Winter breath catches
shine a light to guide me home –
darkness unsettles.
(For RonovanWrites Weekly Haiku Challenge: air/ lantern. Image from personal collection)
Tag: poem
Once a Mermaid
Impulse once drove my plunges –
glorious confidence propelling
fortuitous dives – unknown waters
an adventure to be conquered.
Even with onset of anxiety
I’d stalk shorelines, ignore
whispering of catastrophe,
hold my breath and submerge.
Doubt would follow determination,
but buoyed by adversity, I’d swim,
force commanding adaptation –
I’d find my mermaid’s breath.
Motherhood introduced constraint
called forth sensibility and caution –
whimsy replacing practicality,
a shedding of iridescent tail.
I only dig in dirt now –
ground my offspring to earthly
forays, forbid capriciousness,
convince myself I’m solid.
Absentminded burrowing –
(corners of compulsion)
reveal abandoned passages –
old waterways exhumed.
Proclaimed pragmatism falters,
spontaneity takes hold, transforms
I am nymph again – free floating
Neptune’s daughter resuscitated.
(This poem, originally entitled Chasing Mermaids, first appeared in September, 2015. It has been edited. Image is my own.)
Life Altered
Morning light but a trickle
mind switches into gear,
body resisting response,
ambition thwarted by illness,
the usual game – pray this day
will embrace gently, and
bring a gift of healing.
(Image from personal collection.)
Surprise Visit
The river holds so many surprises
least of which is the sudden appearance
at water’s edge of a tall white egret –
a countenance I acquaint with Texas
and warmer climes – what wonder
to find this greatness at my backdoor.
(The Great Egret is common in coastal areas, but not a bird I have encountered in Ontario, until now. Linking up with Granny Shot It’s Bird of the Day.)
Do Explore!
Through thickening brush
light whispers, beckons – forest
ripe with mystery.
(For RonovanWrites Weekly Haiku Challenge: forest /whisper. Image from personal collection.)
Loss and Light
Absence fills the silence
with shadowy wings
becomes a raven
sharp-taloned,
razor-beaked
I cower
loss too
immense
for comprehension
would lay my body down
be consumed, but for
the children’e eyes pinning me
their woeful gazes,
begging to be uplifted
I am abandoned
and not
a flicker
called to be
beacon.
(Art from personal collection)
Integrity Untouched
Clawed my way out of deep
and devastating holes,
been disembowelled
by diabolical acts,
choked on craven impulses,
blinded by revenge, but
character overrides spite,
grateful integrity intact.
(Image from personal collection)
Grandma To The Rescue
September is
chilly mornings
and classroom routines,
cardigans dragged home,
and the onset of colds.
Grandma packs her bag
with activities to distract,
a soup to boost bodies
and an apple crisp
fresh from the oven.
Some days
the best education
comes snuggled under
warm blankets with
inter-generational love.
(For Ragtag Communty’s daily prompt: crisp. Grandma duty calls, be back later!)
Spiritually Inept
Aspire to transcend,
reach higher consciousness,
like a lotus rising out of muck –
but grace and virtue elude me,
more mud hen than delicate flower,
lack the subtleties of enlightenment –
spiritually inept.
(Image from personal collection.)
Archeology
Evolution,
not devolution,
will bring salvation.
Archeology –
the willingness
to forage
in the desert:
multi-layers
of fallout,
aftermaths,
abandonments –
unearthing
fragments,
reconstructing –
meaning,
history,
value –
brings redemption.
(This is a rewrite of a previously published work. Image from personal collection.)
One Woman's Quest 