4 Nov 96//FROSTED MORN
I awoke to frost this morning, arising from my sleep-warmed bed to throw on cotton-shift, and -
dog in hand - throwing open the chill-sweated glass doors to the still-dark yard.....a rush of
winter-hinted air a physical assault on face and form, with sudden goosebumps and indrawn
breath assailed by the frosty coating on the grass...barefooted, creeping over softly crunching
frost to chain the dog and then retreat within to claim my coffee and Nana's old ragged crocheted
shawl....drawn around bare shoulders and clasped tightly to my breast in front, a barrier against
the chill morning's air as I sit upon the brick back step, coffee steam-swirled in cupping hands
and hair, sleep-touseled, lifting, drifting on the icy wind, bared now and then to the icy fingers of
approaching winter...the dissipating leaves of the back-door lilac marked with glistening
frost-marks, striated, starred with ethered crystal tracings...the grass sparkling, gem-like in the
slowly dawning day, moon-white in darkness turning slowly, glassily transparent under the
reaching rays of the rising sun.
Breath warmed by heart and steaming coffee an exhaled fog in front of me...childishly, lustily
exhaling just to see the magic transformation....smiling against the growing day at the fairy look
of frost and the beauty of the morn.
28 Oct 96//AUTUMN JOY
The call of a gorgeous Autumn day proved too enticing for me today...playing hooky against
responsibilities and chores, taking instead the dog and Evie out into the countryside.....stopping
by a roadside stand to purchase gourds and maize for tabletop and a fat orange pumpkin for the
doorstep, laughing at her indecision over which was best and biggest as she ran from one to
another and yet another....decision finally made, having to coax the tiny arms from around the
vegetable beast, envisioning it split and pouring pumpkin guts onto the gravelled drive if she got
her way and carried it to the car, handing her instead the brown-papered sack of harvest
goodies...finding an abandoned field blazing in the cool, crisp day with acres of brilliant
goldenrod and ethereal, dancing Queen Anne's Lace....and turning loose the dog to race and
dance amongst the fields, chasing rabbits and imaginary vermin, tongue lolling comically as she
tried to catch the darting butterflies �til tired, panting she moved to lay next to us on the tattered
car quilt....Evie and I with armloads of the yellow weeds scattered about us, fairy-like white
umbrels sparking such a golden reaping....smiling softly as Evie pretended one long stalk with
golden head was a magic wand, gently tapping the dog and me and muttering childishly
imaginative incantations (or dubbing me a princess and the dog, her knight)....settling her next to
me and showing her the weaving of wreaths for door and window, twining stems about
themselves and over and around the growing circles, soft and shaded in all the colors of the
Fall...the red of sumac, the brilliance of the goldenrod....and done, taking the remnants and
weaving garlands for our hair, singing "Five Little HoneyPots" and laughing at the tiny inchworm
creeping off one lacy bough onto waiting fingertip, marvelling at such seeming delicacy of
movement and then teaching her the "Inchworm" song....
Warm and fuzzed with clear Fall day and gentle breezes, laying back amidst the gathered
bracken, garlands slipping up over foreheads and hair tangling in the twining stems, Evie warm
against my side and the dog placing heavy head against a shin....to watch the play of fleecy
clouds across the brilliant turquoise sky.....drowsing there, with child and dog and slowly healing
heart..........
25 Oct 96//ON, INTO TOMORROW
I saw the sun today.......moved out into the day, warm and golden and bathing face and form and
world in gentle autumned radiance...the crispness of approaching Fall breaking through some
tear-bound barrier, some sad shroud around my soul....the clarity of the day deepening the clarity
of heart, knowing that the love is there, trembling, untouched, untrammeled, and realizing that -
as puerile as it sounds - love simply is... existent, whole, against choice or decision or
separation...as surely knowing that it will so remain in some quiet corner of who and what I am...
And turning face towards the sun, experiencing a letting go of sorts...and so moving on, into
tomorrow....
17 Oct 96//ADRIFT
I seem to wander aimless through the days, adrift inside this soaring rush of loss and
melancholy...moving through the hours unknowingly, on remote, feeling somehow unanchored
and unmindful of the day-to-day, simply existing, simply there - a phantomed ghost somehow
living on the edge of being...
