Boundaries between this world and the next
blur as I stand in mist
feet upon the earth, arms raised
billowness seeping from the sky.
I tip my face into the hovering cloud
spirit worlds surround me
and you are here,
my cheeks moist from your caress.
Slowly, sadness comes with warmth
as sun clears the air, blues the sky
eyes tear to realize
I am grounded, and you
are truly gone.
In response to Daily Post Challenge: Boundaries. Photos from dome car ride near Anchorage, Alaska.
My mother lived with Amy Lowell.
Wrong preposition.
In, she lived in
a Boston housing complex
with a plaque.
Did you know her?
Amy, not Helen.
Tomboy turned poet-ess.
Way before Maya.
Not Emily.
Less famous.
Except there’s a plaque
where Helen Cecile lived.
Photos: Amy Lowell Apartment Complex in Boston, the plaque and Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925). Born in Brookline, MA won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry posthumously in 1926. First published poem appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1910. First published collection of her poetry, A Dome of ManyColured Glass appeared in 1912. Maya refers to poet Maya Angelou; Emily to Emily Dickinson. Last photo is Helen Cecile, my mother, in her last year of life. She was born in Waukegan, Illinois and moved with us to Boston in 1997 – lived in the Amy Lowell Apartments and died in 1999.
Phyllis Groat, Billy Behr and Timmy Drew
Francis somebody with Jimmy Fisher
and Mary Buckley too.
Black robed nuns that seemed to glide
feet and hair a mystery
rulers that reached a mile.
Lunch time stools swung in and out
from tables that disappeared
into Mary blue block walls.
Holy card for first place prize.
Priests mumbled Latin mass
and girls watched holy backs.
Third grade fell out of mother’s drawer,
a stained photo stuck between dried up pens
and a Tupperware orange peeler.
Three days after we buried her
in a Catholics only plot,
she made me remember
what I deliberately forgot.
Photos: 3rd grade class photo mentioned was tossed….but these were also in the drawer. Me in my 3d grade Immaculate Conception School navy blue uniform and my first communion picture. I actually won a third grade competition to see who could learn the altar boy responses in Latin first (our third grade boys were lagging in this important task — it was thought this would spur them on). Silly me – I thought if I won I could be an altar boy. See that word? “Boy.” Nope. I did win a gold embossed holy card of St. Francis of Assisi and the boys all went on to assist with Mass. Memories…..
Their love never showed itself
in word or touch.
It simply travelled
through a colored atlas
of their own making.
Sunday rides in a battered Buick,
state highways traced in orange.
Twenty-fifth anniversary in Hawaii,
circled in pink
like their matching floral shirts.
Retired early, she insisted,
they sold all their worldly goods.
Left a three bedroom colonial
for a small motor home,
and rambled through forty states.
College towns starred in blue
for the young at heart.
Green highlights for favorite parks
and the Grand Canyon’s purple X,
the greatest site of all.
Now, in a pastel assisted living center
map of colors upon her wall,
she gazes out the window
at red and yellow tulips,
his ashes beneath their blooms.
With quaking hand
she touches coffee cup to pane,
then slowly to her lips.
This, their morning kiss, a ritual
now the road is still.
She listens to the waves
gently lapping on the shore
the gurgle before the swoosh;
feels the sun upon her face
watches it glisten on the sea
and feels content to sit and do
absolutely nothing.
Sight line ends
where water creases sky.
Rhythmic waves,
the breath of wind.
Gulls glide by in slow motion.
Clouds first pink,
turn violet grey.
Glisten paths upon the sea.
Surely I am in church today,
my knees upon the sand
seeking intercession
in genuflection,
closer my God to thee.
Photos from beach by our deck in Provincetown. Assignment from my September 21 Day Challenge was to write a poem using the strategy of litany (listing) and end with a longer sentence, with a stronger meaning.
Cool crisp sun filled morn
sand colder between my toes
sea shore autumn calm.
Waves lap, winds gust
two gulls quarrel over one morsel
breath cools hot black liquid
sips then swallows.
All these sounds
echo in my ears
yet here I sit,
amidst the silence of the sea.
Another beautiful Provincetown sunrise. Sadly, our two weeks is about to end. Tis a special place – truly food for the soul.
Onion skin not tracing paper
artichoke leaves and banana peel
burnt sienna letters from a crayon stub
nun-born guilt and corn silk
flame licked bark on tossed in twig
all these things she became
each time his words
peeled her raw.
Beads of wet
on grey wooden slats
reveal smooth foot prints
within pools of dew.
Purple veined hand
tames breeze ruffled pages,
etches black ink phrases
between blue lines.
Noon sun directly overhead
deck floor dry, tracks gone
forehead drenched
in streams of sweat.
Words flounder,
pen drags letters
as ideas dry up
like low tide sand.
lillian the home poet 