Little Girl

Born in the harsh bright lights of a hospital room the first thing she heard was her mothers yelling voice

whisked away to routine and strangers she opened her eyes

a new place

a few days later while her diaper was being changed

again she heard the mother voice

high pitched and needy

hands once again rescued her

a pattern emerged

life was a puzzle

figuring out the fickle needs of the mother voice and adapting to it

going to stay with other mother types on weekends

Becoming adroit at being strong

while wanting/craving a chance to be a little girl

curling up on your bed at night listening to alcohol fueled rants and knowing that your absolute job is to mother your mother

not knowing that tears drip for you in heaven.

WORDS

I love words

words are the beginning and the end

of my very being

words have saved me when nothing else could

they tingle on my tongue

sizzle deep within my soul

sliding slowly into my brain

they exault my thoughts

they gently

softly affect my world


they change me in a moment

and inspire me for a lifetime

HOME

A home is security

Its love

Its smell, its taste and feel

It involves your every sense

yet makes no sense at all

A soft bed after a long day

A song pulling memories from your heart of times passed,

mind pictures flowing thick and fast



Mashed potatoes with lumps

and gravy too!

Brothers and sisters beating each other up,

boring family dinners that will not matter - till you’re grown





Aunt Ethel’s scratchy kiss

Undle Albert’s false teeth

New babies with their funny smell of fresh and new'

backpacks homework and that best football game

Old doilies and new Tupperware

overdue library books...

and puppies.



Funerals with sad relatives

old pictures of people they say are related to you

bubble baths and vitamins

eat your vegetables

clean your plate

and heres a cookie!



Sneaking to read under the covers at night

Grandmas coming, cinnamon rolls baking

a smell to wake up to



Shaking rugs, dusting and clean your room!

chores done in a hurry....



Baseball in the yard with your brother and friends

First day of school

new clothes and old teachers

bad food

good report cards



First date

First car

First love

Broken hearts

Graduation, wedding veils, more faces around the table



Someone once said that you can’t go home again



They obviously didn’t know about the power of a song

smell of chicken frying or the sound of children playing



Home is inside of us

we carry it wherever we go

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABSOLUTION

Standing under glistening stars
I think of you
you the taker

you appeared to give charm
acknowledgement
support
love
but your true role was to take
and so you did

you took money
you took children
you took dreams
that we talked about
long into the night
cuddled under covers
the moon shining in observance

you shattered trust
you stole idealism
you took everything
you thought you could

I stand here now under the same night sky
and my thoughts linger on you
the loser of my life
the taker
the harsh life lesson of knowing you

I look up up where the stars reside
dancing in their merry pattern
that existed long before
me
and you

I once loved you
and then after the long convoluted tale
of me and you had ended
I hated you
I really did
but tonight
under a frosty sky
that blurs the stars as it does my remembrance
I think of you

I finally see your unforgiving heart

in the limitless infinity of night sky

your limitations stand in stark contrast

there were glimpses
even when we were together
but I laughed them off
so sure I was of the power
of my love for you

no longer!

I have moved past the jailed subjugation of knowing you
reluctantly I understand
your power lives only in my mind

so under this starry frosty sky
where millions of people must be gazing
their thoughts and prayers
winging upwards
just like mine

I release you


you fly out of my heart
like the inept captive bird
that you always really were.

My face is cold with the settling frost
but my heart is warm
You are doing the best you can
I know that now

But you were never meant for my world
and I was never meant for yours
and for that

I release you.

FIRE

There once was a girl who saw too much and ran far inside herself
And when she could run no more she stopped
and leaning against the wall of tiredness and defeat
she sank and huddled down
All was still
except somewhere deep inside was that little girl
Still looking
That kind of look that makes you stare at the screen when the movies over and the
screen has faded to black
The kind that makes you stretch your eyes wider to cross a room in a darkness like pitch
Even knowing that wont help you see
Into this infinite nothingness she stared as she curled against that wall waiting
In spite of the looking and waiting it still caught her unaware
when it came
this mind numbing joyous light
Gently surrounding her
changing her
It warmed her light dimmed soul
And she became it
this fire
Small and crackling
Soothing and warm
And then bigger
And irrepressible
Impossible to ignore
A long overdue conflagration
of thoughts and feelings and ideas
and love
And whether made uncomfortable by her heat or drawn
by its warmth
people gazed at her fire

WHY I WRITE

I write to explore.

Like a road that wanders

to where I do not know.


In this earthly shell of one body

lies the flitting thoughts of many other potential roads.

The knowing that all our lives

could/would/did take certain paths

but what if?


What if a different choice had been made in a different moment?

Where would that path have lead?

Who would I have been?

Or what about living in a different time?

On a different continent?

What about trying to survive in a world

that made no sense at all?

How would I have lived and navigated then?


Crossing the west in a covered wagon,

being a geisha with porcelain Asian features,

or a young woman in Auschwitz during WW 2

What would have been the motives, the hopes, the choices?

Those worlds all contained plots and the characters that imbibed them.


Writing brings them out of the shrouds of time

cancels the mystery of distance

so they can climb right off the page

live out the words you write for them.

Making choices both heroic and not.

Being superbly human all unfolds

if you let it.


The tumbling kaleidoscope
of thoughts and patterns
translating into words
lets a writer explore
as many potential worlds
as Livingstone or Maro Polo
could have only dreamed of roaming.


While I am gently tethered to this earth with a physical body
the mind knows no such constraints
can move across culture and borders
and transcend even time itself.

In the crafting of words both delicate and heavy
emerges entire worlds e
equally as rich as the physical moment of now.

Think of your favorite character from a novel
and how meeting that character within the pages of a book transformed you.
Added dimension to how you viewed your own world.

You can be assured it transformed the writer who thought of it also.

It is in this glorious quest

for exploration and transformation

that I write

I AM THAT WOMAN

The one you overlook at first glance

Who appears world weary and drab

or

who seems to have a glint in her eye that makes you look twice

The one with veiled questions in her gaze that must be answered

Yes I am the sum of them all

I am that woman



My heart beats

My lungs sing with the new day

and my heart is alive

ALIVE

do you hear me?



I create your beloved home

The food that you eat

The child that you cherish



I am woman

As essential to life as sunshine to the earth

Do not count my voice as absent

as I am your wife, mother, sister, friend,

grandmother

and a million other wombs

all carrying the drumbeat of your male warrior hearts



Listen to me

I speak in the rain beating on your roof

The liquid falling silver of a full moon

and the promise of each new day



I am the one you hold in your arms at night

I am in your identity

guardian of hearth and of future



Do not pass by me in a hurried rush

Stop.

Hush!

Listen...