Echoes in a Hollow Space

Oh

Spring, oh spring, you break my heart
with the gaudy riot you splash against my eyes,
with the sweet winds and misting torrents,
you crack my heart wide open, thrusting life
where I have carefully kept it out.

Oh spring, oh spring, how can I deny you
when all around the yellow and red burn,
burn and burst and foment and fly?
Oh spring.
Oh.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Hot off the presses. I fear I am repeating myself, but I only have One Great Subject these days,

Lotus flower

Always so decisive, organized and resolute, never-aging,
confident-acting if not confident, a bubbly, outgoing woman.

Most of that is gone now. Now, I find myself with a little girl,
uncertain in her steps, both physical and of the spirit,
still reaching out to be what she was, who she was,
but finding a maze of walls between her and her self.

A great tenderness crests inside me, longing to protect,
to make her feel good about herself amidst the torment
and the tumbled-down world she tries to stumble through—
even when I’m exhausted, when the frustration is high.

I cannot swear to always being a perfect person. I weaken.
I trip and fall, but the soft lotus blooming in my heart
is a good resting place, holding us both above water.

The child I chose not to have found me anyway.
What can I do except love her and mother her?

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

What a morning. The first of these was written right after I got out of the shower where I spent my time thinking about the state of things and feeling the full weight of it all. This time of year is wearying and I am weary, sometimes prone to despair and fits of self-pity. There is at least one profane word in this poem, if that sort of thing offends you.

The second poem was written after I’d gotten my mother out of bed, fed her, joked about the cat with her, helped her with a craft project. Being with her took the edges off my despair, made me realize what was important.

But I present them both, as both are slants of the truth.

Not for the Faint of Heart

It’s hard for the brave to be weak.
Like any wounded tiger, my mother
lashes out at those who come closest.

Most days I let it pass.
She’s old and frail and hurting and afraid,
angry and confused,
and willing to admit to none of that.
I know it’s hard.
My mother, once as mighty as the
slow-churning thighs of the earth,
has to rely now on little wheels
to get across the room.

Most days I let it ride.
Except on the days when I myself
am tired and hurting and afraid,
angry and confused.
Then I defend myself—because I’m human
and frail of spirit.

But it’s not a fight I can win.
Guilt shuts me up and down
as surely as love.
I make amends. I take the blame.

I know the real guilty party is
old age,
that cold-hearted motherfucker
determined to diminish even the strongest
and bravest,
dedicated to grinding each last particle
of dignity
from our bones
while it turns us to dust.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Like a young child she has trouble

Like a young child she has trouble
with openings and closings,
clumsy hands bungling at things;
leaves messes behind her wherever
she goes, unaware, moving on;
totters, toddles and tests her feet,
escaping the prison of the walker,
grabbing furniture to steady herself;
lights never turned off, cabinets never closed.

These things evoke my tenderness,
the mothering core of my heart,
wanting to make safe, wanting
her to feel loved and appreciated,
supported and valued.

These things evoke my frustration,
moving along behind, a steadying hand,
cleaning up, making tidy, never done,
weighed down.

I live in perpetual opposition,
love and frustration, guilt and innocence.

In the end, love trumps all.
In the moment, it is sometimes
hard to remember,
but the truest expression of my heart:
love trumps all.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Fresh off the brain this morning:

Poetry is a dance with fans that scarcely covers your nakedness.
Poetry is an inverted dance, spinning on the top of your head.
Poetry is a one-legged dance, balancing on the end of a peg.
Poetry is a dance of wholeness, never fragments of movement.
Poetry is a tumbling dance, made up as you go.
Poetry is an evasive dance, never long pinned down in one spot.

*The Windhover, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I’d like to respectfully dedicate this poem to Fred Willard. He isn’t the one who inspired me to write it some years past, but he does prove that there is no new thing under the sun.

Rising Star

We all have demons
prowling the verges
of propriety,
doing things
we’d be embarrassed
to see
on the six o’clock news.

Thank goodness
there are high-minded
folk
to keep us cringing
in the dark
with furtive phantoms.
Otherwise, we might think
it is okay to have secrets.

Thank God
there is a morality squad
to check who’s
twanging what
is some feverish corner,
or who knows
but we might learn
to forgive ourselves?

Thank goodness
demons aren’t allowed
in sunshine,
except as objects
of scorn
and tabloid meat.
Otherwise, we might think
other people had demons, too,
demons some might call
human needs.

Thank God
everyone pretends
they’ve never encountered
one lonely, vulnerable, foolish
moment
when all that matters
is that the demon
has looked you in the eye,
known you
to your lascivious toes,
and taken you
on an irresistible ride
to parts
not unknown.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Inspired by that Albert Einstein quote from the other day…

Solitude
is a beautiful thing.
Not loneliness, that bitter,
twisted root—but aloneness,
the chance to be filled with the silent
whispers of the world, to feel the golden sun
shining for you alone, to express the hope that
brushes loving fingers through the contemplative mind.

Solitude
is the best friend
you will ever have—the warm,
caressing friend allowing you space,
time and stillness, who comes whenever
you fight your way out of the crowd into silence,
into peace,  oneness, and the deep, sustaining breath
of freedom.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Remembrance

Every new thing she see reminds her of the past,
or loved ones long gone, she the last of her line:
the way things used to be, how we did things then,
the funny thing her brother did, the tricks they played.

How much has changed.

A different world, consumed by history, lost
except in a few pale memories locked in spirits
headed away from Now and into the past tense.
The days wind down, grow fewer—whether
short or long we cannot say—
but not miles, not miles left to travel.

I listen for as long as I can,
stories told again and again,
trying to bear witness,
trying to let her know
someone still cares.

I try, but memories don’t get the laundry done,
the dishes put away, the dinner cooked.
The Now is relentless, unsentimental, unforgiving.

Someday you will regret not having these conversations.

Yes. Someday, someday, someday.

But for Now
I have many duties in my way
and steps or miles before that day.
Steps or miles before that day.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

This ain’t much, but it’s all the creative output I’ve got these days. And I’m glad even for that. I call them day poems for no particular reason except that they crop up during the day while I’m dealing with other stuff. They are roughly haiku in form, though I wouldn’t call them haiku.

Trapped

between love and
aching responsibility
there’s no room for me.

***

Stress

My skin is tinder:
one tiny scratch brings a
conflagration of itching.

***

Life

will burst you wide open
though the locks on your soul
would frustrate Raffles.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.