Quietly watching Sunday still
Low sun shadows play on bright
White curved birdhouse lines soft
Breeze convulses last leaves clinging
Hopelessly to late fall branches
Slowly dancing single golden flake
Falls to the leaf carpeted garden
Reflecting pond shimmers between
Islands of floating green and purple
Headed ducks motionless waltz
Bare branched thick trunk
Giants reach in skeletal strength
Eyes closed slow breath still
A revision of the earlier version of this poem posted 11/8/15
Halfway through the day I sit in pajamas with a lead heavy heart.
I wonder if a hike with my camera (my escape, my joy) will help.
But the leaves are all gone.
The landscape is as gray and sad as I am.
What beauty can I capture today while I’m hollow and empty?
I glance at the news with a dizzy aching head.
Then I read splendid, gracious responses by generous
Souls hoping for nothing more than for love to prevail
In our chaotic world where, again, hate has boiled over
Washing away innocent lives in rhythmic waves
Never ending in their cataclysmic destruction.
Unfortunately, sorrowfully, we are experienced mourners.
We have learned that the black ache of
Stunned horror and disbelief will fade
Allowing peeks of light to infiltrate and eventually brighten.
But permanent scars linger.
Can a repeatedly broken heart escape
The impulse for self-preservation?
If our hearts harden, we’ll be lost.
Quietly watching Sunday morning still
Low sun shadows play on bright
White curved birdhouse lines
Soft breeze convulses last leaves still
Clinging hopelessly to late fall branches
Slowly dancing single golden flake
Falls to the leaf carpeted still
Reflecting pond shimmers between
Islands of floating green and purple
Headed ducks motionless still
Bare branched thick trunk
Giant reaches in skeletal strength
Eyes closed slow breath still
A declaration. A deafening blare.
Smacking waves disorient, unbalance,
the uninitiated one recoils,
seeking pacing. And prudence.
The trill of overwhelming urgency
and flooding need burdens, bows.
Wait. Step. Back. Away from the din.
Debilitating racket unseats desire.
Yearning and sorrow drowns
In unconsummated love’s wake
Holding a skinny leash, a woman walking a tiny black and white terrier
navigated the trail around another middle aged woman who awkwardly wielded
a giant silver reflector. A Nikon dangled from the strap around the
2nd woman’s neck. “I hope you get some good shots” said the woman with
her dog. “It’s fleeting” she quietly added. It sounded like an afterthought.
The dog was wearing a teal and orange striped sweater and he seemed familiar
with their route as he took tiny uphill steps. The photographer’s subject,
a teenage boy in a buffalo plaid flannel shirt, tentatively made his way
along the shore and stood on a rock, turning to face the camera. His back
was to the stream as he positioned himself for the photo, and behind him,
on the far side of the creek, the trees were dancing in fall glory. Umber,
crimson, jade, saffron. The colors simultaneously blending and distinct.
This background created a dreamy contrast to the boy’s JCrew plaid and
sheepish expression. He uncomfortably stared at his sneakers as the woman
fiddled with her camera, the shiny giant frisbee temporarily blocking the
path as I tried to pass. “I’m in the way” she said as she stooped to pull
the reflector out of my way and I stepped closer to the boy and around the
woman. Maybe this was his senior portrait being orchestrated, I thought.
Or, more likely, just a son humoring his mother and her hobby on a overcast
Saturday afternoon. The dog walkers whisper, “it’s fleeting,” echoed as I passed.
3 women talk in an office cluster.
“Being brave is excruciatingly hard, but
It’s like jumping off a high dive. It’s terrifying
The First time, but then gets easier until the
Board is no longer high.”
“Or jumping into a cold pool,” Says another.
“It gets more bearable with each jump until
It’s no longer cold.”
These are brave women who were 50s babies,
60s children, 70s teens. They’ve forgotten their
Past acts of heroism, surviving each decade, with
No idea how they appeared in middle age.
Grandmothers now, they’ve maneuvered the
Trials of their children’s lives, while trailing a
Wake of lost loves, broken and recast families,
Reinvented lives, their courage buoyed by
Cherished friends. Brave women who
Navigate with passion and love, yearning
To wring out every drop.
On a different day this would be a warm comfort
seeking Earl Grey and oatmeal cookie, soft blanket
wrapping, fall Friday afternoon. But today, I watch as
a flooding rain pours out its heart to match my mood.
Today is another mournful autumn day in a repeating
pattern of bleak mournful days. Today I watch the
cold soaking torrents puddle atop saturated earth
unable to absorb another drop. Today, I feel as saturated
as the earth. Is numbness setting in? Has the time come
when I can’t absorb another breaking horror story?
