Category Archives: Loss

Along the long road

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in aging, becoming, change, community, death, home, learning, Loss, poems, poetry, release, the road, work

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Without a story to tell

who are we but people who have not lived.

Watching children play,

approaching hand in parent’s hand

to a park that is my front yard,

Spirit

is restored.

Sliver by sliver

and dose by dose.

While now there are trees that whisper and swish

in every kind of wind

instead of uninterrupted concrete and destructive voices,

I have the long view

knowing what it is to live between rage and despair.

And I don’t like who it made me.

Sometimes I realize,

when before I could not,

we may become who we do not want to be

simply to return, along the long road,

to who we are.

This day

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in aging, becoming, Body, community, fear, honoring, learning, Loss, nature, pain, poems, poetry, transition, work

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This day he walks slowly,

approaching in nearly a shuffle.

Handing me a candy- the kind once known as penny-

saying, this aging stuff, not so easy.

I used to think, he shares with a soft shake of his head,

I could stay a perpetual teenager. But not so.

His health, not good,

the poetry, music and culture

having always fed him

no longer enough.

Or so it seems to him, on this day.

Clutching a small handled paper bag, one somehow

always carried,

he steps away, looking emptily into distance

not physically there,

leaving me with a golden,

foil covered chocolate coin never to be eaten

and an appreciation for his difficult facing

of what he long imagined

could be outrun.

A fence-crashing

27 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in abundance, aging, becoming, break out, change, learning, Loss, movement, poems, poetry, transition

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Having never felt this old,

nor so young and inept

– and simultaneously –

well, 

there’s a fence-crashing, a home-burning, 

a finding-one’s-own-nose-on-someone-else kind of mess.

What is to be done with a tension like that?

Bear it.

Stretch with it.

Let be torn loose the decayed, the ineffectual, 

follow the twisting into the twist,

watch new movements be born.

I guess.

Still, if I’m a living version of a mr. potato head,

could I waddle in those shoes a ways?

It might do me some good.

Not exactly

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, change, Deliverance, discomfort, freedom, gratitude, honoring, joy, learning, listen, Loss, mystery, pain, poems, poetry, receiving, release, wonder, work

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It wasn’t through torn paper

blackened shoelace

or scuffed wall 

that I found You.

It wasn’t the constant push

circulating fear

or I-must-do-betters..

not even the inch between 

the sidewalk and me

plus a bruised knee.

Not exactly.

Add the non-starts,

regimented dreams,

what’s-wrong-with-me’s,

attempts to fit when fitting fed starvation,

and the broken heart- birthday after birthday-

with one shattering

nearly beyond recovery

that, finally,

I found You.

The joke being

that I’ve carried You in me

since before the first sunrise.

Except now,

when I say hello

I can hear You answer.

New growth

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in becoming, break out, change, dark, Deliverance, devotion, Loss, nature, pain, poems, poetry, receiving, release, strength, wonder

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After wildfire,
in the enclosing wood
where bend of bough, like tuck of wound, 
cradles loss in darkness- 
please, 
time.
Time to pause, to sense,
for paws and scents to know
of safety’s approach.
For repair,
beneath dust-breath layer after dust-breath layer 
of grey white ash, does come:
New growth.
Pain, when given its due,
becomes not enemy
but ally and
its own necessary offering. 

 

Don’t hold on

28 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, change, crafting, devotion, discomfort, Fire, freedom, Loss, Love, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, receiving, release, strength

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Being sculpted

means

being thrown,

as clay,

first kneaded- no bubbles – then

spun

well beyond dizzy,

cut,

and fired to degrees

scorching

even by shuddering imagination

if 

your aim is to be a

cup,

vase,

bowl,

holy space ripe

for filling, 

able to offer solace, pleasure,

delight,

beauty, compassion,

ease,

and round reflections of sky.

Don’t hold on.

Be here.

Ashes fall

29 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in change, Fire, Loss, nature, poems, poetry

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Not leaves

but ashes

fall.

What bits land,

finding their way through closed windows,

into lungs,

are the remains

of your house,

your physical memories blazed.

I hesitate to breathe,

resisting

what is true.

With each opening of the door,

grief swirls,

covers the floor,

in grey, white, black.

It, too, will one day join this soil,

grow new forest,

stronger community.

But now,

staying inside,

I watch what has replaced rain.