Poetry

Letter

I thought of you when I woke this morning.
​Outside, the early clouds were breaking and the sun, having been sequestered for the last few days was finding its way through the cold Christmas sky. Elderly trees gilded strangely in platinum from the night’s freezing shower crackled to life – each breeze blowing through the valley stirred sleeping limbs awake – shedding ice like old dogs waking, stretching tired bones.
​​​​ Gray clouds demurred carrying winter elsewhere for the moment letting the cerulean sky breathe, its weakened sun finding sudden strength. From sulking boughs of black walnuts, ice and water cascaded along Progress Street, small starbursts shining in the dawning light, some even finding my coffee in hand, cooling the morning’s first cup.
​ I wanted to take a picture and capture the moment, but it was too alive to remain still on a page. Too beautiful to be frozen in an image. So, I relegated myself to simply observing, merely attempting instead to be part of the moment without holding it captive
​It reminded me of many times in life when such would have been the better course. The words of Blake’s, “Eternity”, echoed in my mind once again, reiterating that which I have long attempted to teach myself – that life and poetry are one and sometimes conceding a moment is better than seizing it.
​ So, I stood along the street in mismatched clothes and the silly hat you liked so much, watching the sun sublimate ice from the neighbor’s fence and wondered what your day will be like when you wake, thousands of miles and a lifetime away

32 Town of Black

 Someone stole them  
 in the early morning hours
 while the sun had scarcely shone,
 before the chill was chased away,
 before life was given to day.
 Terror pierced the air
 and desperate with fear
 I raced falling over footsteps
 heart swooning with sickness
 and fell to my knees
 seeing my children lying there, asleep,
 with a silence too sacred to break
 and a stillness too final to stir.
  
 Now the days demur to newness,
 and the world seems strange
 as if waking from a dream
 in a foreign place
 where yesterday
 and the present share the same face —
 and despite this inherent steadfast Faith,
 despite this finite disposition
 every waking moment is suffering—
 they are gone and I could not save them.
 My children are gone.