...unable to breathe almost against this thundering lump within my throat, the feeling of a heart
wrenched and torn.....
....unable to listen to your goodbyes....
9 Apr 97//NO GENTLE PEACE
oh god I wish that I had peace to give, some guarantee or heartfelt words with which to anchor
searching mind and heart....together, not, the walls oblique and cornered and no chance to say
them nay....knowing that my thoughts won't do, my words not strong enough to overcome the
doubts, becalming fears, and wondering at the stillness in your voice, the absence of the "you"
within the words...
6 Apr 97//TREMBLING
There is a blight here, now, between us....not sure why or how or when it grew....having felt the
distance spawned, a gradual withdrawing into yourself and soul...and unsure of how to heal
it.....not knowing if it's me, or you, and wanting just to rail, protest, to hold and gather in, to
cradle safely deep inside my heart, to keep you there, to stay your mind and parting.....
...and knowing, trembling, that such would do no good, a simple step away....a movement back
against my heart and will, but feeling such the only course...I would help you find your way - if
you'd let me, if you'd want me.....but pushed away by barrier'd words and shrouded thoughts,
unable to do much more than simply let you go....
30 Mar 97//STILL HARD
Holding the feel of you within the hands of my mind, the parting tears and touch of your cheek,
the sighs, goodbyes, and wishing it hadn't had to be....at peace, somehow, with all that is and
knowing deep contentment at all that rests within, and sure of its solidity.....still sad, somehow, to
bear the weight of that goodbye.....
29 Mar 97//SOFA'D SLEEP
The curve of cheek held safe in pillowed hand, limbs akimbo'd, spread and flung across the
cushions, soft sound of breathing accenting ragged undertone.....face smoothed, relaxed under
balming sleep...reaching out to gently touch and stroke your cheek...
....it is so easy to love so much, the sight of you held safe, secure...boundaried, cradled in
upholstered rest...and simply sitting, watching there, the hours passing as you slumber on,
unmindful of my presence, not knowing how the sight of such quiet ease fills me, and makes me
glad.....
22 Mar 97//PULSE AND TONE
Soft words carried over telephone lines, a gentle laugh and catch of voice, the over-controlled
strain of wanting to say so much and more and the keeping quiet, the sense of cradling all of this
in heartful hands....feelings aswirl and living there, within, still crashing through me,
overwhelming me with committed strengths and roughly-stilled wantings..
...wanting just to be, for you......wanting just to feel, for me.......
16 Mar 97//BLOOMBURST
A springfilled South arose this dawn, shining in its hues and scents, a full month early if not
more so, dogwoods burst to bloom and sparked by crimson'd azaleas, redbuds lacy against their
greening gowns and lilacs budding into sweet headiness....a gentle winter's grayness suddenly
kleiglight-lit to sunny brilliance and heightened by warm springtime'd breeze...
...backporch steps a throne to all the glory of the kingdom, jestered squirrels in mischievous
pranking scampering �round the large backyard, and minstrelled by the chirping wrens, wrestling
branch to ground and back again in frenzied admiration...fat, puffed-up robins in red-breasted
vests - a score at least in solemn pursuit of teeming insects come to life amidst the verdant
growth....
10 Mar 97//THE MISSING
I wish I could explain the poignancy of the missing....a melancholy, brilliant piercing which
brings both smiles and tears to hazel eyes...a fullness overwhelming, deep, not of sadness as
much a drifting, filling, over me....quietly accepting what is just now, the distance, time and
you....a wish to share, for you to somehow know and feel, believe....
...and trying hard to hold but gently, in outstretched hands and open heart, all that was, and is,
and could be....
6 Mar 97//TOOTHFAIRY
Childhood's measured passing marked and stamped, unbidden in its travel, a milepost of sorts in
Evie's gaptoothed smile...earlier complaints of toothaches frought with concern of dentists and
fillings laughingly tossed aside as the reality of her growth impinges...not the toddler that she
was, but growing into small maturities....gum-bound, fear-kept hanging in there way past the
proper losing stage, �til her youngish pride prompts "Mom, YOU do it"...allowing me close,
gauze-wrapped fingers grasping, prying and with a sudden tug, and hug, an "it's all done,
sweetie" lights her face....wiping small bloodied traces from off her lips as she fights my hands to
see the mirror...and smiling'd, first time glimpse of another step away.....her pride apparent as in
tiny hands she clutches the enameled treasure, running to her sister to surprise her with the
bounty....and later settling in her bedclothes, a still-smiling quest for sleep, and fairies, and the
ever-present magic of the young....sleep deep and safely, my gap-toothed princess, and may all
the fairies of your dreams visit in the night.....
