that's mrs. mediocrity to you

a chair to sit in filled with silence
offers more comfort
than these cacophonous sheets
rioting disorderly through dreams
promenading as puzzles
with the promise of solution

shrouds of ambivalence
with no claim to tenderness
printed in patterns
of restlessness and terror
on a background of ennui
just loud enough to hold you
with a whisper

there is grey and there is black
and ninety-seven shades
of hope in between
these bones that rattle and moan
in a plea for prone
in exchange
for dawn’s pink necklace

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join the fun!

I am struggling with the last days of February, struggling with the last days we had with our old-lady cat, struggling with change and loss, darkness and shadow.

Struggling but not giving up.

At night I make a fire, all orange and red and yellow against the black canvas of life, and then pull quilts around me and lose myself in books and words, or beautiful pictures. And when I am tired of beauty, I move on to things that make me laugh, or at the very least, smile.

The wind howls and I am bending. Down, down, down to touch the earth.

Once I have kissed it, then it will be time to let go and stretch back up towards the sun.

This month is its very own season. The empty cave of February.

And in a cave, you hibernate.

I’ll be here.

is always drawn through tears
on the tails of falling stars

and just like the pleiades
cannot be seen
if you stare directly

but only exists
in the corner of your eye
or someone else’s

just a habit whisper
phantom ghost
heard only at midnight

and in the after echo
of the twelve stroke
dissonant chime

the silhouette
of negative space
is deafening

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

.

i hold nothing in my fingers but time

you laugh and say

impossible

but in your heart

you hear whispers of minutes

.

in winter

the sun is empty

i paint gold leaf onto snowbanks

and we watch

another day melt

.

yesterday i extracted

a sliver of silence from my palm

when i held it up to the light

i saw a fuzzy grey snapshot

of midnight

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..

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

you know what you were meant to do
you know it in your
heart and you refuse
to listen
just exactly the same way
you never listen to the wind
in the trees at night
whispering moon love to the owl
the way you tilt your head and pause
when thunder rumbles
but never when the sky is blue
the way you walk past that same
dirty penny six days in a row
and never stoop to pick it up
you know what you were meant to do

sit down upon a rock and stay

until your back breaks

your palms bleed

your heart cracks open

every answer you need
will run down

down

through the fingers of hope
cupped to hold them

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

::

half empty

always whole

::

the butterfly effect
is the quintessential cause
of chaos

we cannot stop living
and so
we keep dying

time waits for us to look away
however briefly
to add tattoos to our skin

hope keeps us going
just long enough to walk into a room
filled with hopelessness

a snake sheds its skin as it grows
and glides into
a larger version of itself

mother nature’s patterns and
illusions only make sense
if you’re a cloud

refuse to look away

refuse to cry uncle

refuse to be broken

for just now

another set of wings
emerges
from a dried-husk brittle
cocoon

translucent

blue and brilliant

flying home

…….

….

.

Sending love and light to the victims of the aurora shootings
and those whose lives they touched.

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dVerse poets Open Link Night

On Monday, my daughter was driving home from our camp and found a kitten on the side of the road. A tiny kitten. An injured kitten, one leg splayed off at an oh-so-wrong angle. A scared kitten.

She called to ask for advice, and I told her to go to all the nearby houses to see if it belonged to anyone, and if not, to bring it here.

Mind you, I have five cats. Mind you, I can’t afford another one. But still, it was the right thing to do.

She brought it home and I made some calls, and was advised to take it to the Humane Society, where most likely, it would be euthanized.

It was a very young black kitten, long-haired, with a face like a cute little bat. I almost took a picture, but then decided not to. I tried not to look at its sweet little face as we drove to the shelter. I tried to think about how we were doing what was best for everyone involved, I tried to think that maybe they would fix it, save it, put it up for adoption.

In truth, I don’t know what they ended up doing. And, in truth, I don’t want to know. I want to leave the possibility open that it survived. In truth, I wish I had taken it to the vet and paid a giant bill that I can’t afford and brought it home to become one step crazier on the crazy cat lady scale.

Oh, I know, I did the best I could. But I can’t stop thinking about that little face, so vulnerable, so sweet, so small. I can’t help wishing I had been able to save one more tiny kitten, or for that matter, the world.

Yesterday, I came across this quote by May Sarton: “The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.”

Of course, I know this is about far more than tiny kittens. So much of the world needs saving. So much of the world cannot be saved.

But why is it that doing what seems like the right thing feels oh-so-wrong?

How is it that the person that actually hit the cat was able to just keep on going, and I can’t stop thinking about the poor little thing? I can’t stop seeing that little bat face.

Perhaps it is simply too much a reminder of the fragility of life. Perhaps I am projecting some inner sense of vulnerability. Or the kitten was just a dark, fuzzy metaphor for all the things I want to save in this world, but cannot. Perhaps I just have a soft spot for kittens.

Or, perhaps, I am just plain crazy.

Either way, sometimes the world is a cold, hard place. More than likely, I should leave the word sometimes out of that sentence.

I have to put that knowledge in my back pocket for a while and walk around with it.

I don’t know what else to do with it just yet.

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From the book by Gabriel García Márquez

sadness weighs
the opposite of happiness

and everybody wants to fix
the world

we’ve fooled ourselves into
thinking we’re in charge
simply because gravity is
kind enough to keep us here

but look at these clouds
painting mother nature’s
fury

only she knows the truth

and being the good mother

she’s not telling

(for our own good)

you storm out
all stomping feet and
slamming doors

pretending it’s your job
to change the view
to make it clear
to reconnoiter

rescuing hope from
boxes marked fragile

playing god
and hide and seek

olly olly oxen free

at least, you think
you’re free

rain weighs
the opposite of
light

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

Happy Birthday to Open Link Night!

it’s june and i sit before this fire
wearing socks and a big fleece blanket
wondering how it is that just last week

i sat outside in the breeze dripping
sweat with my feet in a bucket of water
and i was sad then and i am sad now

and it was may then and it is june now
and life skitters away before me on
slippered feet that make no sound

and i think about change and
the way it no longer
interests me

and can’t decide if that’s right
or wrong or somewhere in between but
mostly i think about silence and

flowers and reading books that take me
to places i’ve never seen, no, not places,
i don’t care about places, i’ve never

cared about places, it’s lives i visit
in the pages of books, hearts i hear
beating at midnight and dawn

and sometimes, in summer, i stay up
reading all night just to listen and
wonder and watch the sun rise

on someone else’s

horizon

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!