healing

Wishful Thinking

lillian54 Comments

There are grey days
cloud descendant misty days
loud angry thunder days
torturously grueling tortoise days
furiously frenetic days
and there are flowers.

Petals for the gathering.

Sunflower fields
heady lilacs, sweet moss rose
shasta daisies, brown-eyed susans
and anytime-of-day four o’clocks.
All ye readers, come flower with me.
Close your eyes and just imagine

a world in bloom, not aflame,
an every hour morning glory.

Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics where Mish asks us to make a wish today. All photos taken from various vacations, walks around Boston and Provincetown.

 

Learn from the Lowly

lillian41 Comments

Do not be squeamish about the reptilian way.
It is in the leaving that release comes.
Rid oneself of dead skin,
not as a phoenix turns to ash
and rises again.
Rather as the serpent who uncoils,
shrugs off its past
and continues on.

shed-snake-skin2

Quadrille (44 words: no more no less; not including the title) written for dVerse. De asks us to write a quadrille that includes the word “leave” or a form of the word. dVerse is a virtual bar for poets and opens today at 3 PM Boston time. Come try your hand and post a quadrille of your own or just come to imbibe the words of others! dVerse offers prompts on Mondays and Tuesdays and most Thursdays are Open Link Night — a time to post a poem of your choice, without restraint or motivation of a prompt. Hope you’ll join us!

Be Ye Not Desolate

lillian59 Comments

White curtains flutter.
Breeze billows through fabric,
createing long cloth ripples
filled and unfilled by unseen wind.

Door left ajar.
The void space within its frame,
a vacancy that waits
filled with hope.

The null set.
Emptiness that knows,
change by one
changes everything.

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Written for dVerse, a virtual poets’ pub, where Bjorn is tending bar today and asks us to write a quadrille (44 words, not including title) that makes use of the word jar. A bit of poetic license: did include a jar (ajar).

 

Takotsubo

lillian46 Comments

It was a day like any other day – until it wasn’t.

Rocking the elliptical to A Hard Day’s Night, I suddenly stopped. Did some invisible vice just clamp on to my chest? The Beatles still blared in my headset, I started to pump again . . . nope . . . can’t breathe. Off the machine . . . slowly out the club door into the sweltering day. I watched my feet in slow motion as the sun magnified everything. Sweat dripped through my pores. The elephant sitting on my chest was an unbelievable load. Takotsubo? The heart blows out in the shape of a Japanese octopus trap. Really? And everything slowed down to match the thick soup of summer’s oppressive heat. If you’re a woman who lives with stress, or has lived through stress, you should know the word: Takotsubo. I didn’t. Until I did.

octopus seeks its prey
eight suctioned tentacles grab and twist
latch on to suck out life

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It’s haibun Monday at dVerse Poet’s Pub where Toni is tending bar. She asks us to write a haibun (one paragraph of prose followed by a haiku) that relates to hot hot hot — perhaps a memory from a hot summer day. This is my memory. My experience. I urge all readers to read about Takotsubo, sometimes called Broken Heart Syndrome. It is real and frightening. In most cases, women completely recover with no lasting damage to the heart. I am, fortunately, one of those women, although it took three months. We must all learn to handle stress in our lives. It is a matter of life and death. Photo on left is a Japanese octopus catcher. Xray on right  shows the left portion of the heart blown out like a takotsubo….the heart does not pump efficiently. Take care of yourself out there!

Summer Solstice

lillian55 Comments

Who made this day?
This longest day in the journey.
Scarf thrown off, head tilted back,
away from ticking hands.
No clocks in sight.
More time to revel in the sun.
And she shall do a walk about.
About the bird who places one more
blade of new mown grass upon her nest
and then another and another still.
About time that cannot stop,
but will elongate,
prolong the light on this day,
a broader spectrum in which to heal.
She sees you seeing her.
Watch longer. Hold tighter.
Her body whole, a holy place,
where prayers of so many reside
and battles will be won.
Walk about this longest day,
savor life and love.

sunrise

Dedicated to my friend, Louise.
Walter is hosting Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse and asks us to consider the Summer Solstice, perhaps beginning with the idea of another poet. I looked to Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day which begins, “Who made the world?”  Photo from Cape Cod — sun rise — 

Let Go, My Love

lillian42 Comments

Talk to me not of death and fear
as time stands by and waits for me.
For I must leave you now my dear
these last few steps for me alone.

So as I lie with sleep so near,
harken my dear and you shall hear
celestial song and angels’ wings,
their comfort meant for you they sing.

Let go your hand, let go your tears
and tell me please that I may pass.
Take comfort in our childrens’ care
our love lives on, embodied there.

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Written for dVerse, Victoria minding the bar, asking us to write in meter, creating a particular mood. Very new to me — meter = stressed syllables. Trying to achieve meter without sacrificing the sense and flow of the words. I’ll be honest. I find this very taxing and difficult. But — I’m happy with how this turned out, and I think it’s in trochaic tetrameter: 4 stressed syllables in an 8 syllable line. Always learning with dVerse!