Serious Poetry

Feeling sad was always bad

So I pushed

Past it

Around it

Ground it

Down into a dust

 Slow-filtering out as much as I could trust

 through clutched-tight, tiny heart-cracks

meeting up with tears swallowed into my chest

  it created…quite a muddy mess

 

So I knew, it had to be expressed,

Cleaned up, and cleared out

come up

and sum up

in colors and contrasts

the light and dark tight swirls…

desperately waiting to unfurl

inside this girl

 

Space was needed though

a wider canvas for pain to let-go

 

Slow steady

Herky-jerky

Wrenching

Slobbering

Silent

Screams

Moaning moos under the stars

 cracking along checking timbers

 under boot-crinkled leaves,

crunched up sticks

and

flickering around candle wicks

3-D deep

 long and wide

flat flower-dried

Now

I finger-paint with sadness,

 Illuminate any lingering of badness

With sunshine

 

It makes sense

 to cry a lot.

 What didn’t make any sense was to be numb in my little bed,

 to shove away the fear, grief, unmet needs,

 then arrive outside my bedroom door,

 at the classroom door,

at the neighbor’s door

with a big smile on my face.

That tore me up,

scarred me up,

toughened me up,

Closed me up,

closed me down.

It would have made sense to give up

It did make sense a moment or two

No more scars

No more doors

No more

forced smiles

Just escape

But then I cried a lot instead.

 

“Oh Hello…what have you brought there?”

I hold the plate of kid-baked,

decorated,

 ginger-bread cookies

 in front of her.

Eyes are shinny with expectation as she sits up

Gray hair, unusually clean, a little thinner,

But the same pale blue, opaque nightgown

And same flour-sack breasts shifting underneath

“I’ve been so worried…about my father…

He’s been sick you know”.

 

Yes. I know

 he’s been dead for 40 years.

She calls me a name that’s not mine, and smiles.

She likes me now.

She is happy to see me now.

She wants the cookies.

She is happy for the kindness of strangers.

This stranger.

 

I want to let it go on…but instead say who I am.

Mommy, who was truly, simply, freely, open to me

 

 for a moment

Snaps back

And frowns.

I can hike and ski and walk and write and dig and lift and pull and plant and climb and fall and jump and roll

But I be will be sore, after

 

I have smooth skin, soft skin, long legs, tapering ankles, healthy curly hair, bright eyes, strong feet

But parts of me are drooping, wrinkled

 

I have a slow pulse, low blood pressure, no cancer, no diabetes, no chronic pain, and the muscles inside my pelvis are strong

But sometimes I do wait too long and dribble, a bit of pee

 

I have a job, I can set my own schedule, have a private office that looks out with beautiful light, I’m praised by my boss, make good money, and help people

But working hurts my soul

 

I feel my heart, and the past, the pain, I love my kids and they love me, and I have good friends

But I don’t have a special person, to snuggle with

 

I am surrounded by streams, and woods, and birds singing, and spirit, and willingness, and hope and everything I need today

But I still can’t settle and fully accept, peace

 

And I HATE that!

Just hang a left and pavement turns to mud and keeps them out

All except the most hardy

The most in need of peace

I pass the chained-off track to the pond

and I’m almost home

I’m almost to my first and only all-mine place to be

The timbers soar towards the chilly sky

 

I am remembering

Because I can’t see all that with my eyes from here,

 under these quilts

But I know it well.

I fly, mind up,

soar over the tree tops circling the water,

smell the deep new green of leaves unfurling,

peer into the old brown cattails

scan the depths from dark green to the  yellow of sandbars just under the ripples

 

I have swum, paddled, and circumlocated this body of spring-fed water

Peed in the moss, muddied my boots, thrashed through the underbrush

And will get to know it even better

To know its every edge, curve, inhabitants of the seasons

It’s why I chose my land, my place to build, to sink in.

The closest I could get to the clean water and no car will be needed

Walking to it,

Rolling on bike tires to it

Sliding on skis to it

Slipping, carefully treading ice and slush to it

 

Winter ice doesn’t t bother me

I long to see the feathery tendrils creep and claim the surface

wait until it supports me

Testing its edges as faults crack and black streams wind through it

I gaze and swoosh across with the wind