8 – Poems

1. Soliloquy of a Star
The peaks of blues released in harmony
in between the dense clouds of rain filled pockets
I notice how the break of wind
falls beside my friend.
The other break flows up and around
in the valley hills,
a rumble echoes across the plane
I hear the rolling unfeigned sorrow
Of Cat Stevens and his guitar playing
while the whipping of the wind dances off the glass
Illness happens energy falls, burned out grass
from smog imbuing sacks of fluid notes
breath soaks wets brass
eternity opens crowds dance
beloved time
the art of song cascades over seas
The sun radiates a sheet of warmth
Eric Clapton’s hearing dims
Music veiled in shadows descend
Sounds of whales in water blends
Springing forth fresh heavens
feeding the earth building soprano heights
Nana Mouskouri cradles children in music delight
The poor feed the true plight
of birds that seed a family strings kites
of fame that chains music down rivers.
Enya showers the valley with her haunting chants
Of wild weather turning cold to warm
A season of chicks chirping lyrics are born
These valleys witness the lonely landscapes of dust
We don’t see clearly as we did when ageing swells distrust
Only we dream and make them come true
The mounting of hymns
Bird sing
lightning snaps down the ground
splits grain in two
where mourning souls beat the drums
the day launches geese fly
light fades
night we die
still the children play
while day wind colors the frame of this painting
strung from your guitar
beauty where flame explodes the birth
of a star.

2. A Fable on Resurrection
Soft and muscular body
Painted spots on canvas of art
Colors of brown with spotted black
Eyes that take my breath away
Can you see my soul, my mind and my heart?
I am drawn into the wisdom
Wildness
Of your agility and speed
He came home to me from the fair
The first memory of Leopard was
The heart of our desperation
A fragmented fraying of ties being pulled
Apart
That Leopard’s strength can solve
By anchoring in the corner and in his beauty
We drew from his strength and if we could
Turn in a moment he would reveal how he’s real
There’s nothing to say about human nature
How boxes of rooms fill their space
To confine them
I watch them move in this unfading time that
Fills their stomach of trapped dreams
I’m tucked in their nightmare but needful here
To show them how nature and freedom is wild and infinite
As the trees reproduce
Filter through expanse of air
Where gliding and falling through moments that build
Through memories where the heart and the hunt combine the patience
Of waiting
There isn’t time to think about what could be
Or will be but now
My leopard is pulled and tugged dragged and played with
open and its seams are torn
my child cries at such a wound as this
leopard dies
I soothe my beautiful boy
And remind him of choice to mend that life is full of rips
And tears but with love and teamwork
We can fix leopard
We thread the needle I pull it through
This fine needle and sew
My son’s turn to stitch and stitch this fatal wound
our leopard sits once again
In awe struck beauty he watches and moves
showing us that in life’s uncertainty
Wild love is great and eternal.

3. Recipe of Seeds
I stand to witness ‘us’
On earth and use air that trees convert
Those that break my sticks and bones
hide their act beneath stones
I feel the wind and balance the shift as I swallow your breath
The life that casts your shadow dark
Is the essence of life your seed and bark
Every turn of century looms
The family is what keeps us pruned
In time the planets turn
Make music we too sound our song
And birds that perch upon these limbs
within this universe ,
the difference between the tree and me
is that I bleed where sound can’t see.
The greens of my leaves are true to the color of the sun
Our eyes glimpse an image created and spun.

4. Ode to a Slave
I call for you through
That smoky fog
Groundless I am
In darkness smog
Surround my movement
Flowing
Seeing you
No sound
No voice
No body
No choice
I scream
My voice echoes back into myself
I try to see
My eyes sewn shut
The weight of me
This state of nothingness
I’m stuck
No freedom limitless
This tomb of yours
The gravel fills my mouth
Below
The panic left me
Still
This place of endless blackness
I call to God in prayer and there
Right through the curtains a stream of light
Glistening there
I see the colors of paisley flowers
Of painted dreams
Relieve the hours
I awake
This is real
I feel
Surreal
You conceal
A plan a deal
Your love unreal
The day you buried my heart
Plunged it deep in the earth
Trees tower mirrors part
I float I hover and shield
This life inside
The joy I sew the music I thread
The moment I bled
The life you kept
Unshackled instead
I dance ahead
I rise from the dead.

