that's mrs. mediocrity to you

the year I became
an old woman

was the same year
the snows never came

the same year
your heartless mirror
turned my skin truth-brittle

the same year
black birds refused to fly

and i remembered
(at long last)
how to cry

heart and hands
bent and broken

scrabble-holding
weightless forest

neither you
nor i

but the (w)hole
damn mess

the same year
water taught me
how to whisper

the same year
i spat bitterness
back to center

washed myself clean

the same year
as those that marched
in pattern-dashes
of before

you always leaving

me always loving

someone
never there

and only trees
know the last
ancient riddle

bearing witness to the scars
of hollow hearts

still standing

(always standing)

shedding leaves
like tears
at the threat
of yet another

dark-buried
bold-cold

winter

.  .  .

.

.

listen to my reading of as it turns out below:

stand tall in the light
of your own deliverance

bury nothing
but roots

grow rings
of truth

spin buds
of grace

and wait

time will spin
your story

into fresh green
dappled

shade

i revisit your funeral
in a dream filled with rooms

paint my face crackle-grey
and watch the pink of my tourmaline ring
wash away

every so often
i think i see you

still

every so often
you’re choosing a can of peas
or bringing the cat
you never had in for fleas

and as long as i don’t look

directly at you

i’m certain you’re

saying

i’m game

here we are again
balancing a sentiment
we will never name

none of us are free

we all come at great cost
to ourselves
to others
to this bold green earth

to those we love
and those we hate
to those
we cannot know

own yourself

pay the price of reflection
add loose change
to the plate of collection

pick up your actions
hold them high
look deeper

examine

have the good guts
to stare yourself
in the eye

have the true grace
to accept
all consequences

own yourself

none of us
are free

the sun is shining just now, but it’s so cold.
the snow is glittering with that false, enticing promise.
beautiful to look at, brutal to hold.

and now i’m thinking of you again.

it’s a vicious circle-cycle.

life and loss and the truth of living.

survival of the fittest.

survival.

of.

we all have our own sky.

the second poplar tree in the front yard is dying.

it lost its mate a few years back, and being the romantic that i am, when it started dying from the top down, i decided it must have a broken heart. ha. then again, perhaps i’m right.

i have to figure out what to do about it this year, how to afford to cut it down, if i can bear to cut it down, the hole it will leave in my view (and my heart) when it is gone. how much i will miss the sound of poplar leaves rustling through the darkest hours of long summer nights.

it will mark another ending, in this winter filled with endings i have not yet learned to process. all part of the same era, the same time-vine of hope. i planted those two poplars when i first started my garden. i planted my garden when i first started my marriage.

and now i am surrounded by empty spaces, dying graces, loaded places.

there is so much to say and nothing to be told.
so much to grieve and nothing real to bury.
so much to carry and nothing left to hold.

my truth is a dark burden, and in the silent hours of night, i sit by my window and watch those bare dead branches pierce the sky.

the gap its absence will leave on my horizon is too difficult to consider just now.

i’ll deal with it this summer.

. . .

there’s another tree in my front yard, a young river birch with its own painful story.

last summer, i actually thought about killing it. of course, i didn’t. i couldn’t. i wouldn’t.

after that, i thought about moving it, to somewhere out of sight from that same window.

i didn’t do that, either.

i decided, in the end, to watch it grow. it has three trunks. i have three children, three grandbabies. we all have roots here.

it doesn’t even begin to fill the sky yet, or close the hole in my horizon, but i’ve re-framed its significance in the window of my existence.

one day, it will offer shade to this tiny house still filled with love. in the fall, i’ll watch yellow leaves drop down through the night and think how often we all begin again. each morning, each month, each year.

the seasons have always marked my cadence.

i’m looking forward to the spring.

don’t let yourself be swallowed
by tomorrow’s grief

let the tongue of life
cradle you

now

here

in the silence
of present

this rocking boat
of emptiness

hollowed out home
of hope

will be your vessel

i got so stuck looking for the map
i forgot to wander

these hills and valleys of deliverance
knocking down signposts
and standing there
smirking
at my own confusion
in the same way you led me here
as if it mattered
as if i mattered
and the trees just keep breathing
their dark ragged breaths
as if dying and winter
are the same

: :

i built a red cairn
in a bowl of misfortune

balanced everything
just long enough
to understand

falling is a journey
of its own
and landing
is not
destination

i am the woman
who

saves cards and
old ribbons
in cupboards with
pale blue jars

spins trees
from yarn
and tales
from saplings

sings louder than
bold crows
just to see them cut
black sky

burns bridges
and receipts
with both indifference
and aplomb

carries all of it
up hope mountain
to send down
avalanche and thrill

looks in the mirror
and understands:
loving you was never
my maxim

: :

i did it anyway

: :