Category: Poems {Going Quietly Sane}

{Stretching the Canvas of our Imagination}

Silence
Silence

I’ve tried to sit down and read all day.

Instead I’ve placed phone calls to doctors, waited impatiently for return calls from nurses about supplements and medication’s interactions, and run twice to pharmacy and grocery store.  And, on it goes. One child threw up this morning. Another is dealing with headaches of the magnitude that you or I would be in bed – a 9 on a scale of 1 -10.  Children should not have to suffer so and as I deal with the litany of doctors, I am trying to be the advocate for the whole person who is my child. And be gracious.

I ate my third meal in as many days and just for a minute sipped ginger ale and will write this, Though I’m not technically sick (Moms don’t do that) I am unwell.  The headaches and body aches with this particular virus are awful.  Eating feels like an X sport.

I’ve been trying to read all day and life keeps getting in the way.

As the holidays come rushing, with the “extra” everything on the calendar, this small task will only become more difficult – there will be concerts, school projects, plays, shopping, and parties,there will be more of everything.

And I’ve tried to slow down and read because I know its important to make IT stop. 

It’s essential, I think, to get up even earlier or stay up little later, just to BE. 

We need it. To read that something, or to pray a little, or to write a poem or whatever we do “to stretch the canvas of our imagination”. We need to listen to meaningful music or place a phone call to an important friend or stop and say I love you. To write that letter of appreciation to someone that you perhaps wanted to do at Thanksgiving but didn’t get around to. It’s important to do those things in a whirlwind life full of obligations and duty, or service to others, or personal illness, or whatever our life entails.

It’s essential to make it all stop, especially during December to slow, and celebrate. Advent is about waiting – anticipating, leaning in, listening, and keening toward the Holy One.  This takes intention.

All day, I’ve been trying to start a small little book by Enuma Okoro, Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent.   And finally, I have begun.  In the introduction she reminds us what it means to cultivate patience. We walk along side Zechariah and Elizabeth and learn from them.

In Silence, she says: “The hard work of Advent reflection and waiting is mingled with the gift of time and space to dream new dreams, to bathe in pools of hope, and to stretch the canvas of our imagination wide enough for God to paint God’s own visions for our lives.”

What one thing are you trying to do this holiday season to slow yourself down, reflect and do the holy work of waiting?  How will you wait?

Will you allow the Holy One to paint a new vision for your life?

Melody

Advert: To purchase this book in Kindle or print, go here.

{We Are All Dying}

The crawl of fear,
of losing, is close.  It licks me,
as if I am a salty wound.  Everyone dies.

Of course.

But lately, I am aware
of Life all around me

healthy or otherwise.

Tiny birds are singing a sonnet, high up in the tree.
Cancer cells are growing inside a dear old friend.
Dementia and life-stealing pain overtake a sweet elderly neighbor.
Depression and anxiety crush the once glowing spirit of my child

Meanwhile I cling
to sanity, to sobriety
and to Faith, there is Peace.

We are all dying,

and yet without the thought of imminent loss,
of the Ultimate loss, death

we haven’t appreciated our life as a gift.

Everyone dies.
Everyone lives.

Won’t you choose to live?

Choose joy in the midst of sorrow and grief?
Choose peace when hope seems dim?
Yes, fear circles around me like a flame, curling and

enveloping me in those early morning hours when

fear wakes me with a vice grip on my heart, blood pulsing.
Aware, that I am alive.

Everyone lives.
Everyone dies.

They are bitter, these days and nights.  Acrid, this
awareness

of life. Pungent,

and in this Pain,
there is a Holy Awareness.

Life’s aroma is sweet.

{When You are Clutching at Hope}

Is it enough to strive?

to want,

to work,

to try
your hardest. Is it enough? There are no guarantees.
Friendships flounder, parents betray, marriages flop or fizzle, children

flail. life
hurts immeasurably

sometimes, is it enough
to try harder? To do your best, when your best
just doesn’t make it all — work — out?
God is faithful, always. is the promise but really, I want to say
always?
Life hurts in my pores, each breath catches in my lungs.

How it possible — God is faithful.
So much sorrow, grief, loss.
So much pain, death, anguish.
How is it possible,
that God is faithful, a comfort;
is holding us tight, sheltering?

