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)

 

Recycling

The first comes before dusk
as children settle in for sleep
and dishwashers cycles engage

Clink, clink, clink –
bottles rattling –
it’s garbage night.

Black bandana covering hair,
he sports a neatly trimmed beard
and red fleece jacket – appearance

not out-of-place in the upscale
neighbourhood, only his wheels –
blue cart, brimming with bags

one dog perched on the basket,
another settled below – he collects
returnables from blue bins – recycling.

Chatters as he goes, offers a “do you mind?”
to homeowners puttering on front lawns,
nods to passersby, dogs silently watching.

Then later, as windows darken behind
drawn curtains, and the noise of traffic
fades to a minimum, comes another

Clink, clink, clink –
bottle rattling –
it’s garbage night.

Hopeful

 

Curious by nature,
and drawn by hope
we push forward

spring ourselves
from the mud-mired
traps of psychological
undoings

focus on a horizon
where sunrises
and sunsets
offer glimpses of glory

optimist and pessimist
alike, daring to believe
that the beckoning future
bears equal promise.

(This poem started with a few lines scribbled in the middle of the night.  To see the writing process, visit me at One Woman’s Quest II.)

Appetite

The initial spoonful –
salted caramel cool –
consoles bitten tongue,
slides down burning throat:
appeasement for churning gut.

Each spoonful savoured
sweetness countering bile,
dark chocolate shavings
as bittersweet as the emotion
being pushed down, buried

Bruised by conflict,
words ineffectual,
ice cream an unworthy
compensation, cravings
turn to salty reprieve.

Paper Pushing

I am contributing!

Are these lessons not
abundance – success?

Authorities are dissatisfied;
want me back in the game,
insist disability has an end –
analyze me to depletion
their plans shutting me down,
unforgiving –

Encouragement is called for,
and hopeful help,
something to prod progress

This bureaucratic tapping
turns on me,
creativity breaks down.

 

Cryptic

Is the writing on the wall so cryptic –
graphic images depicting rage,
flames of dissonance,
young men bleeding at their own hands
compassion incapacitated.

A sad awakening for a society fixated
on rights and privileges, dominating
culture to the exclusion of nurturing
humanity, preserving lives.

How can we continue to closet
our children’s pain – their vitality
oozing – hopelessly abandoned
by morality’s shelter?

It is the wall, not the spatters
of blood upon it,
which needs amending –
adolescent minds too tender
to wade through the cryptic messages
of priorities so divided.