Moving, dancing, tentative and sensitive with those around me, friends and daughters, all limned
with a sense of unreality, the realness living instead inside this fractured heart in remembered
dreams and passioned wants....yet slowly meshing, pulling it into some hazy semblance of
acceptance, slowly ordering this raging heart and swirling mind into some form, some sort of
controlled chaotic oneness with ongoing life.....
10 Oct 96//BUT I LOVED
Musing, silent tears slipping over cheeks once appled by joyful smiles and clouding eyes once
sparked with you... reflecting on how the human heart - battered, sore - can still feel such an
overwhelming, aching love and need, concerned and wishing peace and balance....
Broken dreams held trembling, unwilling to let them go but cradled, instead, close and gentle
within the hands of my heart.....saddened, mourning the loss of you and us and THIS....
And still, amidst the tears and loss, knowing we were once good....and that I loved...
7 Oct 96//HEART-WRACKED
My world shifted somewhat today, dimmed and palled, a void descending....numbing reality
enveloping soul and heart and mind....how can the seeming loss of love cause such a strongly felt
physical reaction? The heart an aching stone in weeping breast, burning throat and sending
heavy-weighted tendrils into mind and belly, turning breathing into an effort and clear thought
into impossibility...memories racing, raging over me, futured dreams clasping me in drowning
anguish...ethered arms engulfing me and pulling me further into the void...mind entwined and
trapped with fleeting neon flashes of dreamlike quality, of "what if" and "in time" and knowing,
KNOWING that this must be.........
Sitting silent in the darkness, turning it all over and between the twin hands of heart and mind,
feeling both the love and the anguish, wanting, needing, knowing....
Sitting - midnighted, silent - only the weight of this loss straining, surging, rushing over me....
26 Sep 96//ECLIPSED
A disappointing start to what was hoped to be an evening of moon watching...the blanket spread
upon the backyard grass and bowl of popcorn in hand, Meg and Evie muttering as I dragged them
from the phone and television, respectively....and trudging out to watch the eclipse, only to see
ragged, smoky clouds moving in to obscure the brightly glowing orb..Meg believing THAT was
the start and totality of the eclipse.
And going back inside, supplies in hand, to resume the evening's activities, the thought of
celestial happenings overcome by telephonic chit-chat of "Angela's new boyfriend and how short
should I cut my hair and OH, OH didja hear 'bout Robert's new car" (�til I shut the door against
the girlish giggles) and Evie wrapped up once again within the flickering televisioned images of
birthing zebras in the Serengetti; my mind still floating back to what was happening high above
the clouds, and surreptitious checks of still-clouded sky between forays across the internet.
Until at last, at 9:22, the clouds shrugged off their hold upon the glowing moon and she stood
naked to the wondering eye, swollen large and motionless against a bed of velvet darkness...and
bit by bit her pale surface veiled by the creeping shadow of the earth...9:50 I abandoned the house
and with girls in tow once more moved out to sit
upon the grass...prickly stubbled against bare thighs and poking through thin cottoned tee-shirts,
the stray pinecone kicked away from its poking rudeness...
To lay upon our backs and watch the wonder of eclipsing moon, shadowed bit by bit by the
movement of the earth, shadowing the reflected illumination of the lunar field...like a sheer lace
glove pulled teasingly over a lady's hand, finger by finger, slowly obscuring glowing flesh with a
teasing gauziness dimming most but hinting at the succulence beneath. Two-thirds covered, then
three-quarters, the brightly glowing remnant an upside-down smile against the dark and cradling
heavens, the face of the moon sparked diamond-like by the beauty-mark of the evening star,
perched upon celestial chin, its twinkling left unmarred by the now-swiftly moving shadow.
Crickets chirping from secret hiding spots and a stray lightning-bug flitting across the deeper
shadows of the bushes, the evening's sussuration of insect-hum and softly whispered breezes
echoed by the droning whoooooooooooooosh of far-off traffic, distinct enough for hearing but
muted to be no more than a steady rush of whispered undertones.
