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

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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What Hands & Hearts Hold

Linking today with the Sunday Muse for Muse #181  come join us!

 

Speech is a prank of Parliament,
Tears a trick of the nerve, –
But the heart with the heaviest freight on
Doesn't always swerve.
~Emily Dickinson

 

When my hands were small

I could not hold the heaviness of many truths

although my heart could carry every loss like a fire fighter

leaving a burning building with lives to save

 still I wanted to know what lied ahead

I wanted answers to every question

to know why God was everywhere

and my mother could not be found

uncertainty leaves a certain ache

not knowing the next move

nor what will happen next

has a way of moving us all

one way or another

 like pain can lead a man to drink

and yet love can do the same

I have come to know that there is movement in all things

in the gift of joy and the loss of grief

a bird swiftly flies to a higher branch

 yet his feathers slowly fall

each moving somewhere different than where they began

my hands have grown with time and callus

and I have held the heaviness of knowing many things

and still there are many questions

even though my heart has learned to hold too much

 like a bishop holds the sacrament

and a knight his mighty longsword

bravery only moves forward

and love is always brave.

Lost is a Lonely Place on a Busy Street

 Photography by Artist, Jasper James

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #168

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For a while I climbed the ladder,
not realizing I’d placed it
against the wrong house. The window
I tried to look into was a mirror.
I fell backward into the world.

-Stephen Dunn

 

I lost you before you were truly gone

Like money at the races or bullets from a fool’s gun

Some hurts are hard to recover from

 and some places just cannot be left behind

a lost little girl

that had never left home

still stands at the curb of a busy street

and hesitates to go

speaking up and walking away are harder than they look

no one ever explained that to me

I just learned it as I went

You see,  silence preaches louder than you think

Skinned up knees leave a more enduring mark

Than road signs warning, slippery when wet

Those scars join us in the journey

We carry them along

Like children too tired to walk any further

That is how we learn strength is many things

More than lifting steal and running far

Yes, I lost you before you were truly gone

Like whiskey from a cracked bottle

That always leaves a mess behind

It took me years to see how lost that truly left me

Yet to find our true direction

We must first realize we are lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Time In the Pool, 1975

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse#166

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Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. ~German proverb

 

When I was a child I did not go into the deep end  

swimming is hard to learn when you never leave dry land

I lingered at the shallow side

 needing to have my feet touch the bottom of the pool

the only thing I truly learned that day

was to hold on to the side tight

you see my fear of the loss of control gripped me even tighter

fear is a harsh teacher

it can bruise and it can maim  

providing a true regret

that sticks with you like a heavy meal on a hot day

the kind that leaves you thirsty and parched

yet it is there that courage can immerge

in the longing to quench the deepest of thirsts

when hands reach out

you learn to let go of the sides

and venture deeper in

for that is the only way to learn

and get where you surely need to be.

A Grieving Heart is a Door Ajar,

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #162

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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.

 

 

 

 

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!

Dismal News in a Waiting Room 1972

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #158

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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.

 

Hope Leaps Like a Fox in Winter

 

Surreal Artwork by Ronald Ong

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #151

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Love must be as much a light as a flame. ~Henry David Thoreau

My weary hands ache

from all the holding on

and the letting go

that is the cost of greedy hands

 and a hasty heart

there was once a time

 when you were the warmth to my winter

the flame my hands held close to

but fast fires can only burn so long

the burning house sooner or later falls to ash

a rubble one must walk away from

the season comes and goes

but my heart always hopes for more

it leaps like a fox in winter

and holds tight to all it finds

it can be a heavy burden

in the loss of letting go.

 

 

 

Some Barbed Wire Fences

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 127

Hosted this week by the truly amazing poet Chrissa.

I was raised in the country

Where the only steel in twenty miles was

 the tractor

 the plow

 and some hearts

but the truest of cutting

 was never in the field

so my love became a cattle guard

 surrounded by a barbed wire fence

and praying for rain

 turned into wings

strong country fences never stopped a crow

only the cattle and the sheep

yet even when the crow makes it to the city

it’s heart still remembers the country in which it came

and climbing barbed wire fences is always dangerous

whether you are trying to leave or trying to get home.

A Graceful Arrangement

Photography by Jason Evans

click HERE for image source

Linking with Verse Escape for the Friday Flash 55 hosted by the utterly amazing Joy!

Thank you Joy for inspiring us!

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“The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without purpose.”

~ Myles Munroe

I could not have known there was a certain mercy in empty hands

Like a vase ready for meadow flowers

Hollowed like a silver maple

Awaiting something more

All the wreckage

That stole so much from my heart

After the winter’s freeze

Gave way to new growth

Flowers that now sit upon my dinner table.

© Carrie Van Horn 2020

The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 118 hosted this week by the brilliantly talented Chrissa!

