9/30

Idle hands may get into trouble

But hands that never rest

Find little ease.

9/29

To me it is not either old news or the only news, but while it is

The bold type headline in the paper of my life, I realize that's a

Subscription of one.

9/28

This driving over roads past only brings me back to this house

This last place we would call home, to where I am now, still

Looking for guidance,

Looking for a plan, I am here, keeping you near me,

Coming to see home is ever where it was, within me

With your love.

So I will housekeep these days into accord

Looking for the time when I will know and can,

With resolve, move.

9/27

Driving, keep driving, driving over roads too far;

Moving, just moving, moving further in towards

Living ... living alone.

9/26

The other Linda lent able helping hands, good ideas

and her sweet company, now this show looks good ... better,

Dinner with friends.

The concept, the paintings you saw and knew,

The last show of mine that you would know, I'll

Bring one beer.

9/25

It has not been simple these last few days, thankfully

She is not hurt badly. But that I could help, when I

Couldn't help you?

9/24

Glad the EMT's, the docs and that hospital could

Help this young lady after her accident, even if she

Can't now housesit.

Very glad I did not need to go up after her and enter

There to take her out, just glad she is all right but I

Am just tired.

9/23

Placed carefully in a far corner of a cupboard are

Notes of kindness written and packets of cards requiring

my words composed.

But I am stuck between a line of kind: thank-you's for

considerations given - yes; but thank-you's for my

Husband being dead?

Please, Dear, forgive me this failing as I can give gratitude

For our love, our life; but to separate this difference, can't

Cross that line.

9/22

Wrestling grief is contending with loss,

A deep-rooted severing of the soul's delight,

Beyond becoming solitary.

Not friendless but no longer one sweet whole,

Bereft of a simple support. Can return to my house, but

Not my home.

Wrestling oneself through, where once alone was still

Filled with our love, now inching towards an equilibrium

With just self.

9/21

This stuff happens, this pendulum swing of emotions,

riding me like some off-center grief machine, I need to heed a

wise woman's words:

Consider how gentle, caring your husband would be in any instant.

He is the friend of your longing, why not do the self-friend thing

by emulating him?

So this day I paint, thankful for friends who keep touch.

Mostly moving through quiet, sunshine and soft air, learning

To live alone.

9/20

I think widowhood needs tears because we no longer have touch

And our skin craves contact. So I drive hours crying quietly,

Gobsmacked by grief.

9/19

Your touch still lingers in sympathy with my soul.

A soft press that did support, express the love

My body remembers.

Through a reservoir deep but maybe not unlimited,

I fear the drought pending, allows me now only

Tears for touch.

I believe tears are given to help us through

This time when we no longer have the touch

Our skin craves.

9/18

I can not believe it has been so many months,

So many nights sleeping without you

Next to me.

This is a new reality, a new path to trod,

I can not believe I must do this alone, only memory

To hold you near.

I go on, step by small step through wilderness wild

I go on working through the malaise, the sorrow

I go on

9/17

I know you feel isolated, and encourage you to contemplate

Times and places that you have felt most fulfilled, outside the circle

Of you and Jack.

A friend's wise words, left on the desk these long months,

Only recently do I feel capable of contemplating past the sphere

Of we two.

Past the morass of loss, beyond the dreams we had,

To let them rest in a place held within, to sustain the drive

Of me alone.

9/16

In childhood, my mother's custom was to wildly wish

On trucks carrying hay, a tradition I did willingly endorse

Til last winter.

Along a turnpike this autumn morn, I pass a hay truck

Now in a moment amend the practice to consider only possible,

Now in widowhood

9/15

A quiet day spent with my mother and her friend

Ordinary chores, simple meal of steamers and corn together,

A treasured day.

9/14

The light, the air here brightens our steps,

Clear, welcoming, as we walk, talk, take pleasure in

Time spent together.

9/13

Morning lights breakfast with a cherished heart

Evening dinner savory for a dear friend, sisters two, for me

An only daughter.

9/12

It was a beautiful day, a day for anything:

For gratefulness, for wonder, for a while

For loving you.

9/11

Friends, family can give advice, share opinions,

Lend a shoulder but with my lover

I could really....

Now in midst of crisis, this seeming catatonia

Is not surrender, is not doing nothing, but is time.

Let's me think.

Faith may be a grain of mustard, may move mountains,

But time allows for thought, for faith to contemplate horizons

Before I move.

9/10

Into a new start out of cold storage stride

Two lovely beings surrounded in warmth, in sweet

Strength of relations.

This day plenty contrasts with withered,

left to learn, to live, left with little

Ties of kin

Sometimes long journeys accent

How off track, how little ground

One has gained

9/9

Miss you as ever I have, mourning all we had,

Admitting the tremors through the topography

Of my life

Requires accepting a revolution of the soul

Beyond the bounty that measured our time

To territory isolated.

Our landscape will not change back, ever;

And history, by its nature, must change,

Has no choice.

9/8

Rise early enough to enjoy an hour or two

Company and conversation before leaving,

Last minute errands.

9/7

A friend and sunset arrive together,

Each possessed of exquisite light, we

Paint the evening's radiance.

9/6

On this quiet day, a kindness done for myself is taking time,

Time for space to be by myself, unfilled of busyness, of traveling,

Even, of people.

Not easy, missing the company my Dear gave; lost those days

Of being engaged neatly, of times seeing little of each 'til late, of

being near - enough.

So, how will just being me,

Who was once well loved, come

To be enough?

9/5

The soft movement of riding a good horse still is sweet,

As is reading the wisdom from the Sabbath's book,

Both give comfort.

9/4

These days I try to keep the horizon a bit closer.

Just keeping well the next few hours is hard, so keeping

In mind, minutes.

9/3

A day spent honing an endeavor you so helped,

Immersed in the particulars, in painting, in writing,

In being alone.

9/2

Horses move through the paddocks, rustling along

Snorting softly under a rainy night sky

amid quiet winds.

Kept in place by threats of adverse weather, this time

Of learning a life beyond vulnerable to grief, to loneliness

to a life stable.

This hurricane calmed to gentle rains allows a day

Steadying this soul, deep scarred by a searing season

Of unforgiving storms.

9/1

From Some Can Whistle by Larry McMurty:

The rules of happiness are as strict as the rules of sorrow;

Indeed, perhaps more strict. The two states have different densities.

I've come to think.

The lives of happy people are dense with their own doings -

Crowded, active, thick - urban,

I would almost say.

But the sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks

And no boundaries; sorrows horizons are vague and

Its demands few.

Jeanie and I had not become strangers;

It was just that she lived in the city and

I lived on the plain.