trying not to
spread my ashes
before i’m dead
terri guillemets
composed by yours truly
Perimenopause
freed pubescent girl
finally crawls out of time
into middle age
The fall of October
October’s autumn
casts a gentle light
and a calm serenity
before the stark
barrenness of winter
is born to November
Windy winter night
snuggled into a warm cozy bed
weather wakes this sleepyhead
with a blustery December night
white clouds reflecting city light
cold drops fall fast and furious
a clattering house, mysterious
midwinter storms in and wails
frigid rain and whipping gales
Changing
I used to love leaves changing
falling off the trees, being blown away
to wherever leaves go — but now
after fifty gorgeous autumns and winters
in anthropomorphized fears I wonder:
What if they don’t come back?
what if they’re not strong enough
or reborn or determined enough
what if the tree has just had enough
of storms and harsh seasons
and it’s ready to leave things be
comfortable now baring itself always
without even bothering anymore
maybe it’s too tired to keep blooming
or perhaps green suddenly annoys it
the burgeoning whippersnappers
flaunting verdant youth and beauty.
What if this has been the final fall
because what if I can’t spring back up
and what if I’m a bare branch forever?—
Real eyes
Now that I’m over the hill
I can see it’s just made of
skeletons of dead monsters
that were never really there.
But that past is no less high
and no less there, and I am
no less on the other side of it.
Onward
Stumbling over all those little moments of grief is just a part of moving forward.
There will always be goodness
Even when the future’s not certain, our hearts can still be certain — of love and happiness and all that’s good.
After decades
She was fifty and needed
extra time to heal —
especially emotionally.
At fifty, the feelers
have already been dulling
for years, and if they haven’t
been fully numbed by now,
this is the year they will go.
Holding it together
Gratitude is the glue that makes just about everything else stick.
Tipsy
Awake is vertical, asleep horizontal, and drunk is dizzyingly diagonal.
December windows open
cold winter night wind
warms my soul but chills my bones
spring sleeps in the earth
Imaginary disease
How can there possibly be
Any such of a thing
As an overactive imagination?
The actual real disease
That most are suffering from
Is underactive imagination!