I am zipped up in Daddy’s green sweater.
Mom knitted, purled, cabled together
some semblance of love.
He wore it with joy almost every day,
telling all admirers how it was made with love.
It’s wrapped around me,
but it’s not his firm arms,
not his smell (which wasn’t peppermint
or aftershave, but just him),
not his whisper in my ears,
Love you so much.
How can another year have past
without him? How can a sweater
be both so full
and so bereft of him?
poem- Daddy’s sweater December 17, 2021
playgrounds and graveyards May 31, 2021
The elders told you.
Trembling voices.
Feathers clutched for courage.
They told you of their sisters, brothers, and cousins
who did not come home.
Those who crept out at night and
walked through wilderness to return home.
Those who got sick and died.
Those who were beaten.
Those who were broken.
Those who were battered.
So many buried.
The elders told you how truth had been buried, too.
So many lost children.
Now 215 have been found.
Their bones are proof to the elders’ words.
Who is surprised?
Children buried in unmarked graves.
See what is also buried there:
Denial. Shame.
Voices rise in sorrow.
Now what will be done
to bring peace to the children who survived?
Grown with a burden of brokeness. Grief swallowed.
How will the elders’ trauma be relieved?
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This poem references the discovery of the mass grave of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential School. Read an article about it here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tk-eml%C3%BAps-te-secw%C3%A9pemc-215-children-former-kamloops-indian-residential-school-1.6043778
poem-outside April 29, 2021
(Napowrimo day 29 is about describing a scene out a window, but this morning I was standing in a doorway observing, so I’ll use that moment).
This morning outside my door,
cacophony of small birds
catcalling to the universe:
Oooh baby! Look at me!
Our place! Get away!
Twittering spring tumult
screeches and titters.
The world persists,
though you have ceased.
poem-lilo April 28, 2021
Our friendship can lie low
for months and years
Wading through the morass of obligations
from family and job.
Fallow fields tended on Facebook
with a like or a care emoji.
Does anyone else write letters any more?
I miss live laughter,
the belly aching kind,
making new memories.
I miss voices harmonizing until the cells
reverberate into joy.
Time doesn’t lie between us
it surrounds us
paints its creases on our skin
but within, this friendship
hasn’t aged a day.
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Napowrimo Day 28. This actually links to the prompt from yesterday which was to explore ‘an obscure sorrow’. Yesterday, my sorrow was too overt for obscurity. Lilo is an interesting concept. I have so many friends whom I only see once a year at certain writing conferences, or others that I may go years between seeing. My friends and adopted families in Finland, I don’t see for decades, but I think of them often, and when I see them, it is like we slot back into each other’s lives like no time has passed. As if I could be the neighbour next door. Some days, I wish I were. It is hard when real life means you can’t be with the people who fill your heart. I must say, I definitely appreciate how Facebook has made it easier to touch into those distance friends far more easily.
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poem- are you singing now? April 27, 2021
in the end
you had to sing the hymns in your head
fill your mind with the music
that could not escape
in the end
she held your hand
entwined your fingers
listened to your last breath
in the end
angels embraced you
brought you into their choirloft
and left us all bereft,
at your beginning.
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NaPoWriMo Day 27.
A bit of an elegy. This April has been full of poems of grieving. *Another* dear one died yesterday. (5 precious souls lost to us in 10 mos, 3 in April alone!) His glorious voice is now raised with the angels, but oh how we will miss it here on Earth. RIP Randy.
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poem-carvings April 26, 2021
Outside my window: blue sky, new green.
Promise and potential
A future of fecundity.
Inside my heart: fog, ice
You are gone
The planet is too joyful
for such a day.
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NaPoWriMo Day 26.
The prompt today was for a humorous parody, but as I received the news of the death of another dear person in my life this weekend, humour is not on my mind. 4 great losses in 10 months. What a wearisome year this has been.
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Ignore any ads following
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poem-Counting Crows April 8, 2021
Saturday
seven crows: silent
vigil. We
come, one by
one, say sorrowful farewells.
On Sunday: eight crows.
One crow mourns with us
as a lifetime leaves her house
in boxes.
Memories
lost, unless known to
eleven crows.
An allusion, of course, to the traditional rhyme:
Counting Crows
One for sadness, two for mirth;
Three for marriage, four for birth;
Five for laughing, six for crying:
Seven for sickness, eight for dying;
Nine for silver, ten for gold;
Eleven a secret that will never be told.
For NaPoWriMo day 8, this poem is a 6 line shadorma, with a reverse shadorma in the second stanza. The syllable count is 3/5/3/3/7/5. The shadorma was introduced with the fib form yesterday, but I wanted to play with both.
poem-spring? March 28, 2021
Geese call
mournful fly past.
The year is reborn
Why does my heart
hear autumn’s sorrow?
poem- He’s sitting there beside her March 9, 2021
I sit down across from them
meet his melancholy eyes,
give him a sad smile, whisper
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He nods, glancing longingly at his wife
before I remember,
he’s the one
who’s gone.
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(RIP Rob. Thanks for the dream visit).
poem- This Valentine’s heart February 18, 2021
Plugged.
Beats stop.
He drops.
Brain dies.
One heart broken
So many hearts grieve.
A Valentine’s Day massacre of our joy.
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RIP Rob
Shawn L. Bird 