The Poetry Marathon

Air mail

You will write me no letters.

There will be no ghostly conversations from beyond

pale or not. It’s been weeks now, and still

you are still, my love. Silent. Quiet. Still.

No movement in the darkness

other than simple night terrors

loneliness and empty rooms and quiet.

It is so very quiet.

No generators. No laboured breathing.

No white noise of necessary ~

the machineries of life as we the aging

know it. None of what was then.

This is now.

And if you wrote me a letter

I know what you would say:

Get on with it. Move forward.

There is never enough time, love.

And I agree.

There was never enough time.

the sunflowers are struggling

I forgot them

left them to the summer solstice

dirt as hard & dry as hot pavement

now they drink greedily

water I should have poured

days ago sluices over roots

they soak it up

tall aging ladies

guzzling bubbly from pink wineglasses

picking over cheese & crackers

talking of oak and tannin

the sunflowers are silent

their wilted leaves hang

the spaces between leaf and stem

empty

thirsty

waiting

how the mirror becomes a window

a door into the sky     wings unnecessary

the way I dreamed of flying

soaring miles above the earth below

somewhere that felt like home

a place I never knew until too late

until I held moving boxes

and my hands knew

that this place I had rejected

was bone marrow

was memory

the way you still walk these rooms

how I listen for your breathing

reach for you beside me

and the mirror never shows your face

or mine

only the empty sky

play me a tune, mr piano man ~

         with apologies to billy joel

this is the music I hear at 3 a.m.

leafy          sticks and twigs

the piano a ruined instrument

but still attempting music

notes lift dusty from the keyboard

broken into fragments: a quarter note

becomes 1/16, a whole note just a half

time means nothing now

the pianist exhausted in their chair

wrist extended     broken into pieces

of a life      reaching for music

still    and nothing they can hear

but I hear it    curling through dreams

dust mote notes sifting through sleep

leaf and twig and splintered wood

what I know so well

the cello speaking

umber voiced      bone resonant

some magic mantra I can’t translate

it might be you

explaining the physics of death

that pain is a note the cello

does not reach    such music

is another’s instrument

and you are fine now

breathing like the bow

moves across the long strings

your lungs once again

softly quiet     deep with breath

a music long ago made dissonant

the rasp of mortality

now made melodic

in its transformation

still    I am not ready

dark & deep ~

         with apologies to Robert Frost

the woods so lovely

conifers unfamiliar to a prairie dweller

tall spires of green as deep

as night        as dark as grief

I look for you among the trees

turn to catch a shadow

movement startled as I search

not you        not you

radcliffe hall spoke of the well

the well of loneliness

how she could not love

the partner of her choice

and still I love you, searching

listening to the empty rooms

the chambered heart

silence dark  and deep

you are somewhere in the distance

the water deep and cold between us

your face fades into the waves

you drop below the horizon

the water carries you away

I struggle with the tide

how will I save us

who will know to pull me out

how will they reach you

the water drags me away from you

throws me

alone

still breathing

on the shore

Hi all ~

This is my umpteenth poetry marathon — really, I don’t even remember how many I’ve joined! I think from the 2nd year until now, with a couple of hiatuses caused by illness, etc. This year is the first w/out my biggest cheerleader — my beloved husband. It’s less than 5 weeks since he died. So if my work is a bit dark, or obsessed w/ mortality and its associated baggage, you’ll know why.

In other background? Expat brat (known among the cognoscenti as ‘third culture kids’, even as we age!), lived abroad for many years: Southest Asia, Middle East, North Africa. Lots of travel and exposure to other cultures, in other words. I miss that, as travel has become increasingly fraught. But next month I’m off across the country, to see family & friends in Oregon. The other coast from Virginia, where I live!

Poetry since a kid, writing as both career & passion. Tea right behind writing, and being outdoors with both! Here’s to a great marathon (or half, in my case!). Enjoy!

Chipmunk nonet ~

Today I watched a chipmunk savage my sunflower seedlings,

digging with furious claws at the seedling pots

snuffling up an errant seed like cocaine.

No wonder no sunflowers ever sprouted!

Instead, one chipmunk grows sleeker

emboldened and sunflower fed.

I watch unobserved.

He devours

unaware.

At the storefront

The old man sat with feet propped up
gumboots scuffed through the black rubber
In his twisted fingers he held a needle
plying it through a patch spread over a torn net.
Overhead, a cloud pregnant with rain thickened
against the backdrop of a periwinkle sky.
This, he told me, is how we always done it.
The way my daddy done it. My mama
she brought him sourdough bread n butter
bread she made from her own starter
butter she beat from our own milk.
I miss them days. Nothing like ‘em.