I asked her
What’s that April Poem
by Edna St Vincent Millay
That mom so loved?
She, of course, knows the poem, quoting….
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“To what purpose,
April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough”
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The poet’s desperate reveal,
Threading me back into my family
Mother, sister, me.
Expressing exactly how I feel
Bereft and set adrift
In the underworld.
“Beauty is not enough”
And when I asked my sister
Why do these words help so much.
She said, because they’re true.
There is a Troll under my bridge
And me and my friends are the soft bodies
Attempting to cross over.
Trip Trap Trip Trap Trip Trap
Quaking when I hear,
“Who’s that tripping over my bridge?”
As a child I was thrilled by the danger,
Now the danger is too real.
Two of my pals are in the hospital
Facing danger on their own.
My humble e mails of good cheer
Seem small next to the size of the beast.
Trip Trap Trip Trap Trip Trap
Bravely we cross this bridge.
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But just know this
I am the Biggest Billy Goat Gruff
And I Kick Butt.
“Babies need someone to feed them”,
A surprise to John who is helping Zora
With her breakfast this morning.
And his honest admission
Of not feeling a desire to do this simple thing
But there he sits- tiny fork in hand.
Zora is the third child of Molly and Tres.
Tres who just turned 50,
Resisted her coming but here she is.
Life will have it’s way with us.
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As my friend Phyllis likes to say
Amor fati
Love your fate.
If you want to live then you have to die.
As Willow said with a laugh,
It’s kind of immature to think you can avoid it….
“Talk about entitlement”
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Ann who died recently,
Is the color yellow.
A long line of daffodils
going up over the hill.
And the peace I feel
Is yellow.
I am the seventh sister
Stars in her heaven
Shining around her
Offering her a sponge sucker
To wet her month since drinking from a cup
Has lost it’s appeal.
Dying is phenomenal
An out of this world experience- literally
As we sit beside her
We are so completely present
Attentive to each word, each look, each laugh
John is there too, sitting beside her
And with a knowing cackle
She gave him some advise….
“Appreciate Sally”….
(An insider remark if ever there was one)
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What a privilege to know Ann Ripley
She has been an amazing friend
She has punch and wit and push back
Her brain still sharp, as her words slur and pause now
Her inner eye on the exit.
Her six daughters are in grief
I am too- it’s tough to say goodbye
But just as I was leaving
She gave me this piercing look
Of such love-
Such fierce sweetness- this.
It’s the path, it’s the right direction,
and the energy to travel this path”
It’s been a full-on ride of late
I won’t go into details
But the wake- up call has gone- out
Can you hear it?
Now Now Now, like the beat of a heart
Insisting on the best in me ( in we)
Which is only possible
If I can keep the worst in me
Close at hand, like an errant child
Best to keep track of her.
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But really my first and only job
Is to hold the value of the soul signal
I came here to deliver.
When this hierarchy has been corrected
When value supersedes karmic identity
The natural strength of the valued purpose itself
Supersedes the rest
And everything is so much easier.
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My right hand shields my left
Like a wing over a rock
Give is a feel- it’s how we work here
Two things in harmony but a choice has been made.
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The evening air blew cold –
“Come on Spring- you can do it”
I found Priscilla on her couch
Covered by her comfy blanket
Her day’s work done-
I offered her salty peanuts in the shell
They are so messy even on a good day.
Priscilla doesn’t mind a mess…..in her kitchen
Every bowl and cup and cat food tins….
I am in love-
It hasn’t all been cleared away
Dish washer safe- we are not.
It’s the tangle and mash and crusted decay….
Unswept like creativity.
The bowl of peanut shells is overflowing
As I delight in her booklet of today’s ink drawings
This page of various medical procedures in her week
Each one a dear portrait of a square headed human
with glasses- getting blood drawn or pugged into a machine.
I am in love.
I’d been knocked off my axis
The collective illness ( I dare not say it’s name)
Has an evil streak
And I’d gotten caught in it’s net
“Separated from my joy”
As noted by Charlene, my energy massage person
As she held points, like at my elbow
Realigning what was missing
And in holding my hand
She felt the physic travail of where I’d been,
And she didn’t let go.
The miracle of the witness,
Just to have someone else truly know
Makes it possible to come back.
I’d read that if you’d like to have closer contact with fairies
Pick up the roadside trash.
And in doing this small thing
I’ve had a shift in my consciousness.
Maybe it’s the fairies that are now whispering to me
But I made more eye contact with people yesterday
And rehung a sweater that had slipped from it’s hanger in a shop.
Perhaps it’s in doing anything different from our pattern
We become more available
Our true selves wake up a bit more.
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What I picked up is this…
7 newspapers in green plastic sleeves
A napkin and swollen phone book,
A priority package- address long gone
( inside we two boxes of covid tests)
Later-donated through our local give- away.
But most interesting… were the two bottles of cinnamon whisky
Tossed within a 100 feet of each other
And in bringing one in with me to take it’s photo
I feel like I have someone’s talisman
A fairy ring in the forest.
her soup pot 