The Tenderness & Might of Armor,

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 141

Happy New Year Everyone!

“The past is not a package one can lay away.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

 

I once wore my disappointments of the past like heavy armor prepared to battle all that the future could hold or take away.

Keeping every harsh word and silent goodbye like folded letters in envelopes I could never send.

I grew wide fields of wheat feeding an obese denial that no tractor’s blade could ever plow,

and my heart built colossal walls so magnificent that no man could ever climb nor could my own eyes see beyond.

You see memory is a relentless child that has heard news of the carnival and will never forget when it does not come to town,

and those disappointments seem to grow bigger with time like a child’s hopes or a woman’s hips,

but even harder to ever lose!

So in the lessons that life’s hurts and losses seem to bring,

I learned to carry grief tightly like an over protective mother afraid of running children and the oncoming cars.

Looking back now, I see I had spent all my strength fiercely holding a certain sorrow;

afraid of losing all I hold dear.

Holding the cold hard knowledge of what it is to truly lose.

For life becomes a bitter struggle when the fear of what we could lose outweighs

the abundant joy of holding what we truly have.

 

 

The Force of Longing

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 136

Hosted this week by the spectacular poet Chrissa!

There was a time when I was submerged in the emptiness of my mother's regrets

unable to breathe with my own lungs nor speak with my own voice

one would think that the weight of regret could flood a soul

but instead it takes away

drop by drop until all that is left is a parched and thirsty place

yet it is there that I learned to reach out

finding my own voice

immersing myself in poetry 

thirsty for hope and hungry to be heard

for longing is a greater force than lost regrets that cannot be salvaged from the rubble

longing pushes us onward like a canoe in a river

headed to something greater

a purpose and message beyond ourselves

a voice that speaks of hope and beauty

to our daughters' daughters

we may never meet.

The Hands of Time

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 88

Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling

As a child I tried to swiftly chase time

Wanting to make it move faster ahead

Oil all the levers of every clock

See them dash around with fantastic speed

I longed for now to be later

And for later to be all that now was not

The freedom of adult sized shoes

To carry me where I wanted to go

And that was somewhere else

Up ahead in the distance

not where I stood

Years have passed since then

And I like the place where my adult shoes stand

Now is a precious commodity

I hold it gently yet very close

And I long to slow down the hands of time

Let the moments last longer and take it all in

For I look back and wonder where the time has gone

It slipped through my fingers

While I was so busy looking ahead.