Stitched Poetry for “the hurting time”

“Do you know that there’s a halfway world between each ending and each new beginning? It’s called the hurting time… It’s a bog; it’s where your dreams and worries and forgotten plans gather. Your steps are heavier during that time. Don’t underestimate the transition... [and if you can, create something]” — Nina George [and me]

 Isolation doesn’t have to be lonely,

ink your feels

with me.

 do remember the dead,

but don’t forget to be

grateful for the living

If you love all

of me (heart, brain, mouth),

we will blossom together.

for Poets and Storytellers United (Writers’ Pantry #17: Growing Safety)

You Are Easy to Love

“You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” —Annie Dillard

The world is growing darker. Fate is showing teeth, and what used to be a smile is starting to look a lot like a sneer. Pain and Uncertainty are weaving a dread-kissed shroud around everything—all our souls see, all our breastbones feel… seems to reach us through the taint of hurt. These days, it’s hard to love the world and even harder not to renounce all hope. But it’s so easy to love (and care for) you always.

on your birthday, give

your Self the gift of knowing

how much you matter

the wee notes…

- when I first became seriously ill, I used to feel wretched every time I thought about how difficult my illness was on loved ones who had to spend so much of their time helping me through it. Who wants to be a burden, right? I remember thanking my Piano Man over and over… And I remember him telling me that helping me made him feel better (I didn’t always believe him). Then, someone I love became seriously ill. And all I can think about is that I (and everyone who loves her) would do anything to make her life easier, to remind her how much she matters. Today is her birthday, and I wish her strength, health, smiles (and wings).  

- linked to Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #16: Re-Verse) and to the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads’ prompt for April 22^nd: Poets of April

- and as always, stay safe.

Rebirth, by Patricia Ariel

April Doesn’t Always Have to Be the Cruellest Month

New York City woke up to the gentle caress of spring showers--quite different from just a handful of days ago, when we were ripped out of our beds by winds “Howling through Streets and Woods”.

I remember watching the storm half-slaughter my amaryllis and passiflora plants, and thinking, All right, señor Eliot, perhaps “April is the cruellest month” after all. But today is a new April day, and my plants and I are grateful for the rain.

Let
the spring
rain be cleansing
tears, before the rainbows
ahead.

photo by Basil Smith - on Unsplash

 for Poets and Storytellers United  (Writers’ Pantry #16: April prepares us for what’s to come ahead)

It’s Not Paranoia If Mobile Morgues Are Parked Down the Street

I started using a face mask a lot earlier than most people I know. I bought masks for my Piano Man and the not-so-Little Princess sometime in late January, since we were going to travel to Washington state the following month. When I discussed the purchase with a friend or, perhaps, a relative *cough*, the individual in question told me, “The paranoia is strong with this one.” And we both laughed.

Yesterday, during a video call with the same person, I heard their child say, “You can go for a walk, if you stay enough away from people. Stop being so paranoid.”

The friend or relative *cough, cough, cough* (goodness, I must get something for this cough) exploded. “Paranoid? Look at the numbers! People are dropping like flies. There’re dead people in ice cream trucks! I saw a video of a delivery guy spitting on a package. How do you know they haven’t spat on our door? You’re too…”

I accidentally on purpose ended the call while the person was still shouting about the state of things. And when we talked again, a little while ago, and the person went on and on and on… about their child’s lack of sense, I didn’t even remind them about those early days, when wearing a face mask was still a bit of a joke. See? I can be nice. Well, almost nice (since I’m totally sending them a link to this post).

via

the wee notes…

- I haven’t seen any ice cream trucks being used as mobile morgues in New York or any other place.

- for Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #15: Poets and Storytellers Ink COVID-19 Quarantine Histories)

- stay safe.

Howling through Streets and Woods

The wind was in a ripping mood, howling

through streets and woods, making corpses

of bleeding hearts and the strongest

of dandelions. Still,

there is comfort to be found

in bones that tell magic tales,

in flesh that dares to discover

nature’s poetry in every breath,

in every voice that speaks of how

all things that live never die—

they grow differently, being
rediscovered (and beloved)
in inked memory.

the first photo was taken right before a spectacular windstorm that left the bleeding hearts plant practically naked of blooms. The second is one of the fallen (there were many) drying on my board (the others now live within the pages of books).

things have been relatively mad around these parts, and I’m a tad behind. I still didn’t want to miss Sanaa’s Weekly Scribblings #14: Let’s use Pathetic Fallacy, shall we? (write using the literary device “Pathetic Fallacy”). So, I combined Sanaa’s prompt and the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads’ prompt for April 13^th: 13 is Poetry (choose 3 to 13 (nonconsecutive) words from the quote below, and use them in a poem that is a deliberate celebration of metaphor), and birthed the poem above.

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” — Diane Setterfield 

Through Bare Branches

“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.” – Isaac Newton

 When despair seems to halt spring,

remember rainbows and wings

(small wild magics) are easiest seen
through bare branches.

in isolation,

an explosion of oaklings

keeping it real

Social

distancing continues

to ruin parties,

but I am growing

eyelashes.

for Poets and Storytellers United (Writers’ Pantry #15: All About That Love)

Then the Phone Sings

I miss you. All my minutes last too long, particularly at night—while your pillow and I reach for each other and wonder... when will the scent of you come home to fill all these hollows? Then the phone sings, and the thump-thump, thump-thump... of my heart joins in, promising your voice and your face, saying now all is well. 

On the screen, your eyes

sparkle with longing and love.

I drink of your shine,

taste the strength of our bond,

and feel distance fade away.

detail from a photo by Pratik Gupta, on Unsplash

for Poets and Storytellers United (Writers’ Pantry #14: “silence is not a natural environment for stories”).