Poetry
Image by Nathan Anderson @ Unsplash+
The Tide Comes In
We saunter along the shore,
boys trailing behind.
Tender dusk, the wind
a sigh as we skip stones,
stride briskly between
the bulky boulders, climb and leap.
The surf tickles our toes.
We glance to the left, note the high
bluff and nowhere –
two little ones in tow – to go.
Over our right shoulders…
the white-tipped sea.
Too far
from where we began.
we scoop up the lads,
one in each pair of arms,
wade forward, urgent feet soaked,
knees submerged, shadows fading.
Fraught, we spy a path up the hill,
faint and worn, slippery and steep.
We climb—panting, fearful, fearless,
clutching our young treasures,
our quadrille breath
shallow and ragged.
At the top of the bluff we
pivot and look toward
the dim horizon.
We stand, our children
between us, circle back
and tread the dry, high trail home.
Sorrow
Sorrow had not yet visited me.
Shades of it sifted through my father’s stories,
the beleaguered look in my mother’s eyes as she watched
her wild, enchanted life grow dim.
Sorrow teased me with the loss of aged aunts,
both grandmothers, a menagerie of creatures—
lizards, frogs, parakeets, turtles, Easter chickadees,
my dog. Sorrow pricks which pierced, sorrow shrouds
which hovered but did not descend, did not destroy.
Not me. Not us.
My beloved and I were unencumbered,
possessing only one another.
We wandered away—joyful, buoyant,
waltzing, wandering into other cultures,
other worlds, confident sorrow would avoid us.
But there was no avoidance, only delay,
until inch by inch, moment by moment,
sorrow grew near
and moved right in.
Tough
It was tough
when he was sick
and dying.
The illness—terminal
and the dying—slow,
rattled our lives undone
until nothing, not a thing,
not a single solitary thing
was normal anymore.
Not waking up, not morning
tasks, not meals, not work,
not life so sweet and chaotic
with children and cats and
friends and old, falling down
house we didn’t own.
And after…
after he died and there were
four of us and a steadily
growing number of cats,
nothing, not a thing
was normal or ordinary
or even expected.
It was all up for
grabs and tragedy and the
worst—the very worst—
that could befall our
little, fragile, blasted,
torn to bits
family.