3rd Act

People teach you

about people.

Loneliness and Solitude

See-Saw.

Generations 

leave more than can be

taken.

Practice

gratitude & letting go

of things and people 

you were grateful for 

Once. 

Everything happens...

Burning bridges,

opening doors-

There must be more

than one way

In or out.

One way to look at it

is just that.

People need people

like signposts

for orientation.

Yet never to be 

in the same place

at the same time.

Missing and

Lost 

can be both 

alone and together.

When you find yourself...

Painting by George Hitchcock, 'Calypso' c. 1906 Google Art Project via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

Avow

Truth be told-

The clean secrets

are the ones

most easily over-looked, 

like tiny happy pills,

like big gulps of fermentation

like bottled pride, 

once swallowed

often gets caught

tickling the throat

edible if not credible

sharp.

The bleached lies

are the ones treated

as though sterilization 

made us all safer

instead of regretful

for draining the color from

all storied possibilities.

Cheeks and skies

Sunsets and dawns

pinks and yellows

the way you see

plain as day

something always there

in between...

Kisses like clouds

Words like wind

fighting infection and odds

debating the will without power

Nothing to trace

Distance cured us all

to be saved for later

Revelations.

Painting by Gabriel von Max 'Praying' c. 1915 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Recital

On a Sunday without sun.
A day of Revelations, 
-without all the Light.
I think of how my elderly mother 
is likely being beaten
down and on 
by her husband...
I think of how the man 
who says he loves me 
is likely cheating
on me and is always down around me...
I think of my adult children 
and how they have struggled with me 
and grown still
suspicious
all the more-
none the less,
I think of all of the sandcastles I have built, 
now perfectly indistinguishable from all 
other failures;
grains, hairs, skin flakes and ashes 
that I have left 
strewn around trying to blend in...
I think I have been told my whole life 
to put it down-
I think I misunderstood.
I wonder how 
I could ever think
thoughts could be read 
like a sermon we share
or the psalms we hold 
in memory. 



Painting by Claude Monet, Camille Monet on a garden bench, c. 1873 in Public Domain.