A Momentary Life

Openings and closings
Beginnings and endings

In between stretches of life

some curves as sharp as a knife

Up hill, down vale, we swing along 

rhythms play, we sing many a song

bouncy or racy, steady or slow, 

some with very little rhythm at all.

Whether or not music is playfully gay, 

life opens and closes with each new day.

A twist to this plot is the doors that get closed,
chapters that leave us a question that’s posed.

Doors can open new landscapes to travel,
chapters leave readers with more story to unravel,

a road at it’s end offers a choice of direction
but life has two times when choice has little attention ~

At birth, we land open, naked and cold to a stranger's arms
At life’s close, all learning and loving has been disarmed.

~ Life’s design depends on what we choose to create.

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”

~ Grandma Moses

Panic Shifts

A teeny tiny opening only sensed
a breath of air whispering against a tense cheek
Stop, step back, what was that?
the wall stacked brick by brick seemed closed tight
closed on all sides
with no air
no way to go forward
only backward down an ever narrowing alley
panic welling up from beneath
threatening to overwhelm
then a slim ray of light
riding in on such a thin breath of air
old mortar brittle and breaking
an anxious push forward
daring to lean into the wall built from panic
enlarge the opening
create a doorway to a hopeful future
(not an easy task to dismantle a brick wall unless made of paper maiche)

“Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going

over to the enemy of our imagination.”

~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Water Damage

Clouds sat down upon my head blackening the day
great water pouches opened, cold rain poured silver streams
pebbled streets ran with water blackening in the cold wet
glittering and shining in early evening dusk
cast iron brown drains open to loud trickles and drips
leaves scraped away from slotted openings in asphalt and cement
Water, the stuff and staff of life, 

flows around and through our world
within and without our physical bodies, 
while spirit permeates heart and soul, 

traveling out and around us.

Blocked with sodden leaves or saltcrusted silty snow
water pools and damages searching out and creating new openings 
maintaining flow, building up energy, pushing forward as though a living being
where are the openings within us? 
cell walls, tissue and skin breathe fluid in and out.
what blocks to flowing water and spirit within are present?
emotions, like leaves and silt, pile up against one another
what can be damaged within us by pooled and blocked water and spirit?

Spirit, like water, will find an opening no matter how tiny

Does the force of spirit damage and destroy or
does the force of spirit build and grow energy?

“The spirit finds a way to be born.

Instinct seeks for ways to survive.”

~ Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident

A Rocky Opening

Doors and windows for air and light
Deep cuts between rock walls for river’s flow
Minute pores in eyes and skin to let toxins escape
Slots cut in doors and boxes for mail, personal or business
Drawers and doors in cupboards and closets keeping order, or hiding chaos
All external and manageable.

The deep channel between heart and head can seal off and close
piled high with rocks and boulders built of grief and longing
But this seal of sadness is never complete 
as long as spirit of life, love and memory flows
with our tears through the devastation of our loss.

“Let your tears come. Let them water your soul.”

~ Eileen Mayhew

Reality Moves Forward from the Past

Reality Moves Forward 

from the Past 

Elizabeth sat in the middle of the tiny bedroom that held remnants of  her past. From videos, books and tapes and to the crocheted picture made by her aunt decades before. The videos and tapes were no longer usable, but still saved. Classics that she had enjoyed and shared with girlfriends.

After leaving her childhood home, she had tried to build something out of her life by purchasing bits and pieces putting together a home from the inside out. She hadn’t known then that much would no longer fit the lifestyle she would move into with Rudy. 

It was new Year’s Eve. She had a new slinky floor length black dress - watered silk with tiny diamonds flowing from her left shoulder where fine pleats were encrusted with rubies, her right shoulder bare. The diamonds faded in starlight streams twinkling gently over her bosom, waist and hips. A narrow, but slightly flaring, skirt caught a very few of the diamonds in the midnight black folds. Besides her wedding ring, tiny ruby earrings and a pendant were two of the three pieces of jewelry she would wear. Her hair, silvered and gently waving, soon would be done in a fashionable chignon and held in place by antique silver combs. The evening promised a formal dinner and dance, begging her to wear her low, black satin pumps. A very tall woman, she preferred wearing flats but chose on occasion to wear pumps. Elizabeth had no illusions that her figure was anything but that of a mature woman, however she still had a youthful gleam in her eyes.

Rudy, her Prince Charming, was still elegant and charming. He hated wearing the penguin suit with the bow tie that threatened to strangle him. Preferring walking shorts and a golf club, he felt completely out of his element at formal affairs. Brushing back the consistently wayward curl from his forehead, Elizabeth had convinced him that he was wearing the tuxedo only for her, with a promise that he could play golf without question any time at all. (Not much of a promise as Elizabeth never challenged him about his golf games.) He had kissed her tenderly and said ‘Only for you, my love. Only for you.’

Her reality was now and just as joyous as those days gone by. Her past was tucked up comfortably in this little spare bedroom, one of many in this grand home where Elizabeth and Rudy had raised their children. Her own parents had never dreamed of the future that had awaited their only child. They only saw the twin bed with the quilt her grandmother made for her, and the Ann and Andy porcelain dolls in the old rocking chair belonging to her great aunt. Good solid furniture that would last.

So many joyous memories made before she and Rudy had even met. A time when diamonds and rubies were merely sparklers seen in jewelry store windows. Gently putting her old dolls back in place, she checked the time. Closing the door gently on her memories, she smiled and began preparing for the New Year to come.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language.

and next year’s words await another voice.”

~ T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Walking Away

Beacon Hill Park, Victoria     2009

This is a clumsy muse tonight, but only because I am saddened.
Dyogi, one of my grand-dogs, is gravely ill.
My life without a dog would have missed so much.
Dyogi, only one of many dogs, has been a special part of my life.
Cool and misty, walking with Jeff and Dyogi in Vancouver was our good-bye.
The reality of losing a loved one is a most difficult reality to accept.

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

~ Roger A. Caras

Stuffed into Time

another layer of stuff cleared 

from files and cupboard ~

layers so thick, that time was gently brushed into a pile of hours and memories,

each paper and photo from ten and twenty, thirty and forty years past carefully examined,

time pleasantly consumed with 

memories shuffled through the years

precious babies born and grown, 
Christmases, birthdays and anniversaries past

more precious babies born to grow and fly family nests
no knowledge of direction, destination or pathways to be travelled

how would paths be forged and would our paths cross again?
saying hello again to friends and family no longer in this reality,

with no tears, for tears no longer wield the power they once did.
more layers await when life does not call me to go out and play.

“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”

~ C.S.Lewis, The Screwtape Letters