Our bodies are meant
for the sun, the rain
the gusty winds
starlight and moon baths
fresh air and seasons —
so why do we trap ourselves
in indoor cages?
If we can’t hear birds sing
or feel invigorating breezes —
how are we to be refreshed
to heal, to know the world
beyond the borders
of our bodies?
the world may see dried-up and irrelevant —
they may not even see me at all —
LOOK! i’ve re-blossomed with beautiful new petals —
strength, focus, perspective, poetry, silver wisdom —
i am roaring out all that i have held in,
taken on, and put up with — for all my life —
i roar for myself and for all women
i roar at the top of my lungs with all my midlife rage —
LISTEN! no longer can i do it all, nor do i want to —
i may be getting old, but also i am brand new —
Earth tilts toward Winter
my heart goes tilty too
the summer-fever cools
to a more reflective hue
Night is filled with our loudest fears and a silent courage.
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
We all have those moments in our lives that transform us — something small or big happens and we’re never the same.
Sometimes we remember these moments in our personal histories as leaps, or falls — or just serendipitous wanderings — from one life segment to the next.
Or we mark them like stars on a map of self — constellations of life-changing moments. Some seem crazy small and wouldn’t even register as stars in others’ systems. But in our own they blaze bright.
Or maybe our days are raindrops and our lives rolling clouds and these moments are lightning strikes. Raindrop days, lightning-strike moments.
These maps and moments imprint our souls, our minds, our memorious hearts. Our stories of self are made from them.
You know the Model of your Car.
You know just what its powers are.
You treat it with a deal of care,
Nor tax it more than it will bear.
But as to self — that’s different.
Your mechanism may be bent,
Your carburetor gone to grass,
Your engine just a rusty mass.
Your wheels may wobble and your cogs
Be handed over to the dogs,
And on you skip, and skid, and slide,
Without a thought of things inside.
What fools indeed we mortals are
To lavish care upon a Car,
With ne’er a bit of time to see
About our own machinery!
—John Kendrick Bangs (1862–1922), “Motors,” The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920
trying not to
spread my ashes
before i’m dead
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.
“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
There are two sides to every story. Even my own story. Probably every story I’ve ever told myself.
she was wandering
completely lost —
yet on the path
the whole time
guilt, grief, regret
cut deeper than
the dimensions
of the soul itself