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Sorrow makes us all children again — destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is a red-hot kettle 

the one I was never meant to hold 

and my heart that burns with longing 

has not yet learned to let it go 

my soul yearns to go backwards 

and speak with the child I once was 

warn of hurt and danger 

preventing so many scars 

for I have learned to carry heavy burdens 

and how to fall slipping in regret 

trying to keep it all together 

holding tight to things not mine to get 

but like the Red-Footed Falcon 

freedom is the truest way 

and tears of loss and heartache 

were never meant to be caged 

you cannot carry an ocean nor a thousand buckets of rain 

so why would you carry everyone's sorrows 

and keep holding on to all the pain? 

you see every poem is a message 

 that my own heart needs to hear 

and drop by drop of ink and words 

have helped me find the tears. 

A Loss with No Name

Linking with Verse Escape for the May Friday 55

Thank you Joy!

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There is a loss I cannot name

It is an empty cry

And the only thing my voice can speak is

 why?

I reach my hand into the dark of night

And no longer see myself

I wonder who I have truly become

And I can only utter

A sigh…

To the entire world,

Why?

A Ship Half Empty

Linking with Flash Fiction 55 over at Verse Escape 

where we write a poem or what inspires us in exactly 55 words.

Thank you Joy for a wonderful prompt!

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I dream of far places

where gulls glide Atlantic Seas like ships

there I am alone among multitudes

yet the only voices I can hear

are ghosts of yesterday

old and ragged I whisper

 the tireless question

 why no matter where I venture

I remain a child hoping for my mother to hear my cry.

Things Unseen

Image Source

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 101

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Elephants and grandchildren never forget. ~Andy Rooney

My grandmother spoke of things unseen

like southern winds through rustling leaves

All the stories some would dare not tell

Strolled her tongue like lovers on a garden dell

And letters never written to the world

Were placed in my heart as just a girl

Like graffiti’s true art on a northern wall

She shared explicitly her rise and her fall

Then all her secrets left one day

They rode her wings final flight away

Yet all those quiet convictions I still can hear

They live within me and whisper soft yet clear

For grandmother spoke of things unseen

And my heart still listens and my heart believes.

Dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Hazel Cameron Covington Odeneal.  She had a beautiful southern draw, and her stories were always wonderful and fascinating.  I lost her when I was only 13 years old to pneumonia in 1976.   She has been on my mind even more these days.   Please be safe everyone, and remind others that we need to be safe not just for ourselves, but for our family members at risk, our neighbors, and all the beautiful and diverse people with whom we share this world.   

Bittersweet

Linking with the Sunday Muse for the BIG 99th prompt hosted by the utterly amazing poet Shay!

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Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly. ~Proverb

We all begin whole

Ruby red cheeked

No scrapes nor bruises

Light with the seeds of hope

Held by the hands of love

Yet later that same love is also

The hand that slices us to the core.

Hunters of Truth

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 90

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“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

~ Zora Neale Hurston

The poet’s heart is a fox that sees the world in darkness and in light

his eyes pregnant with possibilities and yet empty from the fight

It is an inner struggle to recollect and yet a hunt that drives him further from his home

A quest into the wilds of hunger among the many creatures yet still alone

You see life is sharpened arrows yet doves that shall fly far beyond harms way

It is the winds of a thousand storms, but one companion that keeps him safe

All the beauty within starlight and the hurt that blinds him from the seen

Are the questions that keep him hunting for a reason to believe

For the poet is a dreamer that ponders meaning while searching for hope in flight

And he hunts the darkest of forests longing to capture the truest light.

The Dream Poems

   Rebeca Cygnus photography
Visit her website HERE

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 77

In a dream you are never eighty.  ~Anne Sexton


I double dog dared myself to write 2 poems for this one, so here are my poems for the promt:

The Casualties of Dreams,

Awake I dream of what could be

But Asleep I dream of what has been

re-living my past as a person at times I barely know

each place is a little different

and yet everything is always the same

I brave storms in rooms I have lived in

and walk close to the edge of cliffs where

I know I have never walked

fearless as I would have been

 before I ever knew what it was to fall

yet all the fears I have learned to hold

come out like pigeons wanting crumbs

and every struggle I have wrestled with

manifests itself like a spirit

 that floats through walls

that I rarely can escape

I almost lose my dearest love

 down every dangerous street

As I fall further from where I once was

Lost and feeling alone

Then my father

 who has been gone for decades

 enters asking me

 do I know where I am?

My voice answers

 I am only dreaming

As my heart answers,

Yes I am here to visit you!

For awake I dream of what could be

But asleep I dream of what has been.

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

The Soul's Odyssey,


It is as an excursion of the heart
when we lay our head to rest
where the matters of the soul
journey back to be a guest
the day rewinds from eyes open to eyes shut
 and our thoughts reach out to explore
opening every closed window
and running through every open door
from childhood homes and play grounds
to peril in the streets
it is a high action movie
that is viewed from within the sheets