Rude Awakening

God wakes me

deep in the night when owls are prowling

and nocturnal creatures rouse from sleep.

He wakes me to save her.

I call the night humans

who corral her to safety.

They tell her she is not the owl

not one to roam the night.

    "time to sleep dear"

They do not tell her the truth...

that soon she will fly with the owl

and never again touch earth.

Miscarriage

 

The egg is so fragile,

yet holding within it

the greatest of miracles.

the embryo of all our hope...

all that we weren't but wished for,

all that we are, yet even more so 

feel entitled to.

The egg is so fragile.

The smallest misalignment and hope

summersaults into a barren winter

devoid of anything

that matters more.

The Bruise

 

I'm up early

earlier than the day...

black turning to blue

waiting for the yellow of morning,

like a bruise about to heal.

Isn't that funny?

"A bruise about to heal".

It doesn't just heal.

It turns from black to blue

green to yellow

to something just off from your skin tone.

And if deep enough

there is no healing.

Just an atonement through forgiveness

and an understanding that is yours alone

to plaster over the wound.

And yes,

that band-aid makes you well enough to continue the linear direction of life

without a backward glance,

except for those thrown over your shoulder

every day.

A Rose in the Crabgrass

 

It's the quite of evening

as everything downshifts 

to a slower beat.

No place to be.

Someplace to stay.

Birds and bees have gone wherever they go,

silently waiting for tomorrow to take flight 

again...to my dogs delight.

His needs so simple,

mine so complex,

I fear they are unmeetable....

until I look in my husbands eyes

and that way he strips the wallpaper I've hung in disguise,

the way he rids the garden of weeds

I've planted as flowers.

He knows a rose from crabgrass,

so why this farce?

I keep thinking I can get away with it.

Teflon Brain

 

I am not a collector of memories.

They are too slick.

A silicone layer surrounds each

that allows them to slide into oblivion

where they can't hurt me anymore.

But this practiced skill...

lubricant of the mind...

sends with the avalanche, the good

important,

and meaningful.

But to subvert this skill

might mean death

or suffocation without death

on repeat

which is worse.

So I beg your mercy

if your name escapes me.

But I never forget a face....

falling into categories

good....or bad.

I just can't remember why.

The Silence of Wisdom

There used to be noise
to fill the void.
Like an audiophile I would collect
the unspoken word
and pipe it in as my own.
But no one recognized the voice as mine.

And when that fault cracked,
wider than a Richter could measure,
my thoughts became so loud.
They argued,
and the debate was more than I could stand.

Like an audiophile I would collect
song
and sing it as my voice.
But it pointed fingers and boasted things,
untrue things.

Silence
Please...silence, solitude, peace

My world became soundless,
because I made it so.
I began to let the void be void
and allow the quiet to listen,
let the silence speak in settling tones
you could fall asleep to.

Soon the time came the time when silence
had no need of infusion,
because even the pregnant pause overflowed.
Silence
became the loudest thing,
and in its eloquence...
such wisdom.

2-5-19

New Years Dread

There is a sense of dread
like soot from the fireworks
in wobbly descent,
landing on my journal.

I swipe at the mark
and smudge the new page,
once sharply white with dreams
and unblemished with the disappointment of failure.

The new year is presenting itself
like an open book
but my fear...my dread
is that the same words will be penned again.

Progress seems so marginal
excludable
and yet I wonder.
We are only dead if we are stagnant,
so therefore I must have moved,
progressed.
I am alive.

My father is stagnant
dead
and yet his heart
beats another year
into being.

1-1-19