Decades pass in a day
as stories unfold –
I cannot look away
War alters the landscape
renders time irrelevant
dreams ash amongst rubble
I have but an ear to listen
hand extended, heart open
Such merger recompense
for pain eternally imposed.
(Image mine)
Talks stalled
escapees struggle
lives minimized
burdens heavy
despair palpable
Can they sense
the global hug,
compassion circling?
Do prayers have substance,
or have the displaced
never felt so alone?
(Image mine)
Weekends at cottage
we’d linger over coffee,
dew sparkling on primroses
How we’d race to the lake
laughter emerging
from cool depth
Flowers scowl now
Lake’s chill hardened
Do you wait for me
in the eternal darkness?
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
In increments
we measure the rain
as if centimetres
can quantify sorrow
A falcon has chased
the birds away,
naked, a tear-stained
tree stands alone
Our hearts resonate –
arms, like branches, aching.
(Image my own)
Next door cultivates perfection –
gardens pert with flowery blooms
like vibrant little soldiers heeding
the command of love’s labour,
shimmering with prideful confidence
My garden is overgrown vines,
chaos’ shameful exhibition,
bemoans the futility of planting,
knows there will be no follow through,
betrays the absence of love’s toil.
Life has schooled detachment
lessons in loss counsel defensiveness –
better to guard hope than plant it…
How can next door be so reckless;
do they not know this all for naught?
(This a rewrite of former poem also titled Next Door. Image my own.)
In your absence
I paint the ceiling
midnight blue,
await the return
of stars, ride out
the gut wrench
of abandonment
I know your motive
is happiness, and
that I shall emerge
all the wiser,
but for now
I don the spatter
of indigo grief.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
Did you know that life would come to this?
Flattened memories pressed between wax
the essence of our efforts forgotten,
the dreams, so carefully construed, lost.
You leaned toward the conventional,
and I was ever the sentimentalist,
and yet we ended up in the same place –
shadow selves standing at the banks
of our dishevelled lives…
Survivors, nonetheless, tokens
of a a past riddled with so many lies,
so much heartbreak…
We are ghost sisters
haunted, hunting,
unable to step away –
Drawn in,
pulling apart –
all that remains.
(Family Portrait first appeared here February, 2019. Edited here. Image my own)
Our world spins
in contradictions –
grief prominent
Women and children
facing oppression
Indigenous souls
coming home –
So many dying
courtesy of lies
If there is a song
for our times
it is a wailing.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Art my own)
Calm, the morning air,
mind lost in reflection,
mirror-still waters
Raise my eyes skyward,
pray for release, an end
to Mother’s suffering.
Nothing. Death
has its own rhythm –
emotions mud.
(I wrote this poem a year ago, when my Mother was in and out of hospital with heart failure and pneumonia. Now, a year later, she continues to struggle. “We live too long,” she says. “Pray for my release.” Photo: Mom at 94, courtesy of my son.)
His cadence is shallow –
these are familiar waters
He’ll swear the addiction
saves him from madness
Ignore the wrenching
pain in my heart…
leave to find his next fix,
another page in misery’s tome.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson.
Image my own)
One Woman's Quest 