underneath

what sleeps in your heart,

is the truth of it

curled up like a cat,

soft and purring

but indifferent

 

 

what sleeps in your heart

could it be that trapped voice,

silenced

like one drowning

under ice

who sees the surface

but is unable to break through,

mouth full of water

on the sharp thin verge of surrender

to the overwhelming

weight of cold 

what sleeps in your heart

is who you really are

and if you don’t see that

you may sink to the bottom

alone

and never wake up

 

 

 

keep off the grass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you owned the neighborhood as a kid

wandering from yard to yard

never considering

such inconsequential matters as privacy

or the vague intricacies of lawn care

it was all yours, except

for the yard belonging to that mean man

the one every street had

the one who didn’t let you walk

on his immaculately groomed grass

and who called your mother if he ever caught you

he was the one your parents even thought

was kind of a jerk

except they never said it, of course

never agreed with you, of course

but, as they reprimanded you

telling you for the umpteenth time

to stay away from his yard

or you’d be confined indefinitely to your own

significantly reducing the size and scope

of the entire universe

they seemed to exchange secret, knowing looks

as if perhaps, remembering

their own childhoods

their own mean men

they secretly understood, maybe

they sympathized in silent camaraderie

when you moaned about how unfair it was

because he had the nicest grass to play on 

 

 

the proper attire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I donated the dress I wore to my father’s funeral

gave it away

placed it in the bottom of a bag

under an old coat and some shirts

the dress was nice

but I have no need to wear it again 

my father died in spring

and it was difficult at a time like that

to figure out what to wear

the lightness of the season counterbalanced

with the needs of a somber occasion

 

but it wasn't a somber dress

in fact, it was almost exuberant

a large scale print of abstract flowers

splashed across a flouncy skirt

it was sleeveless, with an exaggerated collar 

my choice for necklace 

was the only jewelry he ever gave me

hematite beads,

once known as blood stone

the strand doubled around to fill in the empty space

created by the open V-neck 

his death was a surprise, he wasn’t sick,

they say my father died in his sleep,

peacefully, on a warm spring evening

flowers blooming in the dark outside his window

as colorful as my pretty dress

he hated that dress
so I don't need it anymore 

 

thoughts, one month later

a pressure cooker

was used as an explosive device

this cooking pot

meant

for the creation of nourishment

perverted

to butcher an innocent crowd

 

once a harmless vessel

now filled to the brim

with agony

and simmering hate

to be doled out with terror

 

what kind of hunger

drives someone to invent

such a recipe?

 

foggy morning

what can you say 

about the fog

that hasn’t already been written 

that it rolls in like a blanket

soft gray tufts drape the ground

in slinky damp 

that it disguises some features

while others glow

against its dull backdrop 

that it drifts away

taking with it the otherworld

created or revealed 

there is nothing new to write

about the fog

but I did it anyway

 

 

Joy To The World

I'm not sure what to blog about so I’m just going to share what I’ve been thinking lately...it's about joy, I've been thinking alot about joy.

Do you have enough joy in your life?

What do you do that brings you joy?

Right now there are days where for the life of me I can’t think of a single thing that would actually bring me joy – not anything realistic anyway. I mean, winning the lottery would be totally amazing, so would a free trip somewhere exotic. Finishing my novel would surely bring me veritable fits of joy – and maybe someday I’ll get there but for now I’m not even close, so that leaves me pretty much back to square one.

No question, being a mom often does bring me great joy (among other things, lol.) My kids can completely delight me on a regular basis just by being themselves. I'd say delight is right on par with joy. Fulfillment, too, is at least a close relation to joy.  Probably my most fulfilling moments in all of my life have been as a mother.

In the last couple of years or so my other moments of fulfillment have mainly come from writing, in one form or another (the slow progress of my novel not withstanding). I do sometimes find the actual practice of writing itself joyful-ish, to a certain degree. But truth be told it’s also equal parts maddening and agonizing depending on the hour. Apparently I’m in excellent company: I recently read that when Virginia Woolf was asked about her love of writing she retorted that she loved having written.

Still, I do get a thrill writing something profound or witty…I've even had the rare experience of writing something that took my own breath away. However, touching another person in any way with my writing is probably the most profound joy outside of motherhood that I’ve ever known. Those moments can be rather few and far between…occurring just often enough to keep me going, but not nearly often enough to keep me "joyed up" for very long.

The last time I remember actually being joyful for reasons beyond motherhood or writing was…well, I don’t remember but it was no doubt probably before cancer. And I’m also guessing it was fleeting. I think I was regularly happy…happy blogging here, about getting my novel underway, about finding more time for poetry…happy in my marriage, with my children (always) and even getting there about myself. Frequently my life achieved a satisfying rhythm that often brought me a certain amount of contentment…but it’s hard to remember now when looking back thru the lens of cancer if I felt much joy before my diagnosis.

But then again, what is joy anyway? How do you describe it? Is it like pornography, indefinable but you know it when you see it?

Would I still know it if I saw it?

For now joy remains elusive. Happiness is not a frequent visitor either. It was two years ago yesterday since finding the damned lumps and I still feel like I’m in the thick of it. Cancer duties linger…there are scans, appointments, maintenance. Michael now has his own set of appointments, scans and research…he’s the one in a holding pattern now. In between I try to reassemble my life. But I feel like components are missing. Pieces of me were taken away with the scalpel that contained more than flesh, tissue and cancerous tumors. I think they contained some of my capacity for joy.

But I'm still looking for it because you never know.  You just never do.  It could be anywhere.