Not Giving Up
Last three years COVID
and dating post fifty
My mind a slate sky
I want the Zen master’s
empty mind
so I can emerge
from wicked winter
through the fuchsia tunnel
to a warmer spring rain
June 2024
What Sustains
Another hand open
To walk beside us
The care that does not abandon
That understands the tears of the other
How we can be broken and still be held
Not for a moment but a lifetime
Should we be this lucky
May 2024
Dungeon
Fears that have shackled you too long
A blessing you cannot see coming
Maybe you are gathering yourself
Letting the walls of pain
that have been slowly closing in
crumble
April 2024
It is never too late
To find a love that lasts
It’s never too late
To watch how the milkweed and purple irises
Bend towards each other
It’s never too late to trudge
Step by difficult step
Away from the throes of fear and anxiety
To hear the woodthrush’s sliver of promise
Greeting the spring morning
Telling myself even in tortured times
Divorce at forty, dating past fifty
Step by slow step
Maybe fear one day...
How Long
Dating random guys who don’t seem to care
Always chasing the next shiny object
Some rude like North Carolina
Speaking to me for seven months, meeting me
Then going back, ghosting me
A term I only recently learned
Turning me into a shade
The St. Louis doctor’s voice turns curt
When he says he can’t meet me in April
I’m kinder than these guys, I care
But my desperation to have a ring on my finger
Is driving me into eddies of anxiety and despair
...
Sauna
The sauna.
Fire. Water. Stone. Air.
I see eyes peering at me
through the blast of furnace mist.
I look for my place
on the plain wood benches,
eager to join the ranks of heat disciples.
Longing for the moment when churning elements
will clean this clogged and bilious brain.
Oozing neuron messages burnt up by birch wood flames.
Steaming empty cortex
breathes a sigh of silent clean relief.
04.18.2024
Inpsired by News Time for Serentiy, Anyone? - William Stafford
Moon
I’m standing here on this hill with the wolves.
They are here to bay to you, Moon.
I am here to ask you, Moon, to please come to our aid.
I have a job that’s not for the sun in all her surface blazing glory.
No, for this illumination, we need your silvery rays and dusky spirit.
Pray, flare upon our earth when the sun has said goodbye for the night.
Use your metallic power to pierce dark wells of ignorance.
Liberate imprisoned jewels of wisdom that lie there waiting to be released.
We need all the carats of insight that can be gathered
to save ourselves from suffering.
No, sun can not do this job.
These dingy pockets know too well how to hide brilliance in the shadows.
But they will have no defense from you, moon.
Your icy dark power will reveal them sniveling in their corners.
Like knows like.
They’ll have no more places to hide
when you turn on your pulverizing radiance.
08.10.2023
Inspired by How to Spend a Life by Gail Onion
It’s Alive
Once our life gets into it
the poem rises up from the paper.
Just like Frankenstein's monster,
it moves off to live on its own.
Just like Frankenstein’s monster,
the poem says
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
The poem may be ugly,
may move in jerky movements,
but you no longer control it
and damn it, it's alive!
The poem may support peace,
may wreak chaos and havoc
(perhaps you should have used a pseudonym)
but you no longer control it
and damn it, it's alive!
03.12.2021
Inspired by Living Things by Anne Porter
Gone Fishin’
Oh, not having a mind.
Now there’s a dream.
Or at least a mind on pause
so my feelings can emote in peace,
without mind interrupting
with judgements, opinions and suppressions.
Or at least a mind vacation
so my body can enjoy in joy
without mind blabbing about plans, projections and permissions.
Or at least a mind gone fishin’
So my soul can be
in peace.
11.16.2023
Inpsired by The Red Poppy by Louise Glick
Beings
Happiness doesn’t do.
Happiness is.
Happiness stands there soaking up the sun,
stretching out every luminous petal,
sharing its intoxicating scent,
being itself.
Being is enough for happiness.
We can do that.
I know we can.
We are human beings.
08.03.2024
Inspired by So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye