Category: grief

A Word

Remember whispered intimations

In the time before sleep.

Having faced down the hours

Of another day of what must be done,

How long will it take before

Forgetfulness wipes the whispers away

Of well-intentioned comfort

Along with any memory

Of facades presented but to a few

Who knew the truth?

Until then, stumble onward

Facing the intimidation

Of a blank page,

Smash a soul against it.

Read the splatters left

And know time is the matter.

Time, neither too fast, nor too slow

Can it pass before realizing

Nothing really mattered,

But the kindness

In forgetfulness.

Nesting Dolls (your last Christmas present 2014)

Broken nesting dolls
Lie in splinters
Emptied of each other.
At their core,
Among the splinters
And dust of months
And years,
There rests
At their center
A small letter
Of seasons and time
And meanings
Within a silver ring.

In the cleaning
Of brokenness,
A small splinter
Works under skin
To be lost
And never found.

Every Thing

Changed, evolved.

Everything

Used to be a verdant green

Of fresh, newborn spring.

Evolved into a chilly thing,

Brown, dried husks,

A few barely clinging

To a tree in late autumn,

Early winter.

Seems something, someone

Sucked the hope out,

Fed on it as if it were life’s blood,

And everything is drained, a leftover hull

Of what once was.  But everything goes on.

As if all is the same and nothing

Is gone.

Washed

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At sunrise over water,
Remembering a dream
Of finding ecstasy
Within tears,
Things neither given
Nor felt in years,
Linked by all the fears
To form decades of a life
Lived like a stranger
In my own skin.

I have stood
Since the dawn
At this ocean’s edge
Waiting, waiting.
And now at noon
The rain begins.
Fierce pelting blows
Washing me clean
Of all I know
Or dare to dream.

For living continues
Within my own skin

Winter

Blurred edges of a winter morning

A dawn leached of color

Where silence and stillness walk

Holding hands

A moment captured waking

Lasts

As warmth fades

And coldness settles in

To stay.

The Passing of Summer

 The wind and rain stopped by last night,
 Had a few minor temper tantrums outside
 As I stood watching from the door.
 They slapped the trees limbs around a bit
 And kicked at bits of loose trash in the street.
 Nothing more violent than that.
  
 No pushing down trees.
 No pummeling hail.
 Rather calm for a storm.
 Yet it killed the heat of summer,
 Murdering it without a hint of passion
 And ushering in a cold windy day 
 To begin the fall to winter.
  
 At dawn,
 I stand here,
 Warming myself 
 With this cup of coffee,
 Mourning a summer
 That passed without passion.
  

13 Years

 The requiem played
 So softly in the background.
 Our words stuttered to a halt,
 And we listened to this--
 The breath between words 
 Not said in the silence
 Between us.
 All the while the strains of the requiem
 Filled the ever widening space
 Between the words of lies and truths
 In the deafening silence.
 To relieve the pressure in our ears
 We talked of all the daily banalities
 Of work, of dinner, of lunches,
 Of the silly things the dogs have done
 That made us laugh.
 We talked over each other
 Stumbling in a strange vocal dance
 Until finally tripping into silence
 Before a final goodbye is said
 With your lies and my truth unclaimed.
 But the requiem played still--
 And then silence.

Shadows

In the shadows of the mountains

Where beasts have fled,

Leaving behind cloven hoof prints

In the inky muck of the forest floor

Beside the pristine waters of a rushing stream

Near the fading timberline here,

The scent of decaying pine bark and musk

On a faint icy breeze

Weaves all into the forest primordial.

Nothing human can be found

In a fear filled chest.

Two Hours

Two hours waiting
Two hours till death walks
Across your domain, your Eden
The longest two hours now
Will be the shortest two hours
After
After you no longer chase squirrels
Or kill snakes to lay as trophies at my feet
I will hold you as you
Dream and drift away
Wrapped in your blanket,
The one you’ve had since a pup.

After you are gone
Taken from my arms
Both of us limp
You will dream
Of running and running
For the joy of it,
Of chasing and catching
The geese you love to swim after,
Of digging and ridding
Your yard of moles,
Dream my friend, my companion,
My comforter, my furry kid
Dream as only angels can
Until we meet again

Truth

What truth is there but this?
Contained within the sand, wind,
An inky blue sapphire sea
Watching whales and seals play
As they sing their songs of joy
I listen
Their language so foreign to me
A vocabulary of rejoicing
In all that God has made
I can neither interpret nor define
Within this human construct
That it seems God forgot
Yet I seek to know
What they say
Of love
Of grief
Of play
Of joy