This confined life –
carefully construed –
ingrains order,
commands discipline.
I can free myself
from urbanity,
declare adventure
as prerogative, but
how long before
I release the need
for control, unburden
internal restraints
let go, and open
to divine rhythms?
Doubt I possess
the trust required
to live with such
uncertainty.
(Submitted for Twenty Four’s 50 word Thursday. Photo is part of the prompt.)
“If you smell juice,”
Mother said,
“Do, please put on shine,
and whisper at me –
am having beauty sleep,
rusting from the sun.”
Together, when days cool,
or there about,
life be that still.
(Another magnetic poetry poem. Play online.)
I alternate between vigorous activity and coma-like crash. It’s the nature of this disease. No middle ground, it seems. Or maybe that’s just the nature of this personality.
We celebrated Christmas early this year. A Saturday afternoon gathering, and I cooked. First time in four years. I felt a certain sense of pride till the last guests left and I turned to face the aftermath. Now, just two days later, I am packing up the household and preparing for a four-month excursion. I think I’ve defined a new breed of crazy: waiting for a spurt of energy and then frenetically doing until I hit the next wall.
Winter pelts windows,
stirs frenzied need to escape –
waiting for recharge.
(Imelda is hosting in the dVerse pub tonight with the prompt: waiting. Coincidentally, waiting is also the prompt for Manic Monday’s 3 way challenge. I have also received inspiration from Ragtag Community: vigorous, and Fandango: coma. Tomorrow is load up day and then we hit the road, so not sure how often I’ll be around until we get settled somewhere.)
The heart resides in fragmented nests,
each beat a rhythm of its own desire;
we search for wholeness between breaths,
haunted by longing – a secret fire –
a quest for knowledge to lift us higher.
(Written for dVerse pub, hosted by Grace who challenges us to write a quintain. Image from personal collection.)
No more than fringe,
dangling in the aftermath,
waiting to unravel,
too numb to tighten bonds.
Despondent.
Will you take my hand,
offer compassion,
listen with me
to the discordant silence,
be my faith?
(Written for Sammi Cox Weekend Writing Prompt: fringe)
Day, no more than a sliver, casts a subtle glow on the path. A small bird tap-tapping on windowpane has awakened me, invited me out. I follow it now, as it flits from tree to bush along the way. We come to a stream, whose waters swirl in a nearby eddy then rush over the rocks, merrily singing Earth’s praises. Seventy-eight acres of untouched land surround me. Birch, oak, and willow among the giants that offer shelter. I have come on retreat. A chance to regroup and recharge.
This bird is not the first to rouse me in the early hours; it had been happening for days leading up to this journey. I take it as an omen: be awake, pay attention.
I feel the presence immediately. I am not alone at the water’s edge this crisp, cool spring morning. Although I cannot see her, I know her at once – an essence I have not felt since I was child. Mother Earth. I begin to cry.
“Why did you abandon me?” The words tumble, unexpectedly.
How long has it been since I’d felt her reassurance, the protective shield of her patient strength? I remember how as a child, locked out of home, she walked with me, whispered to me through the subtleties of the wind, and taught me the rhythms of life.
“It was you who abandoned me.” The knowing hits me, like a punch to the stomach. It is so true. I turned my back on her, adopted the ways of civilization – embracing education and busyness as a means to happiness, forgetting the promise of inner peace she offers.
‘Can you forgive me? ‘ I cry. The sorrow of our separation now hitting me in waves of grief – a torrent of shame and blame, and guilt. How I have lost touch with so much in the years since she and I passed the days in innocence.
“There is nothing to forgive. I am always here, whenever you need me.”
The thing is, I tell myself, as day’s light obliterates dawn’s encounter; allergies keep me indoors, and as a mother of three, I spend my days chauffeuring. What time do I have for Nature, for daydreaming?
I will not find her again, for many years, when sickness closes the door on accepted life practices and forces me into isolation, desolation. It doesn’t happen all at once, but gradually, over time, starting with a little bird’s tap-tapping on my windowpane, inviting me to look outside. Inside.
(Written for Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See? Image supplied as part of the challenge.)
(Featured image is watercolour interpretation of the photo above.)
Sporting crisply pressed regrets
and tight-assed judgments,
the past happened upon me,
caught me mid-mediocracy,
eye-balled me with a sneer,
and then strolled on by as if
I wasn’t even worth a ‘hello’.
Wait a minute, I cried out
trying to pull myself together,
noting too late, my lack of
grooming, how unfairly
I’d been caught off guard –
Wait! I’ve been wanting
to tell you…I mean… I was
just too young…
All in vain, he’d vanished,
left me gaping and rattled –
damned he looked good –
foolishly pining after
righteousness, imagining
the past as something
tangible, curable….
Age
masks the depth
and breadth of ability –
houses more than anticipated
room for expansion, however;
current state of disrepair –
walls buckling, wiring faulty,
and security systems failing –
compromises output.
Old
holds a certain charm,
character well-earned,
but it would be useful
to install a mechanism
for locking out the past –
perhaps the future too –
eliciting and validating
the fullness of present.
One Woman's Quest 