Is there a moment when there’s no more room for the
grief for the dead? Or for the sadness and disbelief at
young men filled with hate wielding wartime weapons,
shooting down college students and congregants and
moviegoers and Oh-my-God it could not have been true, but
was, little first graders? Sweet grandchildren, learning
to read and tie tiny shoes, shot down in classrooms
decorated with ABCs and dinosaur cutouts. And still
supposedly civilized men with grandchildren of their
own argue for the guns and not the children. Please, I
don’t want to let numbness set in. Can we make the
tipping-point today? A day when the sky mourns and the
citizens rage and few seem to stomach the “guns don’t
kill…” bullshit. Or is it just another day to be spent
hiding wrapped in a blanket watching sad puddles form
on sodden earth in helpless despair, and overflowing sorrow.
I drive east to an appointment along Route 3 talking hands free with my mom making drawn out plans to attend a friend’s memorial on Monday. There are lots of details about time and place and dinner before or after. While I continue to talk I notice big police activity on the westbound shoulder. I’m staring at two black and white Suburbans in line with red and blue lights flashing. There sitting on the curb between the SUVs and an old beat up blue Toyota is a black woman with hands behind her back in handcuffs. Sobbing. Sobbing. Sobbing . Uniformed men form a circle around her. A third flashing car arrives, then a fourth. 6 or 8 men surround the woman now while she endures flooding tears with hands bound back. I continue east for half a mile until curiosity and concern trigger a U-turn. “What offense could a woman driving a shabby old car have committed to provoke handcuffs?” I ask my mom, talking to the air in the car as I drive. “Maybe she just killed someone, or stole the car…” she says more to discourage me than out of believing those reasons are actually real; she knows I’m thinking something different. I confirm her concerns as I say “or maybe they’ll take her to jail and she’ll be dead in 3 days.” And then “you know there is almost no way I’d ever end up in handcuffs on the side of the road.”
Now I’m slowly passing the scene for the 2nd time. The officers are peering into the rear window of the car as I turn the corner just past the action into a neighborhood of neat brick colonial homes. I make another U-turning and I return to the corner, creeping along to get a closer look. I stop the car and look left at the activity. An officer whose tight-fitting uniform stretches across his belly notices me watching while two others each take one of the woman’s arms to help her stand. One officer turns her around and removes the handcuffs. She rests her arms across her chest as two of the uniforms talk towards her while two more continue the rear window peering. Still more mill around and I am surprised that one township has so many officers.
I think the woman is safe now. I pull across the divided road to turn left heading east on my way again. My schedule is tight today and I have to hurry to stay on it. Half an hour or so later though I am heading back, retracing steps, approaching the scene anxious as I get close to see the flashing lights gone. They are gone, but standing alone on the side of the busy road is the woman with her phone flashing high in the air as her arm is raised above her head. I’m not sure if she’s talking or acting out frustration and I notice her stuff is in an eight-foot long line on the grass between the sidewalk and curb. The contents of her car seem to have been emptied there. I wonder if they had stood by while she removed each item before they took her car away, or if they helped her arrange everything in that neat line. I pull past and then turn back into the brick house neighborhood, one more time to U-turn and return to the corner.
This time I park. I’m wondering if it’s safe to offer the woman a ride; do I know for sure she is not dangerous? I get out and walk across the street and as I approach the woman stands alongside a hedge and she stares a stern look at me from behind dyed red plaits.
“I saw the police here before “ I say, “I wanted to see if you are OK.”
She responds, speaking in a Caribbean accent “Yes Ma’am, thank you, I’m waiting for a ride.”
“Someone’s coming to get you?”
“Yes Ma’am, thank you, someone’s coming.”
“I was worried about you” I say without thinking.
“Thank you Ma’am” she replies, as I turn to walk back to my car.
I wish she hadn’t called me Ma’am.
Swirling wet petals jerk and invert
Tiny leaves shudder branch clinging
Gusty wind vibrates taps pounds
Tentative rhythmless waves dart
Uncertain motion floating atop
Invisible crests curling through
Soaking showers dampen thirsty
Earth muddling Saturday plans
If you let yourself notice you’ll see the leaves are dull now
Long gone the lime colored buds today drab olive army green
Even dingy khaki with a hint of gold or red an early adaptor
On my street is in full-on crimson umber mode with crisp
Brown leaves strewn below like a child’s sponge painting
One of the dogwoods in the front yard has reluctantly
Allowed a small area the top left edge to turn red alone
But the mornings are crisp and clear with the bluest blue
Sky that you can’t help notice if you breath and take a
Minute to feel the air cut fresh and clean against your
Exposed skin I wrap myself in a light polka dot blanket
Just breath and listen to the crickets call their melody
While the wispy clouds dot the sky and slowly move
Across with changing shapes to remind me remember
Find shapes of mountains letters faces in this moving canvas
Today I notice the most beautiful shade of blue in the
Big oak tree on the edge of the yard between already brittle
Looking leaves that sway and rustle in the breeze the gaps
That of course were there all along are now all I see the
Stunning patches of cerulean sky behind sage and moss
Lace patterns in motion stunning captivating change
The change is constant and calls out to be noticed like
A baby you don’t see for a week or a month how much
She changed now she’s a tiny person how did I miss
The catharsis in the changing colors and crisper sky
While butterflies dance together gasping for a final hoorah
mannersworld 