Category: life

A Final Mystery

Is death a gentle reprieve,
a final release of suffering
a promised resting place?

Or is it contemplation
coloured by memories
demanding retribution?

Will death bring reunion
unleash forgiveness
shine with revelation?

Will one final earthly breath
call forth all the fragments of the soul
and restore wholeness?

I have witnessed death –
both embraced and unwanted –
snatch the spirit from its nest

felt the whoosh of escape
and a swirl of celebration,
known the peace that follows

witnessed the body, open-eyed
and open-mouthed
become a vacuum –

discarded membranes;
an impotent shell.

The spirit does not dwell there;
it lives on borrowed time.

Where it goes when all is done
remains life’s poignant mystery.

(Originally posted January of 2015, this poem fits V.J.’s Weekly Challenge theme of mystery, hosted on One Woman’s Quest II.  There is still time to participate.  Head on over and check it out.)

Even Ghosts Yearn

Natural light preferable
to artificial – not the harsh
fullness of noonday sun
but softly filtered rays –
luxurious, inviting.

Love too, should be subdued,
gentle as a zephyr, not mythical
but yielding, mindful;
not worshipful nor boastful,
but comforting, warm

I am waning light,
the mistral wind wafting,
no longer a force of nature –
but smoke, spiraling,
vanishing into non-existence

And yet, even as shadows
spread, I yearn –
heart beating true,
not lost, not forgotten,
but withdrawn, humbled

passion mellowed
by toil of constructing walls –
grit and tar – scar’s long buried,
save the limping gait
of a ghost.

(This poem, worming its way into my thoughts all day, took shape when Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt appeared:  zephyr.   Image is from personal collection.)

Shoebox Dreams

A simple shoebox, repurposed
with plastered images of dreams –
paper affirmations of aspirations –
shelved and forgotten, its contents

snapshots, faded and torn, remnants
of another time, a different future –
captured when potential was prime
and possibility untainted by illness

this one was retirement – a supposed
celebration – but note how the colour
has drained, the cracks obliterating
pride of accomplishment; and notice

how this one crumbles to the touch –
the fragments dissipating even as
my life has dissipated, the image
lost before memory resurfaces, so

much loss when circumstance dictates
direction, overpowers will, and plans
like snowflakes, vanish in the heat
of reality – pain and insult burning

but wait – this one looks promising –
the edges only slightly torn, the image
discernible – could it be that there is
hope yet – a future author I might be?

That’s the thing about times to come,
we fill them with imaginings, and pray,
our hope, like balloons set free in a sea
of unforeseen challenges, and seldom

does the end result reflect projected
plotting, and yet, there is power in
the dreaming, and so I’ll replace the old
with new photographs to store away.

(Originally penned for National Poetry month, I am repurposing this poem here for Daily Addictions prompt: generate, Fandango’s: captured, and Ragtag Community’s: reduce.)

Checked Out

Every woman needs a man,
Mother told her, to be complete.

To submit, she realizes, too late
soul traded for high-rise living,
big city dreams numbing
inner losses.

She eats to appease inner sorrow –
a second-rate childhood – afraid
of being a burden, loathe
to create a stir – conditioned
complacency:

appeasing,
pleasing,
follows plans,
avoids decisions…

never really knows where she is going.

Can she fault her man, schooled
to provide – the alpha male
taking ownership/charge?

His own lack, like a child,
feeding on impulses, craving
attention, overcompensating
for fears with bravado…

cannot understand her fear
of assertiveness – alternately reads
acceptance and disapproval, frets –
gut gnawing incessantly.

They stumble over each other, seek
separation in small quarters, discuss
repairmen, schedules – nothing;

avoid deeper issues such as the fact
that they are both suffocating, near
jumping off the ledge of their high-
falutin’ existence, into the snarl
of traffic that immobilizes them,
the noise of city living negating
their ability to listen, distractions
altering identities, until the distance
between
is too far
to bridge
in a single sigh                      and she
no longer                        submissive
has joined him

and checked out.

(This is a rewrite of a poem, by the same name, written in June 2016.  Shared here for DVerse’s Open Link Night.)

Complexity of Freedom

Freedom is four hundred and fifty square feet of moveable tin, wheeling down the highway, destination unknown.  It is long walks through exotic forests, where focus lasts only as long as it takes to capture an image.  It is the privilege of sleeping and waking according to whim, routine an estranged concept.  It is the breeding ground for creativity – passion unleashed – and it is tainted by the hue of loneliness, the stark awareness that ties are strained, and those left behind feel abandoned.

Freedom’s highway calls –
hearts follow, passions flow, flee
guilt’s far-reaching pull.

(Written for DVerse’s Halibun Monday:  Complexity of Freedom prompt.)

A Child Responds

Console me
when life, upended
shuns and ridicules
let me know I’ll be alright

Step out
of picket-fence thinking,
find beauty in my uniqueness,
show me that love has no boundaries

Teach me
to treasure all that I am
even if that all is beyond
your comprehension

Grow with me
encourage exploration
demonstrate courage
in face of the unforeseeable.

(A Child Responds follows yesterday’s poem: A Mother Asks. Both poems were inspired by a post I wrote a few years back: No One Will Ever Love You)

 

A Mother Asks

How to receive a child
whose untimely arrival
serves only to punctuate
existing turmoil; whose
cries further entrap
a despondent mother…

How to love a child
who differs markedly
from gifted sons
from idyllic daughters
bears only resemblance
to the crime’s perpetrator

a child who lacks
the finesse so carefully
imbued in siblings –
fiery eyes and attitude,
preferring solitude of nature
to niceties of family life

How to guide this child,
this symbol of a past best left
behind, this burgeoning woman
defying all expectations –
this enigmatic burden?

(Follow up to this poem is:  A Child Responds)