Resist
Bone chilled cold
feeling the force of the day mid winter
I apologize to those tall and green
standing alone with promises of spring
I don’t know their grain within
holding promises that warm
resisting the frozen cover of ice and snow.
Lock the door on your way out….
I always remember my dreams. They reset and reframe the truth lying just underneath my daily life and struggles.
In anticipation of 2017, my sleep brought the terror of a whirlwind. Being swept away by the forces of nature, I woke distressed to say the least. This unsettled mood lasted through the last day of 2016.
I woke this am, however, on a journey abroad in the company of family and strangers . I was advising others on how to pack but also reorganizing my own bag.
Perhaps I am ready to move on.
Lock the door on your way out.
On a limb
I really depend on problems. They engage my intellect. Energy flows best in me while in the “problem solving” mode.
But it’s killing me.
I spend hours intellectually solving the emotional crisis created in make-believe power struggles to right a wrong. I tune in preferentially to the oppression of wrong thinking, ready to push back. My eyes notice first the thing “wrong” with the picture.
I was educated to do this. My skills honed to fix the broken.
I have the mind of science, dissection as discovery.
Did I mention it’s killing me?
I use the quest for perfection as motivation to create. I think and talk and type until my voice is heard.
I yell louder – and over power.
I think deeper – and over intellectualize.
I focus harder- and over work.
It is killing me.
Can I just hang there? Can I hold a view on the edge that accepts the death of needing to solve the moment? Can I then live within the fall of mind to heart?
Can I live in the pain of brokenness, of autumn’s peace and beauty and know season’s change is not my call to arms?
Can I just die a bit in the strain of change without the torture of failure?
Image courtesy of Brenda-meditative journey with saldage.
Daughters Sad Goodbye
His poverty of love betrayed every effort
and he settled for survival-
afraid even of comfort
a man alone in a mind framed by fear.
His death came as could be expected-
outside, nature fallen.
Along his years-
he was loved without knowing how to love,
embraced not knowing how to hold,
home not knowing how to father.
Yet in this moment, in this breath
he is today beloved.
photography courtesy of Sarah Vaughn
Reconciliation
The story deep in the marrow of my life betrays the simple touch of air to skin. Blood-spilt memories lay unheard, unknown but pulse with my breath and soul.
The stains of love and hate look the same in me and equally reflect the tragedy of my fears-
and I pray for reconciliation.
Photography courtesy of Ginny Hunt
1st position
with a call and response litany among the usual flight of birds
except geese in formation against the wind directly pointed
while the Lutheran’s sanctioned bell begs their ordered migration.
Is is Sunday.
It is the day the trees dance in 1st position to know the Sabbath’s touch
Eternal Life
Maybe it’s just restlessness
in the perpetual grind of a broken spirit.
Maybe it’s fearfulness
in the gasp of life without meaning.
Maybe it’s loneliness
in want of being home where I can be we.
It’s definitely unstable
with steps not leading to a lone path.
It’s definitely noisy
with doubts out-crying a rhythm in dissonant tunes.
It’s definitely me
in a space holding it all
in a matrix of twisted becoming
in quest for a soul – everliving.
photography courtesy of Pat Cegan
Captured
I am so captured in telling of tales, foreign reflections reframing reveal
fears clouding my sun blocking my view
mind wondering, narrating a hurt or failed feud.
The sound of my steps meter the beat, linked to the pace of breath and repeat
Then fear unto death strikes from the south
eyes widened with terror, scales fallen off.
Captured no more, my heart in a beat
gasps with a cry and swallows a scream
free to regret, confess and relive
knowing the now was
lost once again.
Photography courtesy of Peter Corr
Sick unto death
It’s a damning process storing every thought , worry
tucked unfolded mostly
so the space feels empty, sterile to the curious.
No presence or joy
broken soul alone
though an open door of life nurtured love.
No space for love or hate-tucked unfolded mostly,
muted and muffled by an unnatural shhhh…
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