scrolling through poems 
and unfinished stories 
a picaresque journey 

through my brain 
overwhelmed by whimsical 
words written

in black crow ink
painting scars across the 
moon’s wrinkled face

and Oberon eyes

I hate to admit it: how I hate
and love each prehistoric and alien bug
who screams and screams into the sun
boldly–their dumb and confident thwacks
against my windows, the sides of cars
sitting in the lot in their frenzy. 

I want to hold them in my hand now,
not run from them like the last time
or the time before that. I was just a kid
then. Let them cover my body
like a fevered blanket, writhing thing:
tied together by the oak tree and urge
to burrow and all else
that makes us kin. 

I couldn’t sleep, so I got out of bed
about 4 o’clock one morning.
Thinking to snack and then to write,
I turned on an overhead light.
Outside, my rooster saw the brightness
shining through the chicken house windows and
tried to awaken all the sleepyheads around him.

He called long farewells into the black of night
and crowed his welcome to an absentee sun.
The calling seemed to be on autopilot,
with each offering connected to the last one
for the rest of the wearisome night,
even after I went back to bed
and quietly turned off every light.  

Note to self:
Put room-darkening shades in the chicken house
for the sake of my ten hens and me.

silly girl

you should know by now that where you see smoke theres fire to follow

who are you to think you won’t get burned

The moment that I awaken is the hardest moment of the day
when, my mind starts to come alive with the promise of a new day
then, ………I remember and the pain of the last two weeks crashes in
and the reality of my grief is renewed

My son is absent from this earth and I have to figure out how to live
my life without the presence of my beautiful young man
I grieve for the world, because he was a special person
I grieve for my family, because he was an integral part
and I grieve for my myself because he was my son and there
really are no words to describe the gaping hole in my heart and life

How does one move forward when life explodes and takes someone 
that is so very important?

There is no easy answer to that and I am still trying to figure out
how TO LIVE.  For the moment, I am resting in the arms of those
that reach out to help and support me in ways I am not yet able 
dinner and a hug came on a very hard day last week.  Comfort.  Love.

Putting one foot in front of the other.  Re-learning how to regulate 
emotions that can take control and overwhelm me at any moment
letting my mind try to find the words to describe this catastrophic loss
resting in the arms of God where I can find hope I am not yet ready to embrace

I will find a way to move on, but I won’t figure that out alone.  My tribe has
closed the ranks and are protecting me, feeding me, checking in on me,
and literally holding me through the storm that begins each day 
in the morning as I remember that there is a gaping hole in my life

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted…”
                                     -Emily Dickinson

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you.
a single melody pours from the car’s crackling speaker
and you linger longer at a red light
with windows down to help harmony free-float;
it pushes your pulse

(pacing, racing)

you cannot escape the empty essence in the passenger’s seat,
until a barrage of blaring horns remind you that
ethereal presence isn’t ubiquitous  
   

you ease off the break,

                                                                                roll…
                                                                                                                  forward.          

sometimes the spirit is a memory’s shadow
stitched to your soul, it never comes undone–
no matter how many times you pull at the last thread

                                                                           unraveling doesn’t suit you.      

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you.
supposed supernatural signals camouflage themselves in a firefly’s flash
tucked between two trees, draped in the edges of sunset’s silk shadow–    

you will be deceived   
                   
                 
                               once…

                                                        (maybe) twice…    

but never three times

                                                                            because

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you:

when it hurts.
when it doesn’t.
when you attempt to reassure yourself:                                                               

                                                               
                                                                  “...people can’t haunt you…”        

until they do.

Today was the first time.
It’s splendor damaged
by strong wind and rain,
the old sugar maple’s
upper branches bent and then

broke and fell into the lower.
A tangled cluster of jenga
limbs and leaves.
Today was the first time

of the year to ascend
another living thing.
There is always a first
time, the tree looks much
lighter now, and breezy

from my feet-on-ground
vantage, viewpoint in the yard.
Tomorrow will be the first time
this year that I sharpen the saw.

A plate overturned on the floor next to a spilled pepper grinder.
Orange juice across the table top
Soaked into yesterday’s junk mail.
The chair is off kilter from the table.
What is left of breakfast
In greasy crumbs scattered underneath the table and chair.
Cold scrambled eggs.
Soggy limp toast.
A knife encased in a bed of grape jelly and butter
Squelches underfoot.
Sadie wags her tail meekly and lowers her head in a show of submission.
I scratch behind her ears.
At least someone liked the eggs.