Posts for June 8, 2021 (page 9)

this is the other shoe dropping   

the sound of loss
before you have seen it  
just traces of its scent
lingering just out of reach
so you know
it’s been almost close enough
to touch  

this is the taste of food
making you sick  

this is toilet bowls
of vomit and blood  

clumps of uterine lining
and fetal tissue  

marbles of pain
rolling along your hips
and spine  

this is the last time your mother told you she loved you it felt out of obligation  

this is they let your calls
go to voicemails
they don’t listen to  

this is the timeline for your grief should have ended by now  

this is all the tiny clothes
you bought
closed up in boxes
shut into the guestroom closet  

this is a car seat
pressed into the corner of the garage
a flag draped over it  

a crib
sleeping against a wall
disassembled

I.  Revelation

I think that’s the same Franciscan Friar that keeps scolding me for my unleashed dog.

II.  Confession

I am going straight to hell.

III.  Incognito

Maybe I should learn to disguise myself. Or my dog.

IV.  Cleansed

Today I am wearing a hat. And glasses.

Buses bump, Conestogas
crossing an asphalt prairie
carrying masked and drooping
adolescents to summer
school. Did they pass any class?
Do they care? This year a bare
trail through pandemic-scarred time.

           A Courtroom Lesson

Johnny, dark, quiet, tough as a pine knot
Ran with Jimmy, fair of face, full of grins.
You never saw just one,  a pair almost twins.

Ran the hills, rills, fleet as a mountain stream,
Built a cabin, even felled the trees in deep woods.
Sturdy both the boys and their lean-to shelter.

Learned to start a fire with flint and spark,
Trapped a squirrel once, let it go, ate instead
Cornbread, hard tack, and slept in woodsy dark.

Good kids, blood from men gnarled as trunk and bark.
Gave no quarter, asked no favor, strong as boulders.
Kids a recent version copying Boone,Crockett, elders.

Why do they this day stand side by side in the docket,
Pale, tense, wishing to run, shamed by their gun?
Eyes cast down, shoulders drooped, hands in pocket.
BB’s a heavy sting to shoot a rabbit, but a dog yelped.

Judge, father to the towhead, hauled them in, lesson
Taught, summer spent at chores for the aggrieved.
Two months of labor before they were apprieved.

In three years Pine Knot shipped to fight overseas.
Lost him behind enemy lines running secrets back,
Got caught too, story looked to have a deadly end,
He slipped away, slick as a snake’s under belly, men
Didn’t reckon on a mountain kid brave as hard tack.

Got a medal, never spoke of it, now he’s safe and back
He often wished for days to run, cabins to build but not
Dogs to shoot..Learned his lesson long ago, Jimmy too,
Now men who grew up one day with the stern command

Order in the court.

Notes like stars
Prefer their own tone
Even as they seek
Harmony with
The light of others

Over the New River Gorge, a bridge
kisses neighboring ridges
with both its steel mouths, hollering into the valley.

Its like the distance
between us,
and I know we both feel the gap
like I know how, over ages, a river ran
roughshod over the hard Nuttal sandstone–
98% quartz, a stone that represents healing,
a fact which has always been ironic to me.

Embrace lovers of love
walk the walk of wisdom
keep your spirit dancing
plunge into passion like lightning
wallow in the magic of daring dreams
reimagine wonder
soak in the magic of fun
celebrate every butterfly race.

Be the healing glue of peace.
Open the windows into your soul.

-Sue Neufarth Howard

I shut the door
against the night.
It’s dark enough
within.

In my Heaven,
the angels are all dogs.

It’s not a very mature
reading of the Bible,
but I have believed
so many wrong things already –
this one is harmless.