that's mrs. mediocrity to you

there’s a crack in the wall
just above the staircase
that returns no matter
how many times i

patch it up

fill

sand

repaint

a few months later
there it is
again

.

before
i moved here
some 26 years ago
this house was moved from
two roads over
rooms
uprooted
and balanced
on a flat bed truck

then hauled across fields of corn
and set down here
in this new spot
to grow
a new history
and
settle into
this land this view
this corner

but that crack

that scar

is always there
just to remind me

of the many
definitions

of

impermanence

.

.

.

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

Perspective is a tricky player. And there are days when you are blinded by the hand you are dealt, full of jokers and and clubs and spades. Days when you can’t see past the black humor of life.

Days when the good hides in the bottom of the deck and the bad, that ugly jack, gets turned face up.

And you know it’s all a game, that soon it will be over and life will go on the way it always does and next time you play you will get a hand full of diamonds. Or hearts.

And you know that in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that bad anyway, everyone loses sometimes, everyone gets beat, or drops a card on the floor, or gets stuck playing 52 pick-up. My brother used to love pulling that one on me.

This has been a week like that.

A week that will pass whether I win or I lose, and some weeks, that’s just the way it goes.

I keep trying to focus on the good. I’m usually much better at that than I have been this week. This week that started out just fine and then turned into one small calamity after another. All small, all survivable, all just tiny blips on the big screen of life.

And now I’m mixing metaphors.

That’s okay, life is like that, too.

And I have this photo of this bird that came to visit me on Monday. And that was very, very good.

And every so often, if you stare at it for a long enough time, the ugly can start to look beautiful.

Any second now, I just know I’m going to draw the queen of hearts.

Come on, hit me.

Day, night. Inhale, exhale. Simple, complicated. Beautiful, ugly.

Rose, thorn.

Life is filled with opposites that cannot exist one without the other. We tend to reach for the bright spots, the highs, the pretty. But we would never recognize these things if not for the shadows, the lows, the unattractive.

Some days I try to rest in the middle. Pause and embrace both sides. Some days, it takes long arms and a big reach. And after awhile, I am exhausted.

Some days, I choose a side. There are times when it cannot be helped. And those are the days when I feel most alive.

Darkness is not the same as evil. Beauty is not the same as good. Answers are not the same as wisdom.

I want to be the wanderer, moving in and out of light and shadow, reaching for the sun as I grow deep roots.

I want to be pulled in all directions, up, down, in, out, left, right.

I want to scramble up a trellis like a vine gone wild and throw rose-scented light to the world.

Here, catch.

::

running, especially in a light misty rain

lilacs and forget-me-nots

popcorn and movies with bare feet and windows open,
lemonade on the side

sundays in the garden with nothing else to do

hummingbirds and dragonflies

an endless stack of books

thunderstorms

staying up late and counting blessings like stars

notebooks filled with words

notebooks filled with empty pages

the golden light of sunset filtering around that corner
and landing just where george used to sit

music i’d forgotten i knew

music i haven’t discovered yet

baby robins

strawberries, dipped in dark chocolate

midnight

an outside fire with dylan and a glass of red wine

a morning serenade by a mockingbird

these buds that spell hope

again and again

::

the strangest memories come to visit
while you’re standing in the shower

all naked and alone and washing life’s
dusty coating down the drain to nowhere

the old console stereo my parents used to
have in the dining room, bigger than a couch

big enough to still be playing songs in this
40-something head, songs that come to me

in waves of too hot water and saggy aging skin
i’d prefer not to look at, (the same way the only

mirror i use these days is the reflection i catch
smiling back at me from atop a glass of wine)

since they don’t make things like they used to
everything must be smaller, thinner, lighter

because we don’t need no stinkin’ gravity
to hold us down and keep us tethered or

even strung along, it’s never been the force
of earth or magnetic pull keeping us here,

preventing us from floating away like a bubble
about to burst, it’s always just the strangest

memories.

::

::

::

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

there is always tea in my kitchen

and almost always, a cup in my hands
filled with a history that rolls on my tongue
as collective souls take their places by my side

sipping

offering advice and gathered wisdom i know
i should follow, but, being stubborn i am
always setting off to learn things on my own

rituals

become pattern and pattern becomes design
and whispers get woven in the fabric
of the living and the dead, all the women
who came to this table before i even existed

strong

like this brew that warms my fingers, my heart
stronger than despair, or anything i have endured
strong enough to stand here before me

revealing

secrets that make me smile and shore me up
against everything yet to come in this life

one season, one cup, one breath at a time

::

::

::

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

::

List the tribes you belong to: cultural, personal, literary, etc.

::

If you had asked me this question when I was a teenager, the answer would have been: none.

I never fit into any of the available slots, too smart to hang out with the cool kids, too cool to hang out with the smart kids, too shy to hang out with the popular kids. I was not into sports, not into parties, not into chess, or designer clothes or smoking cigarettes out by the fence. I was the proverbial square peg. My senior year, when everyone else was wearing Calvin Klein jeans and high heels and curly, permed hair, I dressed like a hippie in torn jeans, gauzy shirts, Jesus sandals, hair long and straight and parted down the middle. I had learned just enough by then to allow myself that much.

I belonged to the tribe of angst as a teenager, this is when I started writing poetry. This is when I learned to enjoy being alone. This is when my heart was broken for the first time.

::

If you had asked me this question when I was in my early 20s, the answer would have been: I AM WOMAN, and yes, I would have roared.

These were my feminist years, learning what it meant to be a woman in the world, the unfairness, the injustice, the constant thread of sexuality that ran through every interaction I had with men. I spent months, years, reading sociological studies, learning more and resenting everything I read. Resenting men, resenting the fact that I was not one. I never learned to be coy or charming, never used my gender in my favor, never stopped fighting the unfairness of it all.

