I wanted to say
I created this life
but life created what I call my life
I wanted to say
I decided to move to this cottage
but this cottage called to me
in a dream
and I had no way of knowing it existed
until that night
And now I say
All things move at their own insistence
and I am along for the ride
one dream at a time
it is quiet
not quiet like completely silent
there are sounds of finches, a robin,
cooing doves, the rain
but quiet
away from cities and busyness and traffic
where I can hear my soul ticking like a tiny
alarm clock
the kind you used to see
sitting on the desk of your favorite aunt
or teacher
or your grandmothers vanity
I listen to that faint tick
and wonder if I have done enough
in my time
to bring peace
before the mechanism justs runs down
there are 36 righteous men in the world
holding our places to heaven
their foot in the door
keeping it wedged open
so we can slide in
no matter whether we listened to the
ticking
and did our best
to find quiet
and peace in this fraught world
my vision dims
first a film of misunderstood conversation
then it blinked out
like a light house flashing
warnings out to sea
I am wasting time
when there is so little left to waste
and there is a rustling in the pantry
where three blind mice live
and those oft told fairy tales
spring to life
but life does not hold many more springs
and it’s summer
and I am blinded by the light
warning me away from the rocks
and dangers on the shore
Morning Porch View
“I want to live simply. I want to sit by the window when it rains and read books I’ll never be tested on. I want to paint because I want to, not because I’ve got something to prove. I want to listen to my body, fall asleep when the moon is high, and wake up slowly, with no place to rush off to. I want not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself. I just want to be, boundless and infinite.” — Author Unknown
Up before wrensong,
the crescent moon and I whisper
so as not to wake the day.
She in her nightgown and I in mine,
we sit on the porch
in the cool air of early dawn.
And she listens.
I tell her of my fears-
numbering my inadequacies,
trembling in my regret,
tears flow freely
as the early morning dew.
With her sweet comforting smile,
she tells of her birth –
new moon to slim crescent,
waxing to full, rounded glory
only to wane past gibbous
into the palest slip of light
to be welcomed into the dark womb
of restful night.
Waxing and waning,
we each sigh
at the dawning sun.
*** A repost of a poem written several years ago.
Tiny stitched lines of geography sewn
into flesh and muscle,
needled from silken to coarseness,
fragile to enduring.
Fabrics woven into years of patchworked life,
tattered and torn,
to be mended
and forgiven.
Weary threads continue to unravel
and fray
to be caught up again
by sharp silver needles,
darning the gaps,
strengthening the ties,
binding the thoughtless wounds,
the intimate grief.
Steady hands fold the hems,
straight and narrow,
to be cut through
and reworked into patterns
of spring to summer
to autumn.
Each moment embroidered
to its best possible telling
as the pattern emerges
from faded cloth.
Seeing the mythologies explained
in pieced remnant and scrap,
we fold its story around us,
holding on tight against the cold.
(revised)
The months spilled, rushing down to summer
with the rain,
last falling in the dark morning,
now the clear blue of a perfect afternoon sky
How can it be that things end without thought,
just tossed as carelessly
as petals in the warm breeze?
Will you remember this May?
The May of thunder and consequences
when all that could have been
was carelessly left to wash away
in the cold night rain.
The sun is shining now
and June is already here,
just waiting in the edge of the wood,
tiptoeing across the runoff
of the hard May rains.
How can stillness move so fast
or the speed of a thing
retain its calm center?
I stand,
still as a held breath,
my body flying at 800 miles per hour
and yet the surface of the coffee in my mug
shows not a ripple.
Shadows of your thoughts
darken the room even before you enter it-
pushing all light away from you
or possibly
the gravitational force of your temper
sucks it in like the black holes
created in the brilliant light of an exploding star.
All this sturm and drang.
Its just space and time,
the universal quandary of quantum physics
of how to get along.
He sits,
minding his own business-
though I sometimes think I catch his change of mood
if just the slightest breeze
with the smallest pink cloud
ruffles his stone mane.
Mostly, he lounges while the small dog and I
take some air as they once said
about women of a certain age
with their precious pets
or maybe that was just made up in the novels
I used to read.
The walk is lovely this time of year-
each corner filled with honeysuckled bird songs
and the insistent voices
of the meadow grasses in the lake cooled wind.
Perched in the old hickory,
a tattered bowl of sweet grass
and raffia,
holding tiny eggs of alabaster
and anointed life.
We create nests,
cobbled together with books and corners and walks
with small dogs,
as life moves along our late afternoon paths,
past concrete lions
resting in a neighbors drive
until the next pink cloud
scoots along
in the slightest spring breeze
or until the barking of a small dog
ruffles his mane.
Lessons learned may not go far-
in case of emergency,
guard your heart-
its ruptured tires might go flat.
In case of emergency,
do this or that,
its not pretty and it can be rough,
it just what you do
if the going gets tough.
In case of emergency,
by and by,
we will not know when
and we may not know why.
In case of emergency.
hold your heart safe –
in case of emergency,
just in case.
thecourseofourseasons 