Warm colors not from outside

Outside, the garden’s disarray reflects his own spirit.
He gazes beyond today’s errie political mendacity,
attempting to follow the message of Thanksgiving.
The season’s story asks with answers and gives questions.
For now, nature’s bounty has shriveled to dry, itchy skins.
The joyous noise has ended, the guests all departed.
Remnants linger.

A hickory smoked ham carcass bears the scarred record
of hungry hands which sliced morsels into salivating mouths,
a thankful sharing of sustenance. Pillows and wool blankets,
suddenly cold, lie folded neatly near the futon bed,
which is now restored to its day job as a couch. No evidence remains
of the two cuddle snuggets which giggled there the night before.
Nor any more tinkling sounds of little doggy tags prancing
round Mom’s legs, skirting all arms but hers, bonded in devotion
to her care alone, with angelic innocence, golden halo. Glittering,
smiling eyes have gone. Squeaky floors are mute. Missing Espresso,
sounds and smells are silent. The cacophony of stuffed hours
has floated away. Surrendering to the moment was easy
with three conversations bubbling for attention all at once.
Happy consociates huddled around mini-decisions,
who wants to go on a walk, when it’s nap time. Ah, nap time.
Torpor weighed in after all. Events happened, with no one bearing
singular responsibility. A snack or a nap or a laugh was shared.
Familiarity insulated us from the cold, strange world
beyond the glass windows. The den bustled with clusters
of happy commotion.

Alone now in his newly painted great
room, his mood is comforted by the warm colors, gold, orange,
deep burgundy purple. That was the idea. The gray day surrounds
us all in our pools of warm light. The garden beckons
with the answer to this sweet emptiness.
Pick up where you are and tuck away these memories
for a long winter’s night.

technorati tags- Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving poems, gratitude, garden

Ache

Ache in my chest.
Sometimes
he well up
through
my
neck,
into my head
and out my eyes.
He tears down my face
soft and wet, salty
in my mouth
in my mind
in my heart.

The Drummer by the Sea

A drummer sits by the sea
        listening to the hollow, holy undulation
of his mother’s clock
breathing against his face, his heart-
beating a different rhythm, a
        syncopation, a duet.
He calls to her and
she answers.
        She answers as he calls; he listens
to his own voice in the waves, her
rhythm,
his heartbeat, their duet…
the drummer hears
a whisper inside his ear,
(He took his inner voice to be
                           Hers.)
"Why," s’he said, "do I feel so lonely?
We haven’t been together in a long time.
Why, in order to be together
must we first be apart?"
S’he listened and heard and relaxed and
came together and came apart: together, apart.
S’he felt the swelling of their breath,
rising, falling, like the waves on the beach,
like the rising and falling of
their body,
the air,
the day,
the night,
and their rhythms;
soothing,
drumming beats,
of the sea, of the waves,
the waves and the foam,
and the crunchy, cool sand
and their feet titillated by it,
on it, off it, on, off.
billions of grains, ancient mountains,
crumbled empires,
fallen spires,
and the timeless sea, giver and taker,
and the dark lurkings underneath,
fear giving breath to joy.

Rhythms of the Seasons

The rhythms of the season hypnotize us
as they go ’round and ’round and ’round,
faster each year as we age,
building to some distant, palpable climax
while receding from another, ancient past.

Faster they spin, compelling us to fill fleeting days
with meaningful events.
(love may deepen,
hate grow brittle,
poetry more necessary)

To and fro, light to dark, the pendulum swings
stupendously, irrevocable across the map, throbbing
in every molecule with its unabashed preponderance.

No sooner sweet Summer arrives
in her full sensual glory
and vapid dissipation,
then be the slightest incline, the longest day tipped,
we start the slow, poignant slide
to the depths of
Winter.
Thus we arrive again at this valley
of Yin,
whose darkness and gravity turns us inward
to our sweetest, softest, most delicate
center.

As if by sheer will (and hope and need)
we nudge the gyration
back toward light,
we indulge in glitter and compassion.
We reward love needed and given
with earnest countenance.
We search our souls for cheerful ways
to decorate the days.
We celebrate the counterpoints of our lives,
barely pausing to reflect
over the abyss which lies beneath
the fragile music we make.

This was one of Barbara’s favorite of my poems.

Writing a Poem

I see the shapeshifting reality bulge
around the illusory hibiscus I could never match.
Veils of words needs constant shattering
to lighten thick, moldy layers of thatch.

My heartbeats come forth, secretly billowing,
burning new myths from a crimson flower.
I can’t help but lose myself, drowning,
reborn in this burgeoning, transformative power.

Staying open is toughest, free falling and bare
naked and hanging, having dropped from the sky.
Then the petaled plate tells me with it’s one eyed glare
to listen and watch, with laser focus, and try

To write these gossamer sheets of implausible power,
wispy, tenuous wings, burgundy eyefuls of red meat.
I tally this time to sit and stare, hour to hour
and find it’s telling me to just sit, watch and be complete.

I wrote this on a challenge to create on the spot from Jessamyn on her post, Sunday Scaffolding.