Patience for my Patients

This is not any love song,
nor any psalm, for me.

A 20-something’s rush to the office store,
replace the paper to write a score.
A truck turns, and broad-sides his legs,
rescuers drag him, footless and burning,
not to sing, not to beg.
Not a love song, nor a psalm
…..of a poet - not better off dead.

In a still, lone bed of a rural ICU
a patient with a lung-implant
gasps a poem I do not know.
The Rag is passed and the new ear listens.
Is it a better love song or psalm
sought after the author's gone?

From a month spent in coma from a stroke:
springs one man, with one wife,
a universe-city of students, twin boys full of life,
to teach, to talk, to hug, to walk,
to reach:
only one-armed not,
but for a love song, and a psalm for all.

She cuts on her arm, not for physical pain,
but release of heart’s balm on her psychic longing,
of a new moment dawning,
again…not better off dead.

Not that I cannot live without you,
today.
But knowing I can see you again
tomorrow,
is a love song
and a psalm
for a better-off day.

Not a 55 Flash Fiction

-

I held her lightly

-
I brushed off the cobwebs
Aired out the closets
Opened the windows and doors.

I hugged my child
Put out his fires
And recounted his Nana’s love.

I held her lightly
listening for her 2nd voice
In the heart of my thoughts.

Although last in the line, I lead
an ‘Orleans-style procession
slowly strumming the Unbroken Circle.

In a blue glazed pot
Hand-Spun and stroked with love
Under a deeply etched sign

I set her down lightly.

Conscious of you

-
The day rolls out,
Empty but full,
Of unmeasured tasks,
Which never are through.

Every ring of the phone
An old sorrow-filled voice
Another full story,
An offer of grace.

Awakens a consciousness:
Conscious of needing you,
Needing you whole,
And needing you strong.

So I love all in all.
And I’m present at best.
Until I’m alone,
Without all the rest.

With my own consciousness:
Conscious of needing you,
Needing you whole,
And needing you strong.

The unbidden the sorrow,
The bodily pain,
What life had become,
And couldn’t sustain.

What I come back to
Is where you came from,
And how much you loved us,
Each and every one.

Home to my consciousness
Conscious of being you
My making you whole
And feeling strong.
-
-
for my mother, who died 4-11-2008, and for my brother and his wife during this week's vigil with her mother Mabel....who is close.

to those we have lost

Live With New Clothes


Take threads from the flannel shirt he wore,

The plaid one you remember, the favorite.

It has anemone-edged holes which let in a cold draft,

Its red and grey pattern too faded for beauty.

Keep the velvety pieces of solid weave,

With a trace of fragrance of flesh, musk and oily hair.



Search the earth for strands of jeweled color,

Threads of carbon strength and unvanishing length.

Collect them egg-like, carefully and separately:

To keep them from rashfully tangling,

Losing distinction to your eye or usefulness.


Weave them mindfully together with the old patches.

Sew even seams between yours and his.

Cautiously line up edges without ridges,

For a whisper-smooth, sigh-soft wrap,


Barely felt at all,

But warm, so warm

That cold cannot enter.

-
-
(today's post is for Mona, I wrote this last April for a friend who lost her husband in an accident a year ago)
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