Showing posts with label Change and Loss in love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Change and Loss in love. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Shy Calla Lily--Life in Black and White


Photo by: John P. Ford

Black and White
Since age six or earlier I have aspired to write poetry. I have no idea why. I do remember wondering why no one else I knew did the same.While my mother occassionally read poems to me, they were not part of the general reading available to our family..

I remembered writing in my head before early school years. Since, I was published in the Sunday School Bulletin around the first grade, I must have shared my poetry with others at times..

What I have tended to do since being a young adult is to not share poetry I have written. I would start a Poetry Journal, misplace it and then forget about it! Often, I would discover poems years later in so obscure part of the storage areas.

Part of my process of Self-Reinvention was to begin a blog for the purpose of sharing some of my poetry. For me. on some level, this must be akin to riding down Main Street like the nortorious Lady Godiva on her white horse.

It just seems to be difficult to do! It is easier to not write poetry. I love writing in general so it is a peculiar thing to me that expression through poetry sharing is such a challenge.

My lovely blogger friend, Sarah at The Lemon Tree recently shared an email with me asking why I did not write more poetry. I am listening to her.
I am thinking about her question. Here is my poem for today....I will let tomorrow take care of itself!

Black and White

Standing barefoot
on charred ground
where yesterday
dreams flowered

Intent against
wind of pain
wind of beauty
too much
black and white

She kneels
in shades of gray
to smooth
the ashes at her feet

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

That Beauty That is Terror

This poem was written awhile ago after losing someone I loved deeply and had been involved with at two extended time points in my life spanning fifteen years.
He was 45 at the time of his death which was not expected. Never had I felt as KNOWN as in this relationship. The ebb and flow of the connection was a given. After his death, I waited three years to even consider meeting someone else and then met someone immediately. I felt passionately and intensely about this new love but I had not yet been able to fully let go of the other relationship. This poem is about the new love that I met. Loving two people in this way, one of whom was not in this world, felt like an emotional tail spin.

I find I can still recapture all the feelings, the connection, and the disconnect and the struggle to stay in this new relationship, because I wanted to do so, while still not having said a total goodbye to someone that I felt to be a forever soul connection. At the same time, there was the feeling always that
my new love would disappear (i.e. die)

That Beauty That is Terror

Loving you
Without benefit of words
or without your presence
Can be as one of Rilke's Angels

That beauty that
Is terror
To this part-time
Little girl in a grown up world

Cursed and blessed with
Seeing potentials and feelings
She navigates by default a
Ship on a tilt alone
Toward unknown shores

While away from you
As Captain you seem
Otherwise occupied
Cerebral, distracted

Perhaps through
No fault of
Your own and
Perhaps as her illusion
Charting your own course

Leaving to the girl-child
The here and now
Day by day journey
Giving her few coordinates

Yet you remain
Ever the diplomat
Caring,responsive
Benovelence implied
Consolation given

Coming to you
Is like entering a
Haven from navigating
A respite
An oasis of connection

Moving within three feet of
Your skin and
Your touch
Is like moving
Through a mine field of

Chemistry and involuntary responses
A yearning energy of
Physical longing and wanting
Needing urgently, immediately
Yet never wanting the need to end

Being with you
In the biblical sense is
Fire in a desert, phoenix rising
Spiritual, passionate, consuming
Ultimate dirty dancing

Speeping with you is
Safety at a primal level
For a sensitive soul
Touching knowing without barrier
Being.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Allegory

Chicago,Chicago
and All That Jazz
How I loved you
while you stood
horn in hand

Yourself draped
on the threshold of
a dream house
split level stairs
looking only at me

Something too grand and glorious
even to be put to music
Shining and Becoming
the Me I saw
reflected in your eyes

Razzle Dazzle
tap dance shoes
Silver Sparkles, Chrome toes
Clunky high heels
anything goes

Step to the left and
shuffle to the right
smile just right
checking it out
I don't think so

Long ago, presenting
short black lace gown
& baby doll panties
draped casually over an arm
Prentending to be fearless

Are you going to wear that?
You said.........
Understated as always
seeming incredulous
Smiling knowingly ..to you

No...I don't think so
I thought to myself.
Tonight remembering
I wonder
Where did I ever put that outfit?

Here I am
There I was
Standing in that window light
Where talk is of placing photo
subjects to be less uptight

Black and white balance
Learning a lot, learning a lot.
Notice the detail!
The hours, the hours
Hello. Hello.

Heel Toe, Heel Toe
Whirling, twirling
Dervish like turning
catching the light
Did you notice?
Probably not...

Somethings it seems
one just expects
to be there
What need to look
Is something gone you ask?

Who were those guys in
the forties and fifties
who played those arch top
Epitone Guitars
broadway movie score style

That they seemed to
look and see
What was there
in front of their faces
Here and now
with or without light

Razzle Dazzle
tap dance shoes
They never die
Like old indians
they just fade away

I am, you are, the music played
Good night Jimmy D
Where ever you are
Heel toe Heel toe

Lss May 23, 2003