Into The Unknown
Too much to do
Never enough time
Lists get longer
Days get shorter
Long sleepless nights
Blood, sweat, tears
Fear, pain, anxiety
Not sure when it ends
No sight where it starts
But I know we’ll get there
Too much to do
Never enough time
Lists get longer
Days get shorter
Long sleepless nights
Blood, sweat, tears
Fear, pain, anxiety
Not sure when it ends
No sight where it starts
But I know we’ll get there
The path ahead is rocky,
and my calluses are not yet deep.
To take a step
is to bleed,
to stain the stones with a marker–
something all my own to say
“Look at where I’ve come from.”
Two roads diverge,
but everyone knows that
there’s only ever one path
forward.
I thought for minute
that all the deer have gone,
that the sacred herd
had taken up their carpet bags
and caught the last train home
somewhere away from
the sprawl industrial parks
And highways lined with cement walls
stacked two stories tall,
and garage doors that open and close
with the click of a button.
My garden still has two toed tracks
and piles of little round droppings
that melt on the rain.
There are nibbles of parsley left
but no one bothers the oregano.
It hasn’t rained for a week
and the deer trail is dry and empty.
The family of 5 that tromps
through the yard is absent.
Perhaps they told the doctor
how depressed they were
before making a meal
of uninsulated power
lines laid out in plats
by the surveyors and workmen
as they dug our new foundation.
It is her birthday today,
the white haired blue eyed
baby, who I carried in a
Snuggli to keep up with her
22 months older sister at our
farmhouse in Washington Co.
All that summer, I got to be home
with these two busy, hungry
sweet and cuddly cherubs,
hiking in the woods with one
on the front and one on the
back. I was stronger than I knew.
We fed the chickens and the
goats, picked blackberries in
the brambles behind the shed
and went to playgroups together.
All the dappled sunny days
and then I had to go back to work.
My heart and my breasts couldn’t
wait to get home, to nurse this hungry
baby whose face was splotchy pink
from crying. The three of us, would
fall asleep, tangled together, a tired
mommy and two little girls.
6/10/25
no one can tell me
that I didn’t lose something
when I lost those voices
scattered across the world
spending hours, weeks, and years
focus on common goals
crunching numbers and statistics
believing in our low percentage chances learned
we learned enough
about one another
enough
to say I knew them
and they knew me
then one day we stopped
one by one
I wonder if they ever think
about me
as much as I think about them
I wish I could log on
one more time
finish a raid
feeling that pixel induced rush
and tell them I love them
there just names on a list
that never glow
suspended
on hold
caught in a kind of jello
in a place I truly want to be
near Chimney Rock with the old crew,
it’s not the place from which I’m banned
but the time I have here
a mere fortnight
to roam the paths of my old haunt
though my eyes are going
i see easily through the ruse,
its ok
Penelope will be here this weekend
carrying her basket
of endless surprises
wanting to tell everything
but not speaking
wanting to hear everything
but not listening
through a gap in the trees
the night lights of a houseboat
appear to ease off
passing from the past
into the future
i held her tiny face in the palm of my hands. i searched her eyes for permission to call
the whole thing off. i wondered for a moment if we should wait just one more day.
but she laid there calmly. bravely. tired.
we were told it could take up to 30 seconds or it could be 3 to 5 minutes. i panicked.
i feared it would be too quick and then worried it could take too long. Fifteen years
was but a drop in the bucket and yet one more minute seemed a distance too far.
i kissed her on her forehead. she held me with gentle breezes of her final breaths.
i told her she was a very good girl. i yelled out her name. i heard the sound of death
rush a final wave through the port. Before I could offer one more goodbye-
our old gal Mojo, simply burst away.
How I feel like it’s 100 degrees
The bright red difference of the top of my arm
And the bottom
They way everyone says “you got some sun”
Like I didn’t already know
The reminder it gives of the fun day I had
Eating watermelon, reading
And floating down the lazy river
Knowing I should apply more than I do
Then there’s the stage of worrying about the wrinkles I’ll have
I spend about an hour on that
The sweet reminder that it won’t matter when I grow old,
And anyways,
We’ll all make our way to the sun eventually
