Songs of the Heart
Read at your peril. The life of a woman whose world fell apart from grief, and is being rebuilt. It could be disturbing. Or peace found could be comforting. Your call.
Read at your peril. The life of a woman whose world fell apart from grief, and is being rebuilt. It could be disturbing. Or peace found could be comforting. Your call.
life revisited
Windblown
I know what weeping is now I mean I really know, from the drowning inside out How it vice-grips my stomach Curled into a hot ball of p a i n On the sofa How it slams my head against the wall Over and over and over and over How it can be possible So many tears Swim out of your eyes drown your face Is there enough kleenex or do I Use my sweater to soak them up Surely you are so dry now You’ll float away Like campfire sparks gone zero remains I know what wailing is I know how howls, howls, mind you Stream out of my body I know how loud they are How they sound like a madwoman And the sky is screaming I know what it is to run with anguish Anguish is my partner I don’t like him He rips my tiny cells into even tinier pieces Flings them into the air Like they don’t matter they are nothing to him Like each one wasn’t meant to hold its neighbour In tangled loving knots But here, look! Really look this time Finish the tears at least for a second Breathe breathe again close your eyes Breathe Give in to air and the stuff of life Far off coming closer in leaps and then big joyous bounds What was there who was there is there still Take the hand held out to me There is still life There are still knots They cannot be untangled once joined Do I feel a tiny breeze Is that a shift in the wind Because I remember standing on the mountain top Windblown all to hell Held up by the high blue blue deep blue sky I could fly then I can fly now In the same sky No more need to look down time as though it were A one-way path I am lucky I can dance There is a man
There is a man There is a cord a chord accord See it as a silken thread Woven together Hear it as a song A single vibration Feel it as Swaying in sync Entangled
Anticipating that Each thing now Each woman each man Each couple of animals Separate and joined Cells and particles Bodies warm bodies Each moves Each loves Touches between us Slim words only illustrate The fullness depth weight The mix Don’t don’t ever take it as ordinary There is nothing ordinary about it Tired
There is a word for tired That I haven’t found yet But we all know it Tired beyond words or acts or intent Battered broken limp done I’d like to watch the birds from the sofa But even my eyes have given up On joy |
Sing
I could make anguish my partner I could pine for what is not But it’s tiring Hard on this old heart This old soul I’m gonna dance instead Find the rhythm feel the rhythm Sing an old croaky voice loud Sweet
I’m tired of being tired Tired of not finding the sweet spot The sweet soft spot where lies quiet But maybe that’s because Instead of it coming to me I can walk to it Shoe Cove
My life has been full of small things Small things carried From the way distant past my way distant past Things found Two tiny flowers Dinner plate Worn cotton fabric A Purity Lemon Cream Biscuits box With the moose in the trademark Became a drawing That hangs on the wall in the house of the man Who showed me Shoe Cove Whose father worked for the biscuit maker For decades Shells from two oceans Worn and smoothed stones from rivers that run from the mountains The angel pin I gave my sister to watch over her broken brain My dad’s golfball invention so no bending required The mixing bowl my mother bathed my baby sisters in My husband’s rings he seldom wore Things Old old ties to old old time Another message from this old universe It’s all one all here now all the time I carry you all in my heart And you will all be there forever Because forever is now Gifts I am far too fortunate These gifts are better than me I feel like a child Not sure what it means to be human Except for sunlight Watching ants on the pavement With my face practically touching them So in direct proportion to what I gave I am getting now It’s washing over me waves of gifts I am truly not worthy And I am humble I can answer the question How are you I can actually form a response That isn’t composed of noise and angst The response is I am too fortunate I feel like a child Learning to see ants for the first time We breathed the cosmos
Once, something happened on a lake in Algonquin At night we went for a paddle in the dark No lights no sounds quiet quiet quiet Except for the slow silken swish of the paddle through the water The note of the paddle softly clunking the side of the boat Dark two people one canoe Sky and lake the same tone of dark Sky and lake the same thing Land and its reflection in the water in the centre one mass a stripe of soft deep black charcoal laid across the expanse of sky and lake a stack of sky, mass of not-sky, then sky again Suddenly this is not paddling on a lake In Algonquin This is paddling somewhere off planet Maybe just over there near Saturn Maybe hiding behind the moon Out there in the dark Maybe light somewhere but far far away Our blue home somewhere but not under us In the world but not anchored to it We breathed the cosmos And it took our breath away Don’t forget Don’t forget it’s still there That lake that dark that floating On stardust and all that is |