Is it okay, I don’t feel it?
Is it okay, I’m not certain?
Is it okay
that every pore hurts?
How it is possible,
God, how?

That’s the trust, that’s the whole thing.

Letting go, free falling into his wings.

{anxiety is a rabid dog}

anxiety is a dog.

not like mine, fluffy and sweet.

anxiety is a killer

dog, rabid.

I am eaten up,

chewed on.  I am

consumed.

++++++

“Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.” – Samuel Johnson, From The Rambler

{Dust to Dust}

This is the week I learned that our children do not belong to us.
We are not gods, to create a small being in our image.
They come to us

needy and helpless, and we are
Caretakers.  Lives, made up of
oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, even
heart, mind, and soul;
each are but dust returning to dust.

Arrogantly we live
day after day, with these small persons
believing that each meal, healthy or otherwise,
each book carefully chosen and lovingly read,
each activity selected so diligently,
each pastime and hobby, talent nurtured,

each word spoken into their small world

will stop them, and

start them,

make them
do; our Possession

to be molded, shaped, crafted
carefully controlling every encounter while they are young.
As if it changes anything.
Eventually they will choose Life or Death.

Unthinking, we are judiciously creating a small being
In Our Image.

This is the week I lost.

I knew,
I gave,
I wept,
I died,
I let go.
This is the week everything changed forever;
Inside me something broke
open;
the illusion of control.

This is the week, I gave them back;
to be “mine” is to lose them forever.

Yes, this is the week I lost.
And yet, here they are. Still
living and breathing, asleep in their beds.

and I am (still) full of hope, leaning on it

confident of this:

They are not mine, they are
released from my sweaty grip.

This is the week everything changed forever,

as mother became
helpless, child became

person, and everything changed, forever.

{When Up is Down}

Up is down

And down is up.  God is real

To me.  And doesn’t exist

To others.  I pray
And God does not answer. Others pray

And seem to know.

Up is down

And down is up.

I have too much.
Others don’t have enough.  I am stuffed
Others hungry.

My heart aches and others seem to dance,
always dance.

They say I am a good mother
I believe otherwise.

They say he was a good man,

I say bad, very bad.
We have everything but we feel empty.

Good and bad
Up and down.

What is? 
What is not?

{an apology to God}

this is an apology

to God, I suppose.

if I’ve learned anything over the last few months

reading the Bible end to end, it is that

God is faithful.

He never promised us that life would be

pain free,

or without problems. Only

to be there

with us, behind us, ahead of us, around us;

I’m clinging to him.

{on feeling the crazies and hoping, still}

some days just are.

crazy that is,

when you wonder how to catch your breath.  and realize
in a shocking moment that you may not be taking in h20.  and yet miraculously you’re still

alive.

panic, dread and fear threaten to consume. some internal, perfectionist voice screaming: this can’t be right?
how can parenting

be so hard?
early, before the dawn you rose up out of bed.  in the dark, sipping

hot coffee, you read about being called. and you prayed to be wise. knowing.

a steward of the precious lives, entrusted.

my head says, poor me.  life is so difficult.  wisdom scarce. challenges too many,

i want to flee.
bail. feeling hopeless, helpless but God promises
to be a SHIELD.

you read: “He lifts my head.”

i am shocked, perplexed by these words, from Henri JM Nouwen who said he was “impressed by the enormous abyss between my insights and my life.”

some days

are about longing for wisdom, dreaming and hopeful, still

in the midst of the crazy years.

{I Believe}

I believe in God.

I believe in God, and  what Jesus did, being human.

Living fully, dying to atone for my messes,

of which there are many.  That Jesus

lives and now is with God the Father.  It is at times confusing and

other days

simple.  Just believe.

Or choose not to, that is your right.

I believe God speaks — within time, even to me

as God has spoke to many throughout the ages.

I want my life, the writings and images that I capture in time

to be

worship.

Revealing both the goodness and the devastation of this one life I have. Because

that–is–real.

I hope in God.  I hope in God to reveal

him or herself to me.  And then

what I share might help others as much as it has

utterly transformed me.

{faith is waiting, leaning in. a lump in the throat}

It is the prolific writer and theologian, Frederick Buechner, who said:

“Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…. Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.”