And bit by teasing, shadowed bit, the glove slipping fully over glowing moon �til at full
eclipsing zenith's reach it becomes a dim and softly noticeable smudge against the sky. The
shadow hangs there, quiet, soft, unmoving for more than several minutes, and then begins to
wane, drawing off of silvered lunar surface with what would seem to be a sighed caress...and
gently fades away leaving all, once more, revealed.
23 Sep 96//PROCRASTINATION
The other pages have been hung for over two weeks, and all of them designed and prepped for
three....but procrastinating in the hanging of this page...perhaps because it will/does contain so
much of "ME", a direct glimpse into who and what I really am - not just surface issues such as
hobbies and interests, but the �essence', if you will, of the inner me.
Perhaps the reluctance is part of a writer's natural insecurity regarding the validity and acceptance
of their words - one very special individual once told me that his poems were "orphans" waiting
to be adopted, to be given a welcoming and happy home. I know exactly what was meant.
Another friend describes walking on a "Jello floor" - a shakiness born of caution and restraint,
with an element of fear thrown in....this, too, I can understand.
But this is who I am, and what I think, and so this page MUST be.
I suppose it would help for me to remember that I write for my own satisfaction, driven by my
mind and my emotions....to assuage an ache or thought or a need for creativity. I hold no
illusions and seek no approbation, but if it were forthcoming (and being human *s*) I certainly
would not reject it.
*deep breath* And so, this page is hung....
18 SEP 96//SLIVERED MOON
An entrancing morn, as I take out Tessa (aware of the empty spot at my
side which had been Sandy).........the sky a velvety bright midnight
blue, so perfect a shade as to look brushed onto ethered sky, rich,
soft, deep-looking.....and sparked high up with the twin diamante
ornaments of slivered moon and twinkling star....the moon a twisted
crescent of a smile, a slice of light in the otherwise unmarred
firmament....and 3 degrees left of top dead center, a single large
bright shining star, which on the face of a beautiful woman would be a
beauty mark, I suppose, twinkling there as accent to a smiling mouth or
finely arched brow.....and sitting, musing upon the patio steps, white
cotton shift glowing in the not-yet dawning light and coffee mug in
hand, to hear the crickets out in force singing from water logged hiding
places and to smell the aromas of fresh-sawn pine and new-mown grass
and, underfoot - bare toes deliberately sliding there, playing in the
lanky growth - the tang of crushed and mangled mints (I suppose I should
clip them back, these ranging spikes of spear- and peppermints, they do
grow way beyond the bounds and heights of steps, raggedy urchins
scrabbling for purchase in the dirt filled crevices and cracks.....but
this is such a simple pleasure, leave them long my nose tells me.....to
brush against a hurrying ankle and stroke a rushed and harried calf as
one flies in and out of the back patio door....or to be plucked and
chewed upon, stem tartly cool and startingly strong, leaves roughly
velveted upon sucking tongue).....things ordered, calm, serenely complete after the fury of the
weekend's storms
16 SEP 96//DELUGE
1 am -
Pounding rain, thundering against the roof and upon the ground, a mad
rushing sound of all the heavens' opening...and sitting on the front
porch in Nanna's old oak rocker (the one with the runners chewed in
Sandy's puppyhood), coffee in hand, knees pulled up to under chin and
white cotton shift tented over all....lighning flashes so quick and
brilliant the streetlights think it's day and don't have time to recycle
on, staying dark....the pitch black of this stormy night punctuated with
ozoned phosphoresence, stark white for micro-seconds but imprinted for a
nameless time upon the retina, leaving a negative image floating within
these hazel eyes .....'til closing them against the brightness, jumping
- startled - at the thunderboom and crash off another nearby lightning
strike....smelling the electric, acrid charge of blasted tree and
ozone and churned up earth (that makes two so far tonight within 300
yards).....and the night air, unstirred by breeze but roiled by
torrents, cool upon slowly misted skin...the power and fury of this
thunderstorm a balm upon my heart....its steadily pouring liquid sound a
lullaby unto my soul...and wrapping arms around my knees and dropping
forehead upon my arms, I lose myself inside the storm...