Until.

In my mid-twenties I joined the tribe of mother. And then I understood the true difference between men and women. And yes, I’d love to be able to say that parenting is the same for men as it is for women. But it isn’t. And I’m not saying that men don’t make fabulous parents, or that they are inferior as parents. My own father was the best one a girl could ever have. It’s just different. As a mother, you become protector. Teacher. Moderator. And more, so much more.

But when it comes right down to it, you are a she-bear. And then you will REALLY roar.

::

If you had asked me this question when I was in my 30s, the answer would have been: artist, mother, wife, reader, business owner.

This was the decade of doing, too busy to have much angst, too tired to complain. I accomplished. Whatever needed to be done, this is what I did. I was happy with who I was, happy with where I was, and there was always something that needed to be done. These were the years of too-little sleep and not enough time. There was always someplace to be, a deadline on my forehead, a child that needed tending, a house that needed care, a husband that needed time, a life that needed living. I wrote very little in these years. I put all of that on the back burner and let it simmer.

I belonged to the tribe of family in my 30s, and this is when I started to be comfortable with myself.

::

If you had asked me this question when I was in my 40s, the answer would have been: invalid, daughter, seeker, and finally, writer.

In my early 40s I was sick for a year. And though it all worked out in the end, turning out to be something fixable, it was a lost year. I learned what it’s like to be invisible, that there are two pronunciations to the word invalid. But this year taught me a simple, valuable lesson: to appreciate the fact that I am alive.

My parents started aging in these years, and I came full-circle as a daughter. I spent time care-taking and appreciating everything they gave to their children.

I stretched beyond what do I want to do with my life into it’s time to start doing something. I started writing again, unfolding those pages one layer at a time, testing, exposing, learning. I brought along all the tribes I have ever belonged to and we had a big party. One that went on for years and made a big mess, and in the end, only the strong were left standing.

I belonged to the tribe of hope in my 40s, I came home to a place I hadn’t known I missed, and words became my companion.

::

Now, as I am ready to enter my 50s, I have come to understand that the tribe I truly belong to is that of humanity.

No matter how we try to section ourselves off into groups, we can’t escape this simple fact.

We are all here, in this one tribe, together.

The tribe of grace.

::

this post is part of the scintilla project. see more here.

some days you have to peel back some skin
just to be certain who you are.

the pretty face you put on for the world
can only disguise so much

and then the mystery starts bleeding through
the edges, those places that are frayed

and torn, held together with yellow cellophane
no longer necessary to hold that old wound

together, but a comfort of habit just the same.
lift it away and your scars are revealed,

white-edged and deeper than anyone can guess,
even you. smooth planes are only for

the innocent, the unscathed, the empty-handed.
it’s the skeleton that always tells the real

story, dancing alone in the closet like a fool.
at night i can hear the wind whistling

through all the cracks and patches
in my heart, and every so often

the sound finds a way to mimic
the cut of yesterday’s knife.

.

.

.

this post is part of dVerse poets Open Link Night, join us!

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Last year’s growth still clings to its supports, having yet to be cleared away for the fresh new shoots this year has promised to bring.

Soon it will be time to start seeds indoors, the waiting and the watching and then the nursing of baby plants along towards Spring.

This isn’t my garden, it’s a garden I pass on the trail where I run, a huge vegetable garden that someone tends very lovingly. It’s a garden I covet. Or quite possibly, what I actually covet is the time it takes to tend such a garden.

When I am old I shall grow flowers.

Okay, I already grow flowers. And I’m creeping up on old, but you know what I mean.

Some days, weeks, months, years, it feels like I’m running out of time. Time to do the things I always wanted to do, said I would do, planned to do. So what to do?

I feel my priorities shifting. I suppose everyone does as they creep towards another milestone birthday, marking the passing of another decade.

I’m going to be 50 this year, and it feels a bit like a rite of passage. It will be time to draw the slanted line through the other four hash marks, and these five decades will stand together as a unit. The next decade starts a whole new set of hash marks, and only if I’m very lucky will I complete the set.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with it, no regrets and all that, and every day I breathe in the air of gratitude that I am here to even contemplate such things.

But I feel like this year, this well-rounded marker, means it’s time to clear away those old, clingy vines, time to pull up all the weeds, time to focus on standing with my face to the sun.

Mature growth. The bits of bark that have been weathered by time. The base of the tree that supports all the fresh, green leaves.

Old growth.

Yes, that’s it. Exactly.

Already, I feel new roots taking hold.

I stand in my driveway, shivering, camera in hand, trying to capture ever-elusive birds. This is not at all the photo I was trying to record, wings too fast for my cold fingers, but there it is: morning.

I was not standing here to see the sun rise with all its pretty promises, not here to watch midnight blue change to purple and pink, and yet somehow, my camera found its way to dawn just the same.

The most beautiful things are always the ones that find you first, and all you really have to do is be there.

Morning is becoming my favorite time of day. For me, this is a huge shift, having always been a night owl, staying up well past the time that makes sense, always having a hard time letting go of another day. And even now, my bedtime is midnight, I like to be there to watch another day slip through the keyhole and become tomorrow. Which of course, in that split second, becomes today.

A clean slate to dream on, a beginning that is tangled up in the bedsheets of an end. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, all just words that melt together in the space between 12:00 and 12:00:01.

Blink, and a new day is born.

And by sunrise, the hunger sets in, the possibility, the curiosity.

The promise of anything that is everything.

Perhaps it is possible to be a night owl and a morning person all at the same time.

Perhaps I am a midnight to noon person.

There’s a moon in there, somewhere.

Whispering.