The Poetry Marathon

Dream

Eva Suzanne and Adam Michael,
those were the names you would have had,
you black haired, green eyed children of my heart.

I dreamed you for so long,
I longed so for you in dreams,
I now feel your presence around every corner,
just beyond my peripheral sight, waiting.

I had already had my three living babes
when I met your father once more.
Before me, he was convinced
his two living children were all he would have
but he soon began to dream you as well.

“In the next life . . . ” we tell each other,
“when we’re together again . . . ” we always say,
you will come to us, be fully present,
be ours, be real.

Until then, dream, dear souls.
We will meet again.

Old Man Under the Mountain, Reprised

Mother, how may I keep Death away
when on our door he knocks?

Son, he may only approach and harvest
souls where death has existed before.

Mother, how can this be, when even so much
as a swatted fly invites Death to visit?

Son, dying is no longer possible
when Death’s effects can be reversed.

Mother, then how can this be, when everyone
knows Death is final?

Son, Old Man Under the Mountain
is shielded from Death beneath his golden dome.

Then, dear Mother, I will find the Old Man,
I will bring you his shield, and then we will never part.

The Old Man, he was difficult to find,
yet find him I finally did. The trickster,
he trapped me and I took his place,
far beneath stone, out of sight
of his golden dome in the sky.

At long last I was released, a successor
then took my place. I ascended stone steps
to the earth and sky once more;
I captured the sun and rain for my shield
and returned to my home once again.

Dear Mother, I have returned! I joyously
proclaimed near our home,
but Death, that trickster, had found her.
Old Man was Death, gone to see her
the moment I freed him, the devil.
He waited for me, still he sat in our door,
and Mother, dear Mother, was no more.

Memento Mori

My crush gifted me a book on trees
and I placed within it a four
leaf clover, another gift
a different day, treasured
talisman, there still
all this time, flat
memento
to love
lost.

Solstice

In the lands of my distant ancestors
the ice sings in midwinter,
pinging, crackling, and booming
in eerily beautiful counterpoint
to the northern lights swirling
across nearly perpetual darkness.

Balanced between the two,
pagan and Christian come together
as young girls parade and sing
through the streets of towns and villages,
candles atop their heads
to signify the melding
of Santa Lucia and Norse gods of old.

Fire and water,
ice and flame,
bridged by the smallest among us,
bringing hope and light
to the darkest of days,
repelling the spirits that would do harm,
and luring the return of the sun.

Still Waters

He warned me to test the waters
before entering,
one toe would do
to let me know
if I’d be in hot water,
but it certainly wouldn’t tell me
if I’d be in deep water
over my head.

But, come hell or high water,
by god, I would try.

He warned me I’d be dead in the water
if I didn’t watch out,
predators lurk beneath
even a local watering hole;
it would not be enough
to simply
keep my head above water.

His arguments didn’t hold water with me,
I knew I would survive.

He warned me I’d be a fish out of water
without him to protect me.
He begged me to stay,
begged me to forgive,
in a year it would all be
water under the bridge.

But soon I was gone, for after all,
within my soul still waters run deep.

Hobbit Haiku

One fearless hobbit
a dragon is defeated
one ring is brought home

Odd

Normal, new, old, or interim,
has never been normal for me.
Squirrelly, standoffish, cold, or strange,
I’ve been called these and many more.
My normal has always
preferred being alone,
with company or no,
yet still alone.
I birthed three children
and married a man
just as abnormal as me,
living for days within
the same square footage
and barely exchanging a word.
Our normal is not lonely,
it is rarely physically alone,
but it is fed in a soul’s
solitary splendor,
touching base
and loving deeply,
yet still deeply, oddly,
abnormally alone.

Seventeen Year Cicada

This is the year they break through once again,
seventeen years as nymphs underground
will come to an end.
Their years long, dark preparation,
feeding on the roots of their life giving trees,
will cease when they burst their way forth
into the light.
They will shed their nymph skins,
pump blood into new wings,
and screech en masse for a mate,
only to produce their eggs
and die, a bountiful feast for the birds.

Four times they’ve appeared in my life,
as a newborn, at seventeen,
at thirty-four, and now at fifty-one.
I can be forgiven for not remembering the first,
but their coming warms me with memories once again.

At seventeen, I anticipated the last year of high school ahead,
a summer of shimmering promise obscuring the horizon beyond.
At thirty-four, I was a young mother shepherding my daughter through
summer camp, marveling at the massed singing insects in the trees.
At fifty-one, I am settled and content within my skin at last,
grown children and small grandchild with me in the home I will be in until I die.

I step out the back door and clinging warmth surrounds my chilled body,
sun on my scalp and shoulders,
cicadas singing their susurrating song once again.
I close my eyes in gratitude, and step back inside.

At Rest

The image is meant to soothe,
inspire tranquillity,
deep thought transcending
a world in turmoil and outer chaos.

Empty bottles are artfully staged
with generic meditation statues
devoid of life, as is the corpse-
like person displayed as though
on a coroner’s slab, hearing nothing
through unconnected headphones,
unseeing eyes fixed on a middle distance,
a half smile pasted to a slackened face.

It is so smooth it annoys,
so still it suffocates,
monochromatic and emptied
cliche advertisement.

The fourth wall is breached
within my mind
as the corpse removes his headphones,
turns, and slyly winks.