Friday and Halloween

It is both those things. Oh yeah.

Evening ramble

It is the best I have to offer
even when the world
in its churning turning madness
bewilders me or shuts me up
robbing me of conversational skill

My pen rolls ineffably over paper
recording the internal life of me
as I respond to some facet of experience
plain and unimpressive to eyes that pass me by
cut or dismiss or prefer other sights

But I remember that if sometimes I am
breakable
so are you in the enormity of all the yous
the world full of fragility
and not everyone has escaped me unscathed

Of braver stronger truer souls there are multitudes
but someone gave me words and pen and paper
so I pick up this small group of things
and when a thing seems to want to be written
well
it’s the least I can do

I know the amazement of some souls
who intuit what is needed and see to
the doing of it
wordlessly and with no fuss whatsoever
and truth be told
before such skill I lay down my pen
abashed and humbled before the beauty in that

~~~~~~~~~~

Dear woman
who raised women with an ability
to sense what is needed and make it so
who know more than I ever will
would you sit with me for some time
and tell me what needs to be done
how to do it

I hover at such a distance
broad as the sky over the sea
you know so much of what I must learn
perhaps there is a place for me
once I sat near where you have been
but then I wonder what you’d make of me
maybe I ought to drift away
lose myself in the forest where once
someone showed me a vista
and soft tears sprang up on a soft day
as we spoke of something with heartbreak in it
tell me the way for there is one
you know what needs to happen

~~~~~~~~~~

If you must know
it does seem that I am longing
for dew damp leaves to roll in
so early that the world is in that still state
where its colors are not yet awake

Pain informs the night
so I close myself against it
turning inward toward memories of tending
hollow presence because who I am
shall give the last kiss of recognition
remembering to let a child have the apple
before the place I inhabit turns to dust