5. A Wife
A father’s pride sees fit his stride
And baby oh baby how love is there
When you lie and stare into heavens of those who know to love you
Is it that easy to labor and break a habit?
Strong enough to win this medal
But lost enough to lose the battle—living.
This life ageless
Death and life intertwine
My son don’t hold back your love she spun
The hearts of many who seek the crown
Only to find a father’s devotion in the bosom of once
cradled in his mother
he receives the blessings of a simple woman
A wife.

6. The Plague
I was sleeping
Death moved through walls
Her eyes dark holes, hair black and matted
I awoke
Her pajamas flowing, she floated high above me
She turned looked at me
Then passed through the window
Returned she lay beside me
She looked right through me
Frightened circled my room
Sickness then fluidly passed through the same window
the pandemic
Striking, piercing
Fear gripping
Struck early dawn in November 2020
Day unknown
No writing in my journal this nightmare
Before the news
I saw diseaase
Of what is too come
Affliction and death
Perhaps I met this plague before
The house of cancer
The woman in the window then at the door
Staring out unable to thrive
White face dark circles matted hair
Loss of beauty illness steals the body of its health
Once lost restored
Change of scene…. like a play?
More like an encounter where night preys on the day.

7. The Woman I Am
I am perplexed by words spoken at me
It’s not as though they were unexpected
I prayed for those words to relieve me the pressure
Of attaching my love before I spoon
It’s not like I chose to be severe in my morals
I need the severity so there are no quarrels
I simply leave at the first man who clings
I think it’s my past unknown wasps still sting
Accept its long term that blocks the way to keep secure
I don’t plan on engaging anymore
I’m too protected a diamond stored
Not the pearl in a shell but deep in stone
I keep my heart to only one
This happiness I have is mine that I share
But when you come close my desires scare
Because I love so much it isn’t contained
And some men who are wounded flock toward me
It seems
I block out anyone new and keep alone
Until I find a healthy stone that doesn’t mind
The break of hands that hold
Or shatter at the touch of love that matters
I don’t mind alone if it means I keep my grace about me
A true woman inside and out
I desire a true man who isn’t afraid to kneel
One who’s strong and weak revealed
If only to collide our hearts into one
Because children are precious and love is never
undone.

8. You are Enough
It’s just a store
Save on Foods, nothing special.
Accept when I sat in the parking lot crying.
A tap on the window from a stranger asking if I am all right
I was okay. I was releasing too much emotion my body couldn’t contain.
Or standing in an open area of the store after I found out I lost you.
I don’t know what happened, or where I went. I was in ‘shock’ that held me frozen.
I stared.
I could not move or think.
It was in this fragment that my dad came to rescue me.
He walked me out.
Save on Foods the grocery store is the same after all these years. The memory hasn’t changed.
I have.
Packing away your clothes, I couldn’t find my space, I was nauseous
I got lost in my head. It got dark, so I crawled inside myself.
No sound.
No view.
It’s a coping mechanism when under severe shock
of great loss.
It’s important to note that writing this has nothing to do with poetry
but it has everything to do with a moment in time.
That walls contain where no one sees.
The fine fibers of the rug, I remember. I moved your bed so we can build a pirate ship.
You see, the posts made this impression on the rug,
a permanent mark stained.
It shows you were here.
It reveals I was an active mother.
In time I birthed beauty.
I held you and showed you to the world.
A time where you ran and walked and talked
right before my eyes.
“Mama”
I won’t hear it when you say it now that moment is gone.
It isn’t the same.
But in dreams, when we sleep, it unrolls like a film from a camera.
Every breath of love we experienced
unfolds.
And we see It, and we know.
That however long we are here
It’s enough to love,
It’s enough to be gentle,
It’s enough to care.
You are enough.