.....and some countless minutes, hours (?) later, rousing as the storm
abates...gently lowering bare toes to porch (grimacing slightly at their
stiffness, and the hardness of the oaken chair under long-unmoving
derriere), I stand....to wade barefoot through the rain-swelled puddles
fed by the run-off from the roof and eaves...a slow, steady,
drip-drip-drippppp the only break in storm-deafened world.....water cool
and minted grasses fragrant underneath my shuffled feet..and returning
to the porch to gather now-cold coffee in its mug I turn and go
inside....and lock the door against the night...
14 SEP 96//PERSIAN TURQUOISE
Butter-golden morn, long arms stretching from below the horizon to gild the world in glowing
light........the sky a Persian tuquoise polished to a gleaming, flat and lustrous brightness unmarred
by cloud, the same shade from east to west presaging a beautiful day...and the crickets chirping
from under the wheelbarrow, hiding under the vining morning glories creeping up and over
wooden handles - purpled, pink and white trumpets wide open to meet the day, petals sparked
with brilliant dew and tangled in the trailing mint which spreads and creeps throughout the
flowerbed...a quiet stillness - no sound but for breezes sighing through the trees and birdsong
from a distance, and the susurrating hummmmmmmmmmmm of insect noises...
...and sitting on the bricked back-steps, coffee mug in hand, cotton shift almost too thin to protect
against the chill the morning's brought, fall in the air and crisp air clean and vibrant against
sleep-drugged skin and face....breeze running teasing fingers over face and form, lifting, stirring
tangled hair to slip a chilled caress around my neck....and smiling against the sun's now-full light,
rejoicing in the feel of soft warmth and golden light, closing hazel eyes against them both, to feel
the morning with all my senses.
11 SEP 96//FEVERED
Long, slow, sleep-hazed morning....cradled in linened arms and fevered sleep....hair dampened at
nape of neck and skin slick with fever-break...logy, sluggish, growing overwarm in shrouded
embrace of comforter and sheets, and kicking them off, to become chilled in the sudden rush of
air conditioned breeze over naked flesh..... compromising with just the sheet, and moving to a
cooler spot within the bed, pillows turned and tugged into proper form and flushed cheek
searching for just the perfect place..........coolness siding over too-warmed skin, a caress of linen
soothing across a naked thigh and back...and mind drifting, half-way between sleep and waking,
lost in the timelessness of flu-spawned fever and dream-sparked sleep....
Can't remember when I've slept so much...all yesterday afternoon and much of the evening, then
going back to bed at midnight and not rising 'til 10:30....Evie coming in every now and then to
slide a childish hand across my brow and asking "Are you still sick, Mom", then insisting on
bringing me glasses of water (hating to tell her that hot water is not easily palatable, even
at the BEST of times - - for it is the easiest spigot-handle for her to reach).....other than the
low-grade fever, and assorted body aches, it's not that bad....of course, I'm NOT tempting it by
eating yet....and weak cups of orange spiced tea seem soothing and not TOO dangerous to queasy
stomach.
8 SEP 96//STORM WRACKED
Heavy cowhide gloves sheathing carmined fingertips, seams welted heavy 'gainst sweating and
rain slicked hands.....pulling, lugging fallen limbs around the yard, wheelbarrow piled with
smaller branches and with storm-slung cones, rakes and saws piled haphazardly against each
other upon the porch awaiting use in tired hands.....storm-slashed ravages to be cleaned up and
put in landscaped ordered fashion...carefully picking up the shards of shattered storm panes to
clear the way for spring- and summered-feet in later months...tee-shirt plastered to hot and
sweaty body, the temperature unaffected by the rain, the air so full of moisture it can no longer be
absorded by earth or skin or lungs....heavy, sheeting grayness shrouding the work, and auburn
hair dripping into eyes despite the pony-tail and the forearms slid over streaming forehead to
push it back....eyes squinting against the rain and the gloom, a storm-grayed dullness covering it
all...and when the fallen limbs and scattered debris cleared, borrowing Andrew's chain saw