What Moves Us

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for muse # 188

Come join us!

Sometimes, perhaps, we are allowed to get lost that we may find the right person to ask directions of. ~Robert Brault

We are always headed somewhere even in the stillness of waiting

like the beating of a heart or turning of an engine underneath the hood

some forces cannot be seen

the impact of movement stirs the leaves and mothers' skirts

it leaves father's home

and leads to our son's birth place

sometimes it amazes me how I got here

not in this seat before you

but how I got to know this beauty

I came from a broken place

where throats lost their voice

and walkways crumbled beyond repair

so I learned to run from hurt

like a dog loose off the chain

I didn't care where I landed when I jumped

cause it had to be better than where I was

sometimes our pain is fuel

but it can either move us faster forward

or cripple us where we stand

decisions become keys 

that either move the train

or stop the bus

I did not always know that

but now I do

loneliness drives us far away

but it is love that truly moves us

to where we were meant to be.

The Waves of Grief

 

  

The ocean has its ebbings — so has grief. ~Thomas Campbell

I recently asked a dear loved one who has been struggling with Covid, how they were feeling. Their reply was, “it comes in waves”.  I was relieved to hear that they were not constantly feeling awful, but as I lingered on their words, it occurred to me how grief can be like that.

When I think back on the memory of my earliest loss, it seems like ages ago.  Sitting at a hospital back in 1972 with nine-year-old legs dangling and swinging from the hard waiting room chairs. I was unaware of what words truly awaited me.  A child’s heart is a mansion of hopes, full with the unknowing of what can be lost. With all that we had gone through during the last few years with my mother suffering with mental illness and physical pain, I still was not expecting the news that would come my way.

I have written about that day and the loss of my Mom many times, but the memory of it has been relived in my heart and mind over and over again.  Like that description of illness, it ebbs and flows as waves do.  It comes to me in the face of mothers, and the cries of children in their arms. Sometimes it is in the silence of what is, and other times it is in the loud clamor of what will never be.  It can overtake me like an ocean, or merely sprinkle like a christening, but either way, it envelopes and then gradually lets go, drifting away like a ship at sea.

It has been almost 50 years since the day I lost her, and though time has a way of easing the ache, I have learned that grief is not something we ever completely lay down like paddles of a canoe.  When we lose someone, we love in this world, they still hold a special place within our heart that no one else can fill, and in our day to day life, many things can serve as a reminder of what we miss so deeply.  In those moments, I can once again be the child in a waiting room with news too hard to hold all at once.  Yes, grief comes in waves whether it is yesterday or decades ago, and like that child so many years ago, my heart has learned this lesson over and over again.

 

I dedicate this to all those mourning in this world, and to Amber Whitworth, my beautiful daughter who not only has endured great loss, but leads the grief ministry at her church.

 

Ballads Full of Whiskey & of Rain

 

Laura Nyro

Linking today with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 139

Hosted this week by the utterly amazing talent Shay!

Life is but a mingled song,
Sung in divers keys;
Sweet and tender, brave and strong,
As the heart agrees.
~S.J. Adair Fitz-Gerald (1859–1925)

 

Life is an old songstress

she sings in ballads full of whiskey and blue skies

so the moon always slow dances

with the oceans in my eyes

my heart is the drummer

that keeps me on a subtle beat

but my love gets so drunken

I always fall at life’s bare feet

so I move to the melody and I pray with the hymn

yet in the cadence of everyday

 I stumble for wild hearts and straight gin

you see life is an old songstress

she sings to me in ballads full of whiskey and of rain

and I am learning to sing her chorus and know when to refrain.

The Expansion of Grief

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 138  Come join us!

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad"  ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am not built of brick and mortar

nor were you

wide open spaces are always at risk to suffer damage in winter’s frost

so the world’s sorrows always seeped in like a flood

beyond ego’s edifice

beyond flesh and bone

tears became a lingering fog

of the words one can never forget

and your eyes spoke each one like mockingbirds

moving through every cloud

it was a place one could get lost in

so I learned to close my eyes

and I became your distant forest

for you were too high up in the clouds

to ever realize you were so lost

nor see that I was longing to be found.

The Sheltering

Magpie Tales # 29

His

eyes were

the windows

that showed us

his vision of the world

his arms were the walls that

cushioned us from the noises of life

his strength was the shelter that

protected us from the storms

we faced his soul's integrity was the

nails that held together our family

his heart was the door that helped

us get where we needed to go his

love was the foundation that made

our house a home.

Dedicated to my father.

Parkes Van Horn

My dad was more than a father he was our mother as well. His memory and example are what have formed the person that I am today.  I miss him more than any poem could ever express.

Words That Ring True...

This song by Mary Chapin Carpenter was never on the radio, but I think it is an awesome song. I love the line: of all the things that finaly desert us pride is always the last thing to go. It is so true.

"It Don't Bring You"

Well I know it ain't been roses lately, baby, it's just been thorns
And no matter what we do, nothing seems to change
Love has always been my shelter, for you it's been a storm
But for a while I thought we'd almost beat the rain

Now there's a hole here in my pocket where all my dreams have gone
Fallen out like so many nickels and dimes
And last of all you, you'd always been my good luck charm
I should've known that luck's a waste of time

'Cause it don't bring you love if you don't love
And it don't bring you time if you ain't got time
And it don't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And it don't bring you kindness if you ain't kind

Now there's a whole lot of life to be unsure of
But there's one thing I can safely say I know
That of all the things that finally desert us
Pride is always the last thing to go

But it won't bring you love if you don't love
And it won't bring you time if you ain't got time
And it won't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And it won't bring you kindness if you ain't kind

And now I wish you only roses, baby, without the thorns
And I hope your dreams are always within reach
And I wish you shelter, baby, from all your storms
They scared you, but they never seemed to teach

That I can't bring you love if you don't love
And I can't bring you time if you ain't got time
And I can't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And I can't bring you kindness if you ain't kind
And I can't bring you kindness if you ain't kind