At some days’ end,
I feel as if I have stepped my last-
propping up this frame,
these unpadded shoulders,
boned as a scarecrow.
Dithering with the primal thoughts of a child.
Open-armed,
palms in supplication.
I bow down,
I do.
Image: pixabay.com
~Thinking I said something,
I fell silent in doubt
until a gravelly voice
whispered the supposed words into my ear.
I turned my head to the side
and looked down a Dali funnel,
fishing for an anchor to snag this faint,
this float.~
***
Image credit to OpenClipart-Vectors | Pixabay
Elle’s verse , remembering a life left behind.
standing out on the back porch
looking out on the suburban sprawl I
called home my whole childhood,
imagining all the quiet moments of
what I swore I wouldn’t miss:
cookie dough and street hockey
and whispering on the landline
I imagine all the time that has passed
years and years and years
stacked like pancakes my father
used to burn on the stove.
time came and went,
the stove was replaced, gone
and my sweet tooth, gone
and suddenly I was gone, too
I hear a voice call me back inside
to come back to bed
I see the sidewalk split in two
from all I remember and all I wish I wouldn’t forget
and for a split second,
I smell the sickly sweet of pancakes
and realize
memories are never kind, they
remind you of what you left behind.
I have seen her many times, now,
from March’s thaw to the heat of July.
She walks alone, even in a crowd.
None approach her, none jostle.
Her apparent path is always clear.
Is it by chance, dumb luck, coincidence?
Glances that wander to her
are as quickly turned away.
And she glides….to what business?
I am drawn,
and so I seek her suspected haunts.
Some days pass, then weeks.
She comes not, as if divining my intentions.
On a grey day I round the corner,
laden with grocery bags.
There, on the smokers’ bench,
this girl.
Several sparrows, a cardinal, and chickadees
flutter and settle next to her.
Long straight blondeness obscures her profile
as she studies her hands, palms up, on her tan legs.
A chickadee settles in one, and peeps.
Stunned, I stop and set down my bags.
Tongue tied, I ask if she is alright,
expecting perhaps a belligerent reply.
She turns her long head, and I see
the pools of her eyes. Inscrutable.
There is no smile, but a gesture for me to sit.
In silence are we.
What will I say to this creature?
I ask her name.
Call me Sarah, she says, without an accent,
and the words seem to invade memory and stay.
Where do you live, I say.
She stands, tugs me upright by the hand.
The sun now comes of a sudden.
She tilts her head back, smiles finally with closed eyes.
Of a star, she says,
and I believe.
We awake from the blessed sleep
after death’s embrace.
Here, in Heaven’s womb,
we lie, we look.
Our breath upon each other
a perfume.
We hear, in gentleness,
a sighing soothing swell of song.
We smell grass, fresh after a rain.
We stand, with lightness of mind.
We see, on the green hillside,
a throng in white.
Some turn and beckon.
Into each others eyes we smile,
then run, without flagging,
hand in hand
into a welcome of open arms.
There is lilting laughter.
then a hush of anticipation.
from the horizon’s haze we hear
the Overtures,
sung by the sinless Seraphim.
We journey long, without tiring,
for we know what awaits
at the End of Ends.
The Music of the Greats
Charges the very neurons of the mind
They glow brightly
As if from a sudden injection of quicksilver
I think
And the ones that are the keepers of memory
Secrete themselves and wait until called,
Often in times of great need.
Cadence, phrasing, pauses,
One note eyeing and speaking to the next
Uttering thoughts high, and thoughts deep.
Causing anticipation, and great desire to hear
What is next? What is next?
Can this be of humankind’s making?
Yes! That is why we call them the Greats.
They have used all that was given to them,
And have shown it unto us
As something of beauty and power and permanence
Like the magnificent storms upon Jupiter.
Aremyfeetofftheground 