A poem that came to me this morning.

MORNING FAITH

a mother wakes in the darkness.

shivers, the room is cold. there is a sacrifice,  rising

before them all.  it is also her survival.

the sky inky blue black, she stumbles down the stairs.

these moment, early

are thick

with her worries, cloying.  she sits

physically surrendering to the Holy One’s presence.

Let me be your life.  

Let me fill the crevices of your heart where you still fret and worry.  Trust in me and surrender your doubts about ephemeral things like destiny, talents and purpose.

Your fears about the children, and their walk in faith.

Your anxious heart can be full today if you open your sweaty grasping hands.

Surrender Child. Trust me.

Why is it so daily, this laying down of self?  Letting go of control?  This giving in, this

believing

again, today.

MELODY

“That we may come to be one spirit with God and be found under grace, may God help us all! Amen.” — Meister Eckhart, a modern translation.

Running Toward Life

Writing the first words, after being gone is a little terrifying. I am

out of sync. And that’s the greatest crime, the cardinal rule. Bloggers write.  Regularly, with precision and passion

without pausing.

But I took time off.

I had to do it and I know that I was doing the right thing.

I did it in order to learn, to read (I read half the Bible), spend time with my kids, and figure out why it is so hard for me to just be.

For it is more important who I am than what I think. 

It is more important how I treat people than how I lay down words on a page.

It is most important that I am being the person. than that I am writing about her.

Now I feel creaky, rusty even to even put these few words here.  To begin the offering of myself again to others.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve had thousands of words come.  Most still a jumble

in my head.  And heart, as I ran more than 180 miles this summer the words came.

My head and heart and soul are full.

And I’m hopeful, for I am a gentler, (hopefully) wiser, more circumspect and certainly more confident person

after taking a break.

I look forward to joining up with you again soon

with chapters of the book, more poetry and ongoing spiritual musings. And some of the hundreds of photographs that I enjoyed taking.

MELODY

{Fly Away From Me: On Children}

I woke up this morning, the sun creeping in earlier than I wanted.  Coming out of my dreams, I felt grief wash over my body, sore from running daily; I felt the years wash over me physically.  And fear.

I am afraid for all the time—lost.  Gone.

My children are almost grownup into people, yet not ready to face the challenges of being adult.  But more and more they are absent from me and I feel their absence, the loss, physically — These babies I fed from my breast, nurtured if feebly the best I knew how.  Babies I brought in to the world through the tearing of my flesh and blood.  They are young adults and the time is gone.

I’m running out of time and as I woke I felt the years,

Weighty, heavy, lost.

Lost to the days of over working; long workaholic driven years of loving work more than I loved being at home.  I have forgotten those toddler years, unable to recall the first word, first steps, first book, I simply cannot remember.  Write everything down they said, but I thought I’d remember.

I was wrong.

Lost, because of so many days of a drunken cloud, a constant buzz from self-medicating.

I was trying to forget the sadness, the feelings of inadequacy. Feeling doubt in a world of devoted, sure people. Feeling the loss of losing the faith of my parents and not being courageous enough (yet) to find my own.

I lost many years of my children’s lives to being a drunk.

I woke this morning feeling the weight of it, a grief that is carved deeply within.  It is a heart ache, and with a cry  I wanted to start fresh.  A second chance; to rewind back fifteen years to hearing that I was pregnant for the first time.  I was surprised that my body, which I had loathed all my life, was capable of giving life.  And then I felt annoyed at the interruption to my career.  And then it came eventually; the felt joy and disbelief.

Now that baby girl, my little bird, is a young woman.  She is gone more than she is here and each interaction feels like our last.  I know we have just a few more years.  I think: hang on to love and do what you can to keep things open and safe.  I want to have a home, a heart that welcomes; A home of second chances, and third and fourth.  Arms open wide.

The days are slipping away, the chances are running out.

Even as I know this I know that I cannot clutch at her.  I must open my hands, joyfully and watch her fly. I will pray that she will want to return.

As I get up and face another day, it is to keep the nest warm and welcoming.    Yes, I woke up this morning already grieving. I knew.

My little bird is practicing her flight away from me.