The History of One Life

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List -- The Prodigy

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Through many windows life looks out...
Through windows rosy with young dreams
      And windows grey with pain:
Through windows bright with hope's gay light
      And windows dripping rain...
~George Elliston

I often think of the history of one life, not from a text book but one that may have been a grandmother to the second cousin of the lady I just passed in the cereal aisle. What was her story? What came of her first love? Did she die of a broken heart or natural causes, or is that the same thing? A million questions flood over me like when it rained last April. Does anyone still speak her name? Will she be remembered? 

Sometimes I think that is the most tragic part of it all; the thought of being forgotten!

Everything reminds me of all the numbered midnights with my lost loves.

For life is surely a legend but death is truly famous and not just on Sundays!

So, I write love letters to the world with ink not on my hands but my heart,

saying, remember me!

 The little girl, the rain storm, and the old poet.

And each are the threading on the edges of my cotton cloth,

the one my mother was sewing long before I knew the colors I myself would choose to wear.

After years of dishes, problems that linger like fat thighs, and seeing more than I ever expected,

I find I view souls like books, enormous books with fine print and chapters that cannot be counted.

The world is a library of beautiful and tragic stories.

It just makes me sad to think that some were never even opened and read at all.

Unspoken Words to the Dying,

 

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 Sarton, "Of Grief," A Durable Fire, 1972

 

 

When my father was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, my stepmom could not bear for him to be told.  I am not entirely sure how he was in the dark of it all, but we continued with the façade that there was hope, and hence words that needed to be spoken that would have been obvious of what was happening were never said.

 One day on morphine and nearer to passing, my dad was hallucinating as only a very logical engineer could have done.  He would very matter of factly ask me, “do you hear that music?”  or “Do you see that car moving in the painting?”  When I answered with a bewildered no, he remained silent and unfazed.  I cannot help but think that music is something that crosses the border of here and heaven.  He was hearing the echoes of where he was headed.  Some sounds preach truth no matter what secrets may be kept. That is my thoughts on it and like the hope for miracles, that is what I choose to hold on to. 

 

I kept words folded and starched in an innermost closet like formal attire for a place I would never be able to go.

 You see, one cannot dance at the reception hall if the building has been burned to the ground.

Yet, still I dance alone with a grace that loneliness carries.

Swaying with words that know how to move in my company but never step out of that room.

It sounds absurd to someone else, but I know where they stand and why.

And I listen because I need to.

For I must remember, and I shall!

I smoke them like a joint.

Holding my breath hard as I wait for something more.

But there was a time that I was the voice that carried high, like a song reaching for broader skies.

Now my heart is a nightbird; still and quiet in the daylight.

You say I look brave and sure like a train to the city, but don’t be fooled my dear!

I am thoughts unspoken and dubious.

The regret of a thousand backward falls.

I am an old frayed ribbon from the gift of memory of long long ago.

Just one hard pull and I could break.

Linking with Shay's Word Garden (Janis Ian is the featured poet and singer/songwriter)

& the Sunday Muse for Muse #244

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Harvest of the Brave

image by Musin Yohan

Linking with Poetry Jam for Mary's prompt "Harvest Time"

Our battle-fields, safe in the keeping
Of Nature's kind, fostering care,
Are blooming, - our heroes are sleeping, -
And peace broods perennial there.
~John H. Jewett

We gather our fallen like crop in the field and then set them up in rows.

Those that bore the burden of fighting freedom's greatest foes.

They stood among the strongest and brave upon the land

and gave the greatest sacrifice for liberty of fellow man.

 

An offering of plenty that no civilian can give back

providing for generations the rights that only heroes grant.

 

 Now we reap the benefit of the harvest of the brave

so let us give the offering reverence and live a life that's great.

The Dash

Magpie #38

It is not the day we are born

nor the moment of our passing

that leaves a lasting mark.

It is the dash inbetween

the life we have lived

that shapes and touches our hearts.

February 15 1922 - August 11, 1992

Parkes Van Horn

My father was a wonderful man who accompllished many amazing things even though he had led a very difficult childhood.  His mother was sick for many years with MS, and passed away when he was merely 9 years old.  By the time he was 11 he was orphaned, and had to live with who ever would take him in.  He started working at the age of 12 as a door to door salesman.  Dispite all of his hardships he eventually went in the Navy as well as the Army, and served in WWII.  He worked his way through college graduating from Rice University in Houston, TX to become a aeronautics engineer.  He practically raised me and my brother by himself, and we never went without.  There is no way that I could ever attempt to fill his shoes, yet his integrity and example have carried me, and continue to move me forward.

To read more prompts check out amazing Willow's Magpie Tales