“You peer into my life to find a lingering past, but I tell you it was sunk ten thousand fathoms deep and weighted down with my dead self. You look into my breast to find that old, old open wound, but I tell you I seared it with my hot tears and only the cicatrix is there.”
—Muriel Strode (1875–1964), My Little Book of Prayer, 1904
“The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to
—Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903
Sometimes you just need to be open to the universe’s alternate plans for you.
dried crackling leaves
though dead
are never quite still
I tried – to marry Happiness –
but he Dumped me – at the Vows –
he sought – a Sadder Heart to lift –
and Left me – for someone Else –
so I Hitched up – with Solitude –
and Honeymooned – by Myself –
I searched the history of grass,
Beneath hawk-shadows blowing past.
I learned the timelessness of stone;
Saw forest-flesh and forest-bone
Reach briefly up, go swiftly down,
Crash in green, dissolve to brown.
Taught by decay and schooled by molder,
I can turn a stoic shoulder
To beauty spiking searching eyes
And breasts defenselessly unwise.
Against impermanence I lock
My soul, confiding it to rock.
—Frances M. Frost (1905–1959), “Stoic,” Hemlock Wall, 1929
syl·la·bles in my life
i cannot utter anymore
with the grace of youth
i stutter with freedom
and slur in wild love
words that once made
sense now are blind
faith doesn’t see and
hope rarely speaks
i’ve never needed you
to spell it out for me
the echo of emptiness
calls out like the sea
ebbing flowing waving
crashing shoring up
a million tear drops
whisper gently into
the gossamer of years
winds blow away our
comforts of home in
a smoke of memories
lost childhood remains
both here and gone
audible and sadly silent
echoes of those poems
voice words that sound
exactly the same but mean
something entirely different
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?—
the walls of my prison crumble
as the walls of my castle appear
“We are all, in the course of a lifetime, a half dozen different people, bound together by memories of the same childhood.”
—Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
At a certain point, some of us just sit down and watch the rest of our lives