Lost in the Moment

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #169.

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“How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you — you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences — little rags and shreds of your very life.” ~Katherine Mansfield

 

You were always an adventure

An open road I longed to take

You held freedom like a flag

One that flew higher than any uncaged bird

Your arms always opened wide

Wider than the windows of your Chevy Corvette

With dreams flying even faster

Every time you let me drive

You embraced life like a mother holding her child after a scare

Strong yet gentle as a kiss should be

Lost in the moment was the place we lingered

Somewhere between not a care in the world and the deepest of longings

It is a magic that life cannot always provide

That pool can only be dipped for a time

But it dries up in the midst of learning to live

Sooner or later bills have to be paid

Agendas and responsibilities have to be met

There are dentist appointments and grocery store runs

And you find yourself lost in a different way

Buried in the business of staying afloat

One day at a stop light on my way to work

I saw a loose canary flying nearby

It landed on a branch and just looked about

I was not sure if he was lost or just relieved to be free

Yet, in my heart, I knew the answer.

Proof of Our Travels

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 156 hosted this week by the incredible talent Shay!

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“It is not down in any map; true places never are.”  ~ Herman Melville

I am the daughters and the sons

the inheritance you did not expect

and the one your eyes will never see

I am the hole in the knee of your favorite jeans

flowers blooming that killed your back to plant in the spring

I am the late-night poems

the ones you did not know you could write

the true love you never spoke of

I am the callus hands of regret

the scars from splintered decks and wayward falls

the weight of cares that you have gotten good at holding

and then even better at trying to hide

I am the lines around the mouth and eyes

going different directions like roads on a map

the perilous journey of a westward expanse

the kind that leaves it’s mark on every pioneer

lines of a poem upon your face

I speak truth through silence

the kind that even a blind man could truly see.

 

 

 

 

When Truth is Caged

 

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, — you can never have both. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

There is a freedom in the naked truth

when all that is and can truly be

 is laid before the world

it gives a lightness of being

that secrets can never provide

my heart knows this truth

like a mother knows her child

my soul has carried it

like a homeless man

with a duffle bag full of all he owns

it is a weary journey

one that leaves no strength

and steals peace

bit by bit

like a pilfer and an unguarded house

I left that place years ago

and laid my burdens down

in the middle of a crowded street

lifting prayers higher than a bar-headed goose

the day I chose to speak the truth.

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 153

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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.

 

Leaves Upon an Oak

Linking with the Flash 55 at Verse Escape hosted by the amazing and beautiful talent Joy!

 "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."  ~ Mother Teresa

I see my sons in the growth of wheat fields and old men upon the streets

in the beauty of reaching out to give I see the granddaughters I will someday meet

for we are all connected like roots and leaves upon an oak

learning to hold on together

and then learning to let go.

Thank you Joy for a wonderful prompt that you provide every month!  Wishing you and everyone on blogger a beautiful Holiday season, staying safe and keep writing!!

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 Sucker Punch of Summer

"Day Dream"  Photography of Thomas Dodd

Linking with Toni's wonderful Wed Muse ~Cicadas  

She also gave the choice of writing about the end of summer, or rebirth.  

Come join us!

The sun tires of summer and sighs itself into autumn. ~Terri Guillemets

It almost feels like being strangled

When the Texas summer heat takes hold

It hits you like a drunken sailor

One gut punch after another

All you can do is lay down

And try to recover

Soon it will leave

Slower than it barged in

But then we can breathe a sigh of relief

And pull out our sweaters

And write outdoors in comfort.

Friends, Sisters, Mothers

Linda and me Christmas 2017

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~Jane Howard

When I first met my first husband’s ex-wife, Linda Keen Thackeray, one could say the whole situation was quite complicated.  These kinds of meetings are always awkward, filled with preconceived ideas, and hard feelings.  No one is enthused to meet their ex’s new love interest.  It was awkward, and it did not get off to a perfect start, but in essence it was not all that complicated, in fact it was quite simple.  It was the beginning of one of the most important relationships of my life. 

Once we got past the initial first couple of meetings, we gradually developed a friendship.  When she would bring the kids for the weekend, since we did not have a car at the time, she would take me to the store, and we would discuss our mutual friend; her ex, my boyfriend.  It always led to some laughter, and quite a few “Oh yes, I know exactly what you mean” comments.  I am certain that he was not always over joyed over us spending time together, at least in the beginning.   He knew it meant he was the subject, and that could probably be a bad thing for him. 

As years passed, our relationship grew.  We were not just simple friends, we were family.  We had 3 children that looked to us as parents.  Of course, she was Mom number 1, and the love of their lives, and I understand that.  Being a very insecure person, it was not always an easy fact for me to acknowledge, but through the years, I have learned to embrace it.  No one can ever replace a true mom, and she has always been a wonderful one. 

It has been 36 years since those first few meetings back in 1982.  We have been through some wonderful times and some very devastating losses.  She has been a true friend, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear and the true essence of what family truly is.  We have truly defied the odds of what family means and what can truly be successful.  When you have two people that are kind and caring then anything is possible.  We have been blessed to see that first hand, and it is a true gift that has passed from one generation to another.

I love you Linda Keen!  Thank you for being a true friend, sister and the best co-mother ever!

Rocken' It

Linking with Wed Muse # 4 for Toni's prompt ~Busy Body

Today Toni is talking about being busy and asking us, what do we do to rest?

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“SOMETIMES, I GUESS THERE JUST AREN’T ENOUGH ROCKS.”  ~ Forrest Gump

Prologue

I have the good fortune to work at a library, but it is not any ordinary library, it resides inside a beautiful botanical garden.  We provide different programs to the public for all ages, and many of these are crafty fun projects that have to do with nature.  Recently we had a rock painting craft.   All my co-workers and I have taken such a liking to it, most of us do it in our spare time.  I have found it to be quite relaxing!  Therefore, when I am home and in my comfy PJs cause that is the only way I roll; comfortable, I sit at my second desk, a card table in my writing/ art room, and paint rocks.  I am not very good at it, but it does not seem to stop me.  I love doing it anyway!

Naked with the beauty God gave you

You lay before me

Resting under my awkward grace

My brush strokes you blue

Until you are a true star

You wink and give a kiss with rouge lips

 and my brush rests in its dixie cup pool

now you dance upon eyes

cause you are ready to rock!