Just wisps of clouds dot the periwinkle sky
Faint breeze dancing among the leaves
Grads gathering, twelve at a time.
Four guests only. Strictly enforced by the
Ministry of Health. Bring five. Grad ends.
The tents in case of rain
Lake and hills in view.
Pandemic grads to walk across the grass
This graduation has so many things new
but something old:
Hand-shake in gown and cap.
Farewell, all our best wishes go with you.
creating ourselves means choosing
if I want to be a person whose home is full of original art
I must begin by buying supporting artists
if I want to be a person who is confident enough to wear red lipstick
I must put the lipstick on my lips.
If I want to be a person who dances in the rain
I must head outside during the storm.
Whatever I desire
I must dare.
Those best laid plans
family coming from afar
creating traditions, warm hearts,
remembering those lost this year.
Everything is ready here, gifts piled up
waiting for wrapping.
Public health says stay home.
We must be lonely holiday islands.
There’s no time for parcels to arrive by the
assigned festive day
amid the mail delivery crisis.
No one to gather around our table.
So everything will be different.
We must make something new, a Zoom festivity?
Re-thinking that nativity when a stable had to do,
just like for the Holy Family, things don’t always go
according to
our best laid plans.
Pines and spruce tower
ninety feet into the air
a wall of green
a squirrel playground.
Broken by the last windstorm
Branches the size of adult legs snapped,
tangled,
blocking the road,
risking the roof.
With each roar of the chainsaw
years are cut away.
Now, we see the lights of town
glistening below.
Greenery sacrificed for urban beauty.
Our new view
comes with grief for the scent of spruce
in the waving wind.
The house echoes.
Drapes she made hang on the windows,
the last pieces of her here,
except
the lingering scent of bread baked
months ago, as
her last messages of appreciation,
her last independent acts.
A leaf grips tight
to where it sprung,
all through the summer storms.
But when autumn comes,
a leaf’s released,
to discover sky and more.
I tell myself,
In the process of creation,
her art fulfilled its purpose.
If the family has chosen what to keep
Freeing the rest to the universe
is just extending its mandate
not a betrayal to her
memory.
One small change today
One gift of time
One contribution to a cause
One life-lesson contemplated
One old idea reconsidered
One step toward wisdom
won each day.
too much new
tensions wrapping around psyches
tugging
we’re choking on the changes
fruitlessly fearful
waiting for someone to hear us
Relief.
A sensible plan
Workable ideas
Deep breath.
This might just work
How is this day only half over?
Only six hours since I told the doctor
palliation would be her choice,
a life-time is dragging by.
Each minute means more
than those before it.
An infinite embrace
unfolding, a somnolent
soul journeying
forward.
Shawn L. Bird 