Poetry
If you've found this page then you've found me, as there is nothing more personal, more revealing than the words that I write in my poetry. The words and the poems that they form are the manifestation of my raw, most fundamental and core feelings and emotions, the essence of who I am. They are sometimes the things I don't even know (or perhaps acknowledge) at a conscious level that I'm feeling or about myself until I see them on the paper. They are my solace. They are my internal healing salve. Sometimes I work on a piece for months or even years. Sometimes the words flood through me in a flash, not even hitting my consciousness on their way through to my fingers. I've written ever since I can remember and even before I was able to write write, making up stories and poems as a little girl. The words are as essential to me as breathing and sleeping, and the ability to form them a gift I don't take lightly. This is why I share them here.
Life's Harvest
The first blush of autumn's touch
sketched across the horizon,
somehow signals more than the coming winter this time,
fleeting images of my life flicker through the clouds of my mind's eye,
ordinary images weighted with importance now because of their history.
I marvel as I'm assaulted by their familiarity,
admiring their simple beauty,
appreciating the fragrance of the crisp breeze.
Tide of Change
Out beyond where the eye can see
where the sky meets the curve of the known world
between the tangible and mystical realms of dreams
the sting of the salt tinged air brings the scent of ages past
as the waves of life deposit tiny granules adding to the layers of experience
and wash away the remnants of footprints in the sand
their roar heralding the promise of adventures yet to be
while smoothing the jagged edges of hardships past
the churning crests perpetually reshaping the landscape
a never-ending struggle in futility
against the ebb and flow
the ceaseless hammering rhythm
of the tide of change.
The Journey
Underneath a blanket of strange stars
pulsating to an unfamiliar beat,
I look back on innocent times
when even the furniture had a history with me,
where there was an illusion of serenity,
where happiness was the security and sureness of constancy.
In my reflection, the tracings of the lattice of my experience can be glimpsed,
tracked across my face, mirrored in the depths of my eyes,
of where I've been,
of what I've seen,
and of where I will venture
that is eternally imprinted on my soul,
a map to follow to my heart.
But as I've journeyed along the path that is my destiny,
with its hardships and happiness,
its endings and beginnings,
its dogged routine and unyielding changes,
without the baggage that normally insulates us from our true selves
and isolates us from the rest of the world,
the raw nakedness stripping the lethargy of emotional hibernation,
I have been taught,
at times eagerly,
at times unwillingly,
at times painfully,
that the most treasured of things
can not be owned.
Yearning Across the Distances
As the last vestiges of another day
seep across the sky with the coming sunset,
the aching void that I have come to
associate with your absence reasserts itself,
no longer kept at bay by the harsh light of day.
I amble through life's experiences, a meager observer,
unable to clear the haze that has enveloped my senses, my being,
oblivious to the splendor around me, the vibrant colored tapestry of life paled,
faded in your shadow that is cast across my soul.
I feel you, hear you in the barest whispers of the breeze,
caressing my skin with the sweet fragrance of promise.
Sensing you at my periphery, always just out of reach,
frantically I search every face for you without success.
At night, the tormenting din of the quiet speaks to me
as haunting half images float across the emptiness of my heart,
leaving me restless with wanting, writhing,
desperately clutching for the peace just outside my grasp.
Unable, unwilling to muster more,
lacking the passion, the inspiration to care, you,
I steal myself against the unbearably bleak future
where the uncertainty of ever knowing you lurks.
Only in my dreams do you appear to me,
filling the emptiness, completing the whole.
These fleetingly remembered glimpses never quite quenching the thirst,
yet renewing me, replenishing my faith enough to continue the search.
The Touch
The touch of my muse
is seared on my soul unseen,
helpless to stop its passage to my heart's core,
caressing it without abatement,
I struggle fruitlessly in an endless raging war,
between head and heart,
between these deep stirrings and daily practicality,
only to succumb time and again to the inevitable,
the sensual pleasure of fulfillment the reward.
I could no more stop the words from flowing
than to not draw another breath,
their existence, their writing, essential nourishment.
At times cruel torture
when it mocks me with its absence,
at times sweet gratification
when the words tumble simply from my hand.
I used to steal them away out of sight,
though driving my soul, my every action, my plight.
But I have finally resigned myself to their eternal calling,
to the touch.