Fall Into Winter 2016
Almost a year of silence. I wrote. Just not to you. Short words. Because those were the only ones I could find. The big ones mangled on the way from my brain to my mouth. Way too often I’d feel the “f word” form on my lips, swallow it back before it spewed it’s way out. It’s a lazy way of expression, though sometimes the only perfect word. I miss you. Make no mistake. My long voice is longing. By the way, YOU equals the collective you out there.
I was sure I at least wrote poems. Yet couldn’t find one fully formed. Not one. I must have written them in my head with that invisible pencil I carry around. Now they’ll never to see paper. I remember snippets. Half things I dictated to my phone at stop lights, or where ever they hit. So there you go. Gone.
an ocean
of tiny rip tides
low and high
drown my face ….
tears.
and then there was:
A song
of slippery words
keepsakes of something
hot and sticky and amorous …
blah, blah, blah. Though I had to laugh at the last one. At least part of my brain was aroused. That it was something other than deadened.
The more you try to still your mind,
the farther flung it sweeps
capturing even the whisper of suggestion.
And this happened. Sweeping down Erwin Road at a respectable clip:
I kilt that snake
essing in a hurry
across the blacktop
smack off center line
he looked right at me
with a slithery smile of gotcha
and for a second looked like you.
Too late to stop,
braked and backed
a time or two
just to make sure …
he needed killin’ …
and I needed
to smile
at something.
Gotta think for a while on what that was all about. I thought I was over that guy, but he rared up from time to time. Unexpected and always unwelcome.
Losing a parent is, well, nothing short of devastating. Losing both in the space of a year and a half is double that. Like walking in a giant jello pool of every flavor. Just getting to the other side is exhausting and feels impossible.
Somewhere peeking out of the loss comes clarity. Fuzzy at first, but something to hang on to in the rush of unexpected feeling.
………………………………………………………………………
Shufflin’ & Steamin’
In the Garden – The Avett Brothers
Turtle Dove and the Crow – Mandolin Orange
Carolina – The Honeycutters
Stardust – Rod Stewart
simmer2sizzle 