Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Nobody said it would be easy.

It's cripplingly simple, but not always easy.  Easier than I ever thought it would be, or even thought it had a right to be.  I thought it had to be hard.  But it doesn't.  Mostly it's just getting out of the way of it.  Who'da thunk it?  Not me, that's fur shure.  It feels like my brain is learning a whole new way to think, and at the same time that I'm recovering something I thought I threw away and shit on and put down the drain years ago.  Something I forgot that I forgot I had.  I know, I know, it sounds crazy.  It sounds crazy to me sometimes.  It's like I have deja vu and jamais vu and presque vu at the same time.  The best part, for me anyway, is not having to react anymore.  I mean, I'm not miraculously healed, I still react sometimes, but I don't have to, and I know it.  I really do feel miraculously healed, sometimes.  Other times I feel like nothing, or not much has changed, but really so much has.  I'm not making any sense.  And that's okay.  

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Ok, maybe it IS a little bit a poetry blog...

I'm going to see the world's best baby!  My nearly-brother and his wonderful wife (my almost-sister-in-law) have this wonderful kid.  In Vermont, pray for my tiny cold tootsies.  I can't wait to see Les and meet his lady and cuddle my practically-nephew!

Lookit that baby, she thinks.
His open face is both solemn and happy.
The light in his eyes says his spirit
lives down in there full time and 
finds it safe and good.  He's heavy 
and solid with it, and she envies
him and longs to protect him in 
equal measure.  Her brain sings
of all the sorrow he'll see if he's 
lucky to have long life, but she 
brushes it away and thinks of the
joys.  It's the same story, really;
told with the heart in the throat 
or on the sleeve.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

More poemage:

Faced with an afternoon all to myself, when several things I might have done fell through and I was left to my own devices, I actually decided to treat myself to my favorite things.  So amazing to me, that I even knew what they were anymore.  Clear head is wonderful.  So I went to the State Cemetery where I had a nice conversation with a stranger, and to Natural Treasures rock shop, where I bought myself a rock or three, and rode my bike around until I was tired enough to get on a bus for home.  I shared my orange with a bum waiting for the bus, and once boarded sat calmly through the meth-head next to me getting bitch-slapped (twice!) by his nutso cohort, though I wanted to feel as though I should have intervened.  While I was sitting in the cemetery I sat down to write and this came out:

Cemeteries soothe her, the comfort of the 
promise of death less morbid than centering.
Long impatient, ever perfectionist, she loves
a goal toward which she need not strive.
Reclining on a stranger's grave, unsure of any
afterlife, she communes more with the life lived
than the liver.  At these times it is easy to 
imagine the day that this shading tree, the
soft grass beneath her back, will have covered her
for longer than she will live.  She arises content, 
prepared to make of it what it will have been.
Isolated graveyards have their purpose, she
supposes, but prefers those that are overrun with life.
Traffic noise should counterpoint the creek beside
the willow, bustling homes be visible from every
lonely plot.  Her favorite boneyard sits beside a 
school--an orange never more delicious than one
eaten crouched among the solemn influenza 
victims to the lively strains of recess.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Uh, oh! She's been writing poetry!

Yep.  I must be feeling better.  I've been sleeping really well for a while now but last night I had a hard time drifting off and gave a big think to all those long, sleepless nights.  Then I dashed off a non-rhyming version of this and slept immediately.  When I woke up, my brain had neatly arranged it to rhyme while I slept.  Enjoy. 



Night has always been her enemy, 
When constant, soothing motion is forbid.
Her head mines the breadth of her pillow
As if that's where her precious sleep were hid.
She tosses so regular, and
Turns with such state!
So pendulously tolls, "It's 
Late, it's late, it's late!"
She calls it restfullness and prays
To God in imperious tones, "Thou wilt
Give me peace and respite."  Meanwhile
Her thoughts sift deep around her, fretful silt.
In the end, she sleeps, or doesn't.  Either way
The sun and she both rise and greet the day.