In dead of winter
when I am bundled in sweaters,
nursing hot chocolate
and shivering,
I will remember
sliding open the back door today
and how I was hit with a wall of air
so hot my finger tips feel
they’re glowing like ET’s.
In the meantime,
I’m grateful for a/c
and find typing with
molten finger tips
very interesting.
.
.
.
She searches
for
words,
music,
assurances.
His tongue
writes
her poetry
and she sighs
on the harmony
of their song.
The poem is entitled Tiger Lily
but the accompanying photo
shows a Stargazer Lily.
I am trying not to mind.
For my eighteenth birthday
He wrote me a song.
Flutes and strings danced
in my honour,
a musical farewell,
recorded on cassette.
I filled the rest of the tape
with a treasury of captured moments:
His playing, my laughter,
melancholy dreams.
All synthesized on
The Lost Tape.
.
Years of wondering where it went.
.
Today. My birthday
I picked up an empty cassette case,
and it was not empty.
The case showed my face,
listed harp tunes by me, but inside
not me:
Ancient history.
A birthday present
from eighteen year old me
to middle-aged me,
magnetic taped
memories,
for time-travelling.
..
.
I feel inclined to add a photo, which I probably will remove later, so enjoy it while it’s here. The composer of the song, compiler of the cassette, my grad escort. Me at 18. (I had just been swimming, excuse the hair). 😉
She likes a bad boy.
She likes the attitude,
the tats,
the danger,
the rebellion,
the dissatisfaction.
She likes that he’ll cheat
on his wife with her,
plan their future,
dream with her.
That woman doesn’t
deserve him, she says,
while she wishes.
That woman doesn’t
understand him, she says,
while she wishes.
He embraces her,
briefly.
When he leaves her
pregnant,
crushed,
jaded,
she’s surprised,
by all he’d revealed
to her before,
and she thinks it’s
his fault,
she’d wished.
.
.
.
.
Another sad example of, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.”
one quarter century
one half century
one century
blood linked
chain,
a circle
of life.
.
.
.
Happy birthday to me, in a rather auspicious year in our family.
The panorama of lake and hills
lies peacefully before me.
The susurration of wind
the patter of rain on
leaves and pine needles
is mountain music.
Heaven on earth
marred by
that incessant RV A/C.*
.
.
.
*Recreational Vehicle Air Conditioning
OMG it just turned off! (and the very next minute the music started. Sigh).
Oh Christy,
who was the teacher
who provoked you?
Who was the teacher
who shredded your confidence,
made you feel powerless,
alone,
stupid?
.
Who?
.
For surely somewhere,
you sustained a deep hurt
that is still a festering wound,
that causes you to lash out
like an injured dog,
irrationally,
deflecting your pain with today’s power.
Some time ago,
there was a hurt,
that we are paying for.
.
Christy,
A counselor
would be cheaper.
.
.
.
It’s just a theory. But it would explain a lot.
Who you were there
eyes lit
smile glistening
passion sparkling
walking hand in hand
through the summer rain
fueled poetry
and wishful thinking.
Who you were there,
who I was then,
both left behind.
There is a plan before me
laid out step by step
But too much sits between
the steps for simple rising.
It seems so easy from a distance,
but closer to,
while the run is clear
the rise is high
and requires diligence
to climb.
.
.
.
.
(a little grumble about my current WIP. It may have been laid out with ridiculously thorough pacing and all key events and turns, but those bones require a great deal of flesh and sometimes I forget what I’m doing!)
Shawn L. Bird 