2 Mar 97//EMPTY
The house seems empty now, bereft of life, the girls subdued to match the quiet missing in my
heart....the day somehow dimmer and silence deeper..holding tight still-scented cloth and grateful
for the sharing....
14 Feb 97//A VALENTINE FOR ONE AND ALL
A day for lovers and for love, slipping by alone with many brought to mind and fewer yet
brought to heart....roses sent on wish and dream to grace those distant in all but
thought...lace-edged ethered kiss sent soaring heavenward to rain down upon your heart in
abundance, to hold against the darkness of the night and the deepest silence of a separation...
...wanting instead to extend my hand with heart and card inside to you....and have you take it
there...
2 Feb 97//AIRBORNE
Soaring high above the forested hills from which I do not want to leave, the Bay and headlands
lost to view, foothills creeping into mountainsides in which I want to stay, the blues of Tahoe
seared into my heart and Tahoe dreams scorched into my soul...a wrenching, this leaving....torn
between the halves which compromise my life...
...wishing I could stay, and have, and be.....
1 Feb 97//INSIDE MY HEART
There are those whose lives cross ours, who grow to mean so much and more, and bound by joy
and pain and simple sharing come to live inside our hearts as if it was a second home....those for
whom there are not words, but simply smiles and ease of comfort borne of true affection, whose
belonging is ensured by friendship's ties....and in greeting these, embracing them in laughter and
in tears, a place fulfilled and found...and grateful that such ones exist....
30 Jan 97//WATER CRADLE
Midnight climbing, naked skin caressed in steaming, hot-tubbed silk, flesh to flesh and soul to
sky, head to heart, the valley laid before my sated eyes through a fog of heated moistured air,
drifting from the water's surface to fall to ground and seep dreamlike down the hillside....echoing
the dreams from within this heart, drifting, spinning, lazily creeping over me, a blanket slipping
over naked thoughts and even barer skin....and reaching out a fingertip to touch the dream, slight
smile limning softened lips and eyes full of unnamed feeling as the pregnant moon begins to rise,
from behind the trees and climbing hills, dancing in a measured step across the star-filled skies...
...and this perfect night, this shared delight, is poignant in intensity, and held cradled in a wanting
soul, as the water cradles me....
29 Jan 97//TAHOE BLUE
Sitting in an out-thrust window of the 18th floor of Harvey's, overlooking the most amazing
scenery - mountains, conifers, the heart-rending blue of Tahoe's lake spread out in front of
me...feet propped up upon a purloined vanity stool and the sound of sleepy breathing
punctuating the view-filled room....more contented than I've been in quite a while, unwilling to
move, to break the spell, slipping entranced into the warmth and quietness and the clear, clean
landscape......whitened by snow, softened by the lake's own haze, the far reaches obscured and
fuzzed so a clear defining line between land and sky, lake and mountain is just out of
reach....feeling as if all the colored blue in the world is spread out before me - azures, turquoises,
the midnighted-blue of deep tree-lined shadows....sky blues and water blues and the blue of
receeding mountains...
Feeling anything but blue in these safe, secure surroundings...a muffled snore coming
from behind my shoulder, the warmth of a cradled coffee cup in hand, the slide of sweatshirted
fleece caressing skin and the chill of the cold glass pane tickling bare and wriggling
toes.....wishing I could but capture this one moment into all of my realities, to never move
beyond it, and then smiling softly at the knowledge that it will always be with me.....this Tahoe
blue, this achingly beautiful moment.
And simply sitting there, content, as the night begins to fall and darkness shrouds the lake and
mountains, sunlight flaring over the far-reaching ridge and sparking in a dancing flame over the
western reaches of the lake to sink beneath its surface.....
6 Jan 97//UNDOING
Epiphany, or Three King's Day, the annual marker within my house of the end of the Christmas
season and the time for the mundane task of undoing all the seasonal decorations....wreaths lifted
from off of outside windows, bows removed and swaddled in tissue before being packed away,
garlands unwound from posts and doorways, baubles and bits carefully wrapped and tucked into
cardboard boxes...fingers softly moving over carved and molded surfaces, textures captured there
and memories defined as each is hidden one under another and shrouded from view and harm by
plastic bubbles and styrofoam peanuts, the storage boxes packed tighter than ever before with the
newly-added offerings...the rough, warm feel of the nativity brought back by parents juxtaposed
with the chilled hardness of the nutcrackers' enameled surfaces, the cotton-battened loft of
handmade stockings rolled together and tucked safely into a waiting space....
The house suddenly naked without the decorations we so quickly grow accustomed to seeing, the
quality of light seeming harsh without the softened glow of sparkling, chasing mini-lights...
analagous perhaps of life itself, and the ease and comfort with which we fall into happy things,
and the sad realities of putting all back in order at the passing of them.
This has always been my least favorite time of year, the end of the Christmas season.....the shift
in mere hours' time from brightness, warmth and happy scented chaos to the humdrum of
ordinary daily life. I wonder why that's so.....the foundation remains the same and the contents of
the days undifferent, the people and the bonds unchanged.
I think I will try to keep the holiday feelings alive past this time...to find the color and the gaiety
and to revel in the tiny chaos of the day-to-day, trying to find the joy in them instead of muttering
against their inevitable intrusions.
And in that way, as once was written, "keep Christmas in (my) heart"......
1 Jan 97//NEW YEAR
New Year's Eve, digital clock hands clicking over inexorably from one year into the next, mind
filled with random dancing thoughts of what was and what has yet to be, of the cycles of life and
love and being. The cold of front porch steps chilling thighs perched there under a star-filled
sky, the combined noise of televised celebrations meshing with the laughter of Megan and her
friends, and Evie's boisterous bids for their attention, seeping through the wooden door to wash
over me in waves of smiles....mind ticking over eddied incidents and experiences, failings and
accomplishments, resolutions made and offered up to twist windingly away on the rising winter
wind...
And inside, voices raised in the annual countdown as the door's thrown open, children and young
adults spilling forth to gather in the doorway with their shouting numbered calling-forth of the
coming year as the electric apple drops more than a thousand miles away to mark their entry into
1997....while the feelings in this all-to-human heart rise and drop and rise again to mark my own
entry into this newest year...
Raising coffee cup in hand to silently toast all who have - and all that has - come and gone, or
come and stayed, over the past 12 months...and silent prayers and wishes offered up for health
and happiness, balance and fulfillment, before turning to softly kiss my girls in New Year's
greetings and to laugh at their dancing antics underneath the stars, punctuated as they are by the
shrill whistles of bottle rockets and the sudden pop of scattered neighborhood fireworks...and
reaching towards the telephone to make the one or two calls which must be made, by
heart and by tradition, in celebration of the year just born.
30 Dec 96//THE TWILIGHT WEPT
*Dusk falling over the warm wintered night, trees stark as this aching stone inside my chest and
wind sighing in rhythmed accord with the tiny sobs breaking over quivering lips....day dimming
into twilight, much as hazel eyes dim with tears, and the close of day settling 'round crouching
form like shrouds. Sky flaring, briefly, into peaches and mauves and cerulean, midnighted
blue....the sun slipping away beneath the horizon as trusting belief wants to slide from grasping
hands...*
There are days I fear I will wake up, not wanting to feel any longer, not wanting to believe, to
hope...not want to open the doors of mind and heart, to expose myself to hurt and
pain....preferring instead, in the organization of my mind at least, to stay protected, closed, safe in
my aloneness....
It's difficult to understand the hold that others have upon our souls, our hearts...the power that we
give away, and the impact that we allow it all to have. The need for connection, the ability to
believe in someone, something other than ourselves....not divinity, but human - flesh and blood
and bound by the same mortal constraints and earthly considerations...just one person to share
faith with, trust in...
...and in the reaching out, risking all. In the holding, the willingness to relinquish - if but for a
tiny second - the innate separateness of our beings...to join in shared companionship and in
release. Chancing fate, misrepresentation....the possible betrayal of ideals and of beliefs, and the
castigation of our hearts for allowing such to happen maybe yet again...
But how NOT to experience such???? How to fully protect and defend and shield, when all of
our humanity cries out for such connection? How to care so much, but no further...to believe,
without losing objectivity...to trust, but not care if such is trampled? How to walk that
tightrope....to find the necessary balance?
I fear I do not do that well.......
...and so I sit, alone, and weep, afraid against the twilight.
