Now

Night’s blanket has been pulled to reveal a faint light
The Morning call rings out
Demanding that we push our dreams
Aside and attend to the business of living: lunch to make, messages to check, meetings to attend, bills to pay
Bodies move methodically in their daily tasks
Cars are warmed for the daily commute, busses filled
But somewhere between home and the place you will live most of your life there is calm-
A silent ululation
The day reveals a silent gift
The trees have been brushed with frozen water
They glisten like crystal
Setting an etherial glow to an otherwise normal morning

Novice

 

Novice

The hands are awkward

Betraying uncertainty

Determination of spirit keeps them moving

Patience soothes frustration

In the journey of beginning

The Old Woman in the Shoe

 

The hands are cracked and the body aches

I am the old woman

Three decades

Lost to dreams

Had my chance.

He seemed like a gift- unknown in my innocence.

Too soon domesticity became my God.

 

Four children followed three.

The silver moon never shines for me

It is over

The floors are dirty

Another child grows

Nothing to do but brood.

Blamed for my sex

Loving each wet face that is pulled from my body

Assured that they will be entrusted to me; penniless and alone

Only to be ripped from my embrace too soon to feel the imprint of my love.

 

Five children followed four.

And I become a symbol

Of cruelty- of anger- mother.

 

Please give me hope:

Show me the colour in the morning

The light in the day

The stars in the sky

So I might not dwell on

Now.

The Grief of Iphigenia: A Mother’s Pain

Chaos and Creation: The Tower of the Winds

The Mirror

Mirror (Sylvia Plath)

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Barrier

Cutting up onions makes me cry

So I bought plastic glasses

A barrier

It doesn’t help

When a father’s grief echoes in my own heart

His child  in grade one

One of twenty-six to die

He thanks the world for their support

Mourning his daughter

Extending an olive branch to the family of the shooter

The Water Bearer

I am not alone

I stand between time

The waters of life flow between my hands

Nourishing all

Passionate Poetry…

The Ultimatum (Another Perspective)