{"id":66169,"date":"2020-06-27T14:57:12","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T18:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=66169"},"modified":"2020-06-27T14:57:12","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T18:57:12","slug":"poem-marathon-submission-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/poem-marathon-submission-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem Marathon Submission #6"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>Lost and Redemption of a Life\r\nAnn WJ White\r\n\r\n\r\nAwakening the morning, waiting for it to rise,\r\nI follow a small tortiseshelled cat to her breakfast,\r\ncarefully apportioned puree of chicken\r\nserved on a glass dish, glistening.\r\nShe is the reason for rising, for dancing,\r\nfor singing a song of the past. For when\r\nshe has fed, her dreams begin to scatter the\r\ndreams I failed to dream. She chases them,\r\nrounding them up, toying with them, until I \r\nsigh with frustration and join her.\r\n\r\nThere are no appointments, not this time.\r\nNo eyes to watch, no tasks to be designated to me.\r\nHere the clouds fill the sky with tale strong\r\nclouds, bright blue sky, and the sun at the right \r\nangle to tease the flowers into bloom. We sit, the two\r\nof us, talking of birds, frogs and small skinks.\r\nThe outside walks past us, children riding scooters,\r\nStrollers, bikes, and the others in the neighborhood\r\nwho share patience for time to pass.\r\n\r\nThe phone is silent. The TV ignored. Paints stand\r\nnear a canvas, looking coy. Books are everywhere,\r\nEach shouting an advertisement until one is lifted and\r\nthe cover opened. Sinking into a soft couch with\r\nCat sitting on my chest, we read together. She purrs.\r\nTime passes. The paints trip me when I find a need \r\nto rise. It is their turn, and spill out like the\r\nflowers in my front bed. An orange is peeled and\r\ninsanity seeks my attention. A wishy cloud of something\r\ntakes form. A woods, a water, a story, it spins around.\r\n\r\nIt stands upside down on its canvass, shouting\r\n\"Try this now, or this, be upside down and see.\"\r\nAnd I do see, a conglomeration fantasy. The brushes\r\nmove faster and faster until it is lunch. A simple day,\r\na simple sandwich, hardly a mind set to enjoy it\r\nbefore it is gone. Wandering upstairs, I pause to nap.\r\nSeeking the dreams from long ago, the memories pass.\r\nStirring against boredom, Cat bites my eyebrows and\r\nsets me back upon my path. Mysteriously, the laundry\r\nhas vanished. Something is standing outside of time.\r\n\r\nI take the drugs upon the table, and go out.\r\nA camera hangs from a strap as Cat pushes the door shut.\r\nSo I wander, down to the swampy park, there to find \r\na pair of beaver, small fish frolicking over bits of \r\nbroken branches, drowned grass, and an old \"No Dumping\"\r\nsign. The heron pause and watch the water, fishing \r\nintensively. Crows mock me, small sparrows chirp\r\nand clean their nesting spots. I am alone here.\r\nThis is not reality. My life does not move in smooth\r\nlines without contrasts and complications. Never.\r\n\r\nWalking back, I hear voices calling out for ice cream.\r\nI shrug past them. My heart echoes with empty thoughts,\r\nbut no drive. There is banging coming from inside my house.\r\nThe parallel emptiness has been invaded with cause.\r\nI turn and walk away, quickly, with agitation.\r\nBut stop, when a dear friend sees me. She is alone,\r\nsurrounded by time, pandemics, busy children lost to work.\r\nIt is her smile that captures me, her love, her open\r\nlife as she moves one foot after another. The chat fills\r\ntime, and somehow valued by me. I plan a surprise cake.\r\n\r\nTurning back to my home, the cat has gotten out on the roof.\r\nShe's howling madly, annoyed that I have forgotten my duty,\r\nIt is time to feed the cat, again, the same as it all is.\r\nNow it is all different. Sound, industry, purring and yowling.\r\nEntering the house, my son kneels in the hallway, building\r\na wooden floor as I have always wanted. My daughter is scrubbing\r\nbathrooms. My husband has taken his father out to walk,\r\nA break from my resentment of the old man. And the phone\r\nrings, unmerciful it screams for attention. Stops and begins again.\r\nThere is an ethereal sense to it, this hounding.\r\n\r\nThis is not right, all out of place, purpose confused.\r\nI answer the phone and my life changes. A moment of \r\nspinning choice and test results. The voice is brisk,\r\nbusinesslike, full of details. The answers my brain did \r\nnot want to comprehend at my last appoints. The words\r\nburn themselves into my flesh. \"We've make a mistake.\r\nYour heart is continuing to fight the stenosis that \r\nbinds you. The surgery will not be needed for another\r\nten or fifteen years. Your neurologist called me and \r\nsaid your Multiple Sclerosis is stable, and well controlled.\"\r\n\r\nWhen I pause in shock and don't respond, he bides me to ask, \r\nbut my is feeling again with emotions. Tears from, and he bides me\r\nget a cool drink. Sit down. Call him back when the questions arise.\r\nBut I am already pushing my way to my children, explaining, hopefully.\r\nHugs surround me and my husband arrives. \"I'm going to live, a good long \r\ntime.\" All of the horror that sat in my subnormal has left for\r\nothers. My husband swings me around and joins the children in\r\ncelebration. Plans are made, dinner out at a place where\r\nlingering and talking is imminent, a movie to follow. \r\nSuddenly the fog and distance are gone. My confusion is gone.\r\nThe Cat smiles in her strange cat fashion and warms my soul.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lost and Redemption of a Life Ann WJ White Awakening the morning, waiting for it to rise, I follow a small tortiseshelled cat to her breakfast, carefully apportioned puree of chicken served on a glass dish, glistening. She is the reason for rising, for dancing,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,12,441,5,1135],"tags":[3662,3660,1411,2212,412,1432,3659,49,1202,2663,3661],"class_list":["post-66169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","category-musings","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","category-testimonials","tag-beavers","tag-being-up","tag-birds","tag-cats","tag-family","tag-flowers","tag-giving-up","tag-hope","tag-illness","tag-space","tag-walks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66779,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66169\/revisions\/66779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}