Saturday, May 29, 2021

A Grieving Heart is a Door Ajar,


 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #162

Come join us!

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows... ~William Shakespeare

 

Flight is but a haunted memory

so I don’t need wings to travel far

regret can be a boarded window

yet a broken door that stands ajar

heartache is a house that creeks and moves

like an old woman’s legs in winter tend to do

we hold our memories

and peer at grief

believing in ghosts

 others may never see

yet still they leave and appear

 like finger prints on glass

drinking from cups and saucers

we will never have

they follow and lead

they hold our hand

they make us stumble

yet help us stand

for yesterday was a lost child with tangled hair

today is a black bird with a lonesome stare

tonight is the moon’s reflection everywhere I go

and tomorrow a baby I shall nestle close

the reminders enter from near and far

broken and bent like a door ajar.

 

 

 

 



Saturday, May 22, 2021

A Million Menageries,


 Surreal Art by Catrin Welz-Stein

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #161
where we are writing, sharing and celebrating my amazing poet friend Shay's birthday!!

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

 

You ask me what lies to the west?

What cracks open my sky like a treasure chest?

As if secrets were never meant to be kept!

Yet I only look towards the eastern sky.

Longing for birds that have already flown by,

With a cage in my hand and hope in my eyes.

Holding memories like broken glass with no gloves.

Some questions have no answer my love,

And some answers are never enough!



Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Gate Keeper

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #160.  Hosted this week by my fabulously talented poet friend Shay!   Come join us!


"To dare is to lose one's footing.  To not dare is to lose oneself."   ~ Soren Kierkegaard


In the marvel of our youth we eagerly open every gate

yearning to reach and feel everything under the sun

like blind hands

that do not know what lies ahead

but as the quilted blanket always dries on the line

under the mid-day sun

colors fade

edges tatter and tear with time

caution takes hold

like a tight winter coat

we long for shelter

learning to lock doors with prudent hands

we view the horizon from closed windows

knowing all too well 

what lies ahead.


Note to self & the world:

Leave the gate unlocked with open hands and an open mind.


Saturday, May 1, 2021

Dismal News in a Waiting Room 1972



Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #158
Come join us!



There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie,
Endured, never expended.
~May Sarto

 

Sorrow does not need a safety net

the ghosts of loss and regret never do

they walk through walls

and dance on high beams with eyes closed

resilient like a Maytag appliance….they survive floods

follow us to new homes holding our hand

even as we reach out ours to the world

they watch us sleep filling our empty glass as only grief can do

I have spent nearly 50 years holding this truth

you can try to brace yourself

or try to let it go

but it quietly waits

in the silence of knowing

and the clatter of forgetfulness

a patient child waiting to speak

whether you acknowledge it or not

it is there

a whisper of remembering

that can transfix or move you

right back to 9 years old in a waiting room

with words of sympathy upon a loved one’s lips.