Posts for June 1, 2024 (page 5)

i wish it didn’t hurt as much i wish i could 

dreams wrapped in soft waves
endless until caught by nets
raise me for the day

The silence was deafening
The first time I drove home from work
And your voice wasn’t playing through my speakers
I spent the next commutes
Alone with my own racing thoughts
Filling the chasm left behind with the songs we used to sing together
So at least I had a little bit of you when the rest of you was gone
But even the loudest music was drowned out by overwhelming grief
The wailing cry of reality
The banshee of my new world sorrowfully shrieking
The silence was deafening
The first time I drove home from work
And couldn’t tell you about my day

Fern shadows play over
our feet as we move along the trail.

My son pauses to raise his binoculars
every few feet calling out names of birds,

chattering excitedly about their actions.
I follow him listening, soaking in

our whispered peace, slow pace,
and pops of dappled light.

Thirteen years I’ve been his mother.
Thirteen years I’ve learned and relearned

what that means.
Just as we turn to head uphill,

wind and feathers brush my arm,
high-pitched trills surround us, and

I turn to see amazement in his eyes as
he motions me to remain silent, but

keep walking and we approach the bushes
where a handful of Kentucky Warblers

engage in an ongoing disagreement.
Bryum whispers, “They must be fighting

over a female,” as we stand on the hillside
amid darting yellow feathers

trying to follow their movements
back and forth, jostling limbs and shaking leaves.

Then, at once, they are gone.

Time is growing shorter,
or so it seems.
Every day I see someone more and more foreign
staring back at me.
My sisters are changing,
and my friends.
Our hands are roughening from our labors
and our bodies are making room
for children
and our hearts are breaking
and scabbing over until
scars and callouses
make us tougher
inside
and out.
Sometimes I want to scream and cry at
the stranger in the mirror,
or to God,
or to time itself:
“Please slow down, please stop, if only for a moment, I need more time I need more time I need more time.”
But then,
I realize in moments of clarity,
how privileged I am
to watch myself
and my sisters
and my friends
wither and age.
How lucky we are, to know we always walk with
one hand holding Death’s and yet we smile
and sing
and dance
and wither
and age.

Oh, good lord,

Cradle of sun

rocks you to bed

of memories,

with fought for worries,

fields of weeds and daffodils

laugh in the face of

tumbling children

and sighthounds

chasing after mindful prey.

Basking towards a breeze  

or haze of sniffling in meadows,

acting as catalyst to every walk

molded and kept together 

by sweaty palms.

the body relaxes
the mind opens
a pressure cooker
a giant black kettle of sky
releases a million brilliant stars 
a fervid brew of seeds awhirl in wind
current that curls your hair
shocks it on end
a wild stallion galloping
deep thunder you hear
feel in your chest
a wave—the ectasy
of want & wonder      

~ Inspired by Sylvia van Nooten’s art Star Poem & Kirsten Harris’ art Wild Spirits

you will never stop searching

even when they tell you it is a lost cause

even when they say they are so sorry
budget cuts
there just isn’t the money
the public buy in

even when all the lights have been
shut off and the the computers repoed
and the coffee grounds sit molding
in their filters
forgotten

you will continue your work

you will enter data
and research probabilities

you will lift up every rug
and every floorboard of space

they say
he is in his own little world

an alien
of some driftwood planet

they beg you to understand

there are so many galaxies

you are just one person
you cannot possibly expect
to reach him

but

you will walk as many moons as it takes

you will spin along the rings of every
red and cold planet

you will spend infinity among the stars
breaking down molecule by molecule
until you are only dust
and particles

if that’s what god asks of you

but you will find him

and you will bring him home