Monthly Archives: September 2021

Opening the way

20 Monday Sep 2021

Posted by in new, poems, poetry

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Pot tipped on its side, dirt bits scattered,

monk man turned backwards, tilting away,

succulent rolled on pavement,

the one alive yet unplanted, no walls for its roots,

these greet me this windy, clear morning.

I suspect raccoon found the low bird bath

climbed on over and up

to wash–who knows what.

Funny,

since I’ve wondered about that nearly homeless plant

that keeps going

and thought I’d dig a hole for it once its neighbor

finished flowering.

Seems raccoon opened the way.

Righting things, welcoming them back, includes

reaching two fingers into less than dry soil

and joining the small green ones together.

Something new now can grow.

And that’s a promising start to a day.

Autumn

19 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by in change, community, poems, poetry, water

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Today thanks also falls to the light;

Autumn light may be my favorite food.

Rain keeps trying to come. We’ve been without

the rains for far too long.

I can feel rain in the clouds, smell it,

though a little sideways.

The trees’ roots are hungry for it to fall.

They are far from alone.

The equinox approaches but, here,

Autumn stretches her paws in August. My heart feels

more full then, my bones begin to rest.

Maybe the big rabbit with wild eyes will come through

the fence again soon.

My bet is a different visitor will usher in

the first official days of the season.

Towards him

19 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by in death, Hope, pain, poems, poetry, thanks

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Once there was a man

who stood tall at the head of the room

teaching numbers; he greeted us at the door

as we entered each day

and he called me Hope. But

it was longer and flowing and in

another language more musical.

He’d switched an a to an e in there,

making it a song closer to my birth name, somehow.

No one had ever called me Hope, only him. And,

truth be, it wasn’t exactly hope, but a name somewhere between

mine and more.

Between what is and what becomes, approaching without end.

Something between.

The man who taught numbers, years after I knew him,

he killed himself. The exact place where always now

enfolds him.

The man who called out Hope,

his pain outlived him.

My tears and thanks fall towards him today.

No one ever said

09 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in Loss, poems, poetry

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No one ever said,

Loss will remake you.

Again and again.

Loss will nearly kill you. More than once.

Ground down, burned to ash, you will have to sift through

the grit

for your own bones.

How are we to know?

The drumbeat death cry of what you hold to most dearly,

will resound out of your heart, out from your thrown open jaw,

that great river mouth of grief,

echo against lines of sinew, ripple not your blood only

but others’: Plants may bow,

may sneeze an offering of recognition and understanding.

Owl and Hawk will fight over the same food.

Your movement will tighten and slow to drink that in.

A shudder will go through the house,

making sleep a jumbled memory.

Hundreds of crows will shake the air with their passing.

No one ever said.

How are we to know?

Loss will remake you.

Thank God.