle the precious things

and place them carefully upon our lap

the miracle of newness is like a sacred prayer

it is hands raised high and heads bowed low

yet always in that moment eyes opened wider

we marvel and bask in the wonder of it all

it is a full moon in a hungry sky

hope’s whisper of a million questions

before the answers will ever reach our lips

a blooming garden at our feet

a child’s hand clutching ours

yet still we walk too fast

as time brushes by.

 

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #213

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Some Shelters

 There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. ~Willa Sibert Cather

 

My first nightmares were always storms;

lightening, wind, and darkened skies.

The storms that blew from your eyes

and reigned on everyone!

Some shelters are just too weak

to hold up to all that blows.

A girl can end up broken

unless she gets the courage to get up and go.

Now I dream of soft places much like a mother’s arms.

Knowing that some shelters cannot protect you from the storm.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #212

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The Smell of Bacon Never Lies

 

 

"The Whitehouse Diner" Photo by Aaron Segreaves

I always dream in color but this time there was the smell of bacon in the air.  They say you dream about what matters to you most.  I shared this with my therapist, and he said this explains a lot!  We mostly discussed my forlorn love life, my ex, and why apple pie is not my friend. You see, one of the last times I saw my ex was at the diner downtown.  He said he was hungry for more than dating with no strings attached.  I was certain he was full of it! I ordered coffee no cream no sugar, he laughed and said “that figures!”

Sure enough, 20 stale dates and 2 months later, I caught him with the waitress from the Tangerine Tango.  I know a bad egg when I see one and some rump roasts are always going to be tough!

Excuse me while I go make a BLT on rye.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #205

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There is Warmth in the Congregation,

 

I tell you what I see — the landscape of the spirit requires a lung, but no tongue. 

~Emily Dickinson

 

Sisters I speak to you of loss

the cuts that tear down and leave us broken

they hit just as sure as a lumberjack

and we are never quite the same

but despair and love are a two-winged bird

even in the struggle to move on

there is a promise that lingers

and it has the power to lift us

remember that in your winter journeys

for birds soar the sky together

and there is comfort and warmth in the congregation

~~~

Daughters I speak to you of hope

even in the heavy burden of doubt

it has the power to change the landscape

if we give it light like an open curtain in morning

for life is both a forest and a mountain of cut logs

the path is hard and lovely

but even in the struggle to endure

there is a warming fire in our truest home

~~~

Mothers I speak to you of life

beyond the cries and breath of being

and before the prayers that yearned for something more

there are seeds planted long before the blossom’s greenery

soul’s song carried long before the throat a voice

for every mother carries and birth’s eternity.

 

For Susie 💖

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #197.  The image here is different than the one at the prompt for my poem became a tribute to brilliant lighted souls and love but the words hold resemblance to the Muse image.  

 

Watching for Spring's Starlings

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List #9 (Joan Colby)

Come join the fun!

Every mile is two in winter. ~ George Herbert

 

The clocks of December move slow like a man with bad knees

Edging forward with scorn upon deaf ears

I try to ignore the feral breeze

And the rise of snow and it’s bitter sermon upon my face

If I had been newly kissed

The pressing feel would be gone like a gypsy in the night

Cold can be like fire’s touch when it is from the skull of a deep frost

Stealing the feeling from our extremities

And leaving the deepest of aches in our bones

One that no anesthetic can remove.

 

A Wide Open Gate

 

It is quite simple you see

we see what we want to see

from the ocean waves to the forest trees

Each day becomes what we choose to believe

For perspective is a wide open and closed up gate

It is magic and miracles or cynical and fake

for some know doubt and others know faith

So today I choose to see great things!

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #194

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The Evidence of Eternity

 

“James Dean playing the bongos, NYC, 1955. Photographed by Dennis Stock ”

Ephemeral, eternal heart! ~Emily Dickinson

 

We are moved by the wings of longing

So we dance

We reach

We love

It is how we know we are truly alive

By more than a pulse of a beating heart

For there is a certain movement in everything

The soaring of unseen wings and visible hands bracing the fall

we bleed

we bruise

we learn

and rise to love again

it is the evidence of eternity

proof our heart beats for more than the blood within our veins.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #193

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I Buried Them Like a Coffin

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List #4 (Laura Nyro)

Come join us and read the post about her amazing life.

Thank you Shay my friend for another amazing prompt!

I saw poems in your eyes

but I buried them like a coffin

for they were piercing like winter

leaving me frozen in mourning

they stoned sinners and religion alike

fearless like firecrackers

that went where they would

but they are words I shall never write

your lip’s silent confession

will remain

holy in the cradle of an empty embrace

captain to a ship that shall never sail

they are as gone as the train that passed at midnight.

When You Cannot Decide Write 3 Poems

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #189 hosted by the utterly amazing poet Shay who has graciously filled in for me.  Thank you my friend!

I somehow ended up writing 3 different poems.  Nothing magnificent, just what the image spoke to me.

What We Learn to Carry,

 

When you are troubled with worry at a young age

Your faith either becomes a mighty force

Or it grows small like the mind of a cynical old man

Always speculating what could go wrong

But somehow you survive

The storm passes

If you are lucky

The near crash never happens

The fog clears

Your heart finds love anyway

You learn that the wolf on your back

Can be a friend even as a foe

One that gives us strength to carry on with him

Or the might to hold freedom in letting him go.

******************** 

Don’t Attempt This at Home,

 

Somethings in life are foolish and others downright dangerous

Like giving birth at home,

chain saws and beer

 motor cycles on icy roads

Falling in love with your therapist

 Announcing at your father’s retirement party you are marrying an artist

Giving your brother old tuna sandwiches and hoping for the best

Walking in the woods alone when you are directionally challenged

Wearing a fur coat to a Sierra Club Convention

Smoking in bed

Living beyond your means

Driving with no insurance

Not reading the directions

Shall I go on?

********************

Purpose,

 

We hunt for things we cannot see

The warmth we never knew

The shade of something greater

A love that is true

Sometimes in the searching

The wandering that lost hearts know

We find meaning in the journey

And show others where to go.