May
12
May
12
Misdeeds
May
12
Nights Like These
Nights like these
it’s nights like these
when I don’t know what to think when she doesn’t hear my pleas and she’s on the brink
It’s nights like these
when beast is bigger than cage
Or a hinge needing grease
or watching a performer tragically drunk on stage
it’s nights like these
when I begin to doubt my choices
setting in a singular feeling of unease
and thoughts ring true from outside voices
Nights like these
when I want to close up shop readdress my own needs
and declare my life choices a flop
It’s nights like these
When I’m scared and have had all I can take
and my heart only knows seize
because our roots won’t take
so on nights like these
I question what I’m doing
in these stormy seas
and just whom do I think I’m fooling?
Because on nights like these
I think twice about whom I’m trying to please
acutely aware there is no easy treatise
as I Ponder catch and release
12.1.2015
May
12
Notice
No one seems to notice the stars
As they fall into the ocean
They don’t notice all my scars
As long as I stay in perpetual motion
I wonder if God sees
Me trying to fight the good fight
Does anyone hear my mournful pleas?
Swallowed by the dark and out of sight
So all the cars rumble by
And are gone again into the night
Right past the girl who doesn’t cry
The girl losing the good fight
7.16.15
May
12
Miss You
Feb 1, 2017
Mama how I miss you on nights such as these. You would bundle up against the cold and sit
outside with me. You would have a glass of wine and a cigarette. We would admire the Stars,
falling over our animals, and talk of things important, and of nothing at all. You would enjoy the
Stars tonight here on the front porch of my little cabin. Pointing out the Cheshire Cat grin of a
waning moon. You would your little dog in your lap, me with a big pup at my feet.
Every time I do something outstanding, I want to tell you. Every time I see something beautiful, I
wish you were with me to admire it too. I want to run my life through the filter of your heart and
mind and await your graceful advice. I want to spread your ashes, a little here a little there. I
want to go back to your Island and immerse myself in you. Some of these things I can do, many
I cannot.
I can still smell you, hear your voice. I can talk but I get no answer. I wish my faith were
convincing enough to me so I could know you watched me, but my faith is tenuous… it is
unproven. All I know is that your spirit has left me. My Touchstone, my healer, my all-powerful
and benevolent mama. Your songs still my head, your ways are my ways. So I proudly wear
your legacy and try to impress it upon the world in some little way every single day. What I
would not give someone stolen hour with you. What I would not do for the shelter of your heart.
What I would not do for you.
MIT LUF MAMA, MIT LUF
May
12
When
When you open your favorite book
But the pages won’t turn
You are hidden in your favorite nook
But your heart just burns
When time creeps
You want to be alone
And cannot speak
But you won’t let go of the phone
When you’ve tamped it all down
And cannot cry
Cannot release the feelings so profound
No matter how hard you try
You dig for distraction
cannot seem to confide
So you pack up your burden
And die a little inside
May
12
I Remember
I remember…
I remember, as a very little girl, maybe three or four, lying on a blanket in the backyard where I’d
been put down to take a nap. Instead I was watching my mother hang sheets on the line. My
mom must have been about 27 then, long and graceful and shapely. The sun, as I remembered,
was behind her, and would cast her dark outline on each white sheet and she pinned it up. Her
head, upraised arms and elbows in silhouette, her hips and waist below the sheet, she would
rise on her painted toes each time she attached a clothespin. It was like watching a shadow
play. As I lay there sleepily watching, I saw her pass along the line of hanging sheets, setting
poles between the sheets to prop up the lines… sometimes as a shadow, sometimes as my
mother. The brevity of the moments between the sheets, when she was there glancing at me,
her real self, made them startling and filled me with love. There she was and then a few
seconds later there she was again.. much to my delight.
May
12
So We Missed a Year
May
12
Heading Home
Heading Home 6.14.16
Heading home used to fill me with Dread
As I would steady myself for the onslaught
Definitely putting up fortresses in my head
Every breath hastened with fraught
Nowadays heading home is one of my pleasures
As I wind my way down Old Highway 53
A sense of elation I cannot measure
The mountains a cue to set my heart free
Navigate curves betwixt Precambrian mountains
The Appalachians swallow up the radio signal
As I motor to my secret bastion
All my cares fade and dwindle
The road nestles in along the valley
Talking rocks and baptizing holes for landmarks
Peaks rising up and stealing sunlight greedily
The great mountains like massive bulwarks
To my left a Mountain Road appears
A 30 degree slope as it makes its climb
Past little cabins up a single-lane I must steer
Ears popping twice as I mount the incline
To manage the ascent my truck strains and pulls
Around dog leg bends and double back turns
I reached the peak taking in Mountain Air by the lung full
And suddenly a husband chickens and a farm are my sole concerns