Sunday, February 28, 2010

2/28

This time of honing, axing, has chopped us apart.
The "we" lived so long and so fulfilling cut gone.
I am not honed sharper, rather torn ragged.

I need to learn healing, learn to live a part from you
Whose honed knife brought forth spoons, birds, whimsey.
Where now is my part?

Partner with you was first. Can "painter" suffice now?
I, no longer wife, partner, ally, finest friend,
Need learn to "friend" again.

2/27

Your dear essence I know, I hope I pray,
Can allow my flaws a space of absolution and grace.
I need to learn to hope.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

2/26

After death, we, no one of us truly knows what to expect
I could hope the best essence of each carries into a new continuation.
I just do not know.

What I do know is that you did love me,
I am so aware, with a love full for me and rare.
Did you love me more than I you?

Perhaps, beyond, my own love for you bore me in peace & fullness.
Mine not enough to help save you. My love alone could not keep you.
I know my failing, my dear, was a dire failing.

In silence must that be carried.

Friday, February 26, 2010

2/25

Forecasting is such an unpredictable affair
Woke to a little snow and warming air
Woke to sadness.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

2/24

I am so needy and grateful for friends coming to share time awhile.
Time do dear, time I wasted when I had you, it is not surprising to see
On their faces they are ready to go, get on with their own.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

2/23

People in the house are comforting
We talk, we laugh, we cry the issues wide
And life seems normal.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

2/22

This is so hard, I can't keep tears from falling, flowing down
Why are you not here, How can I do without you? Why, God why.
My face is a salted stream of desolation.

Monday, February 22, 2010

2/21

Nothing these days are right except my mother's birthday.
Eighty years old, two of her sons & several grandkids celebrate.
I am nowhere.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

2/20

How dear to drive the long quiet roads to dinner with friends
Who call to say come over, we're cooking a bit, come join us.
And feel normal awhile

We, my Dear, have done this in blissful sweet unawareness.
Opened our house to another because it felt right and pleasant to us.
Easy to give, deep felt for doing.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

2/19

Friends say white feathers drifting down from the sky
Are a sign, a gift from angels on high. They are watching
And give hope.

This morn white feathers fell to my feet, still on the goose
Who fell, expiring by my feet. Do I need so much hope or
Is my plight so dire?

Thursday, February 18, 2010

2/18

May 27th, 1887 from the Evening Telegram, St John's Newfoundland:
At the grave of a noted Osage, the Indians looked to the sun
and prayed:

Jesus give him a fine woman and many ponies, give him plenty of
trinkets & a good gun. Give him lots of fun & no bad recollections.
Jesus give him all the good in your country.

My Dear, God give you fine ponies to ride the skies C. Russell paints.
Sweet rest, joy, lots of fun and no bad recollections.
Wait for your woman.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

2/17

The afternoon sunlight drapes across the hayfields
Into which drop geese, fluttering shifts of bright and dark
Land in undulating waves of bird.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

2/16

To my friend's gentle query: Compunction describes my transgression.
Shame and regret for not doing more remains lashed through me.
I must learn to live with it.

I'll learn to walk, to cook, to move though the world alone.
And learn how strong my single friends are in their aloness.
I did not know.

These next steps frighten me, where and how do I go now?
How does sweet life continue through this wilderness morass?
I hardly know.

Monday, February 15, 2010

2/15

Taxes require a first go round of wine just to peruse papers.
My eyes hurt following your careful tracks
Through territory foreign.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

2/14

2AM no sleep, only silent tears. Where the warm arms
Around me, where the sweet words written with love, humor.
Where the love swept round me.

Where now is ache and emptiness. I am alone
Without your voice, your touch, your eyes that always rested
Well on me.

No longer can we lay wrapped together snuggled close.
I can no longer hear whispers of love for and to each other.
Only can long for you.


Saturday, February 13, 2010

2/13

The winds have blown my love away, Ian Tyson sings
Of horses sweet, roping, all tinged minor. Sings where I no longer can
For my silent partner.

Friday, February 12, 2010

2/12

4 years ago at the settlement table, I wanted to say: Let's take the money
And run, please, uneasy, uneasy from the start of this, apprehensive
For you, for us.

Misgivings hovered in the shadows of my mind of this move, of going.
Uncertain, anxious for dangers unseen, for troubling auras.
But not for us, not for you.

How unsightful, how foolish I was not to heed.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

2/11

Heart friends bring not joy, mine no time for joy, but kindness
With care. Assuage brief brackets of moments from time forlorn,
Rest amid supportive seconds.

Winds lift a blanket of snow geese winging broad fields of broken corn.
A sight seen only this day by lonely me. Tears seep down cheeks
Chapped by remorse.

Under sun blushed skies, wings stiffen for landing, geese disappear
Among stalks, a field filled to emptiness. Imperceptible to me
As now are you.

I weep, geese, friends, you, move on.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

2/10

A quiet voice in my ear speaks of sorrow, of lives loved well,
Of being alone. Of a threatening drift of currents unknown,
Of handling challenge.

Of the need to learn and taking decision again. Of finding comfort
In the moment, of knowing the next hours hold little, that the now
Harbors maybe a mite more:

Found in a sweet phrase. Or the help of hands
That quietly bring a moment of calm, of peace, of order
However brief.


Tuesday, February 9, 2010

2/9

Snow, wind, cold, a century's more record howling across my soul
Score furrows to the core.
Closes my throat to speech.

Alone in the forever now, can but wish respite
Some friends, thankfully, can dally time loops
To encircle me.

Succor against biting winds, sustenance for unfilled spirit.
Hands that hold however briefly,
Friends sustain.

Monday, February 8, 2010

2/8

Others speak of being touched, of feeling their loves gone.
Pretty sweetness. I know only the absence, my failing or his censure?
Either, my worth is nil.

From that moment no song in my soul, no smooth singing of hours.
No path for grief bound hard to let fly a cry, to cover miles
Of cold ground

Under flint spark stars over frozen marsh, my scream rises.
May it reach every reed, every tree and ear by windows closed to cold,
To all the broad, dark skies.

Hark not to song
Hark to my voice hoarse
Hark to sorrow

Sunday, February 7, 2010

2/7

Sunrise beauty I see only as tribulation, underscores my low abilities
Little knowledge, little cleverness, little chance of fixing,
How can I get these things to work?

A pet deer from down the road, survived hunt season, pads quietly alone
Avoids shoveled snow, licks her back, thick-furred, fat, I think of you
And of tamed pets loosed into winter,

Snowfall this season of distress, cold on the land, colder on the heart.
Where the tools to bring me out from this frigid, sere dominion?
Where to go.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

2/6

Late December, chilled by a window: "When will this cold go."
No intuition, no harbinger how complete cold can be.
Walked to the kitchen and made lunch

This winter holds hard, holds cruel, no pardon, my heart pounds.
My warmth lost, never saw it slipping, never knew its meaning.
Never saw and lost all.

Surrounded, enveloped, swathed in shards iced brittle, winter gripped
With detritus devised to hurt deeply, grief cut heavy with regret.
Sorrow hoar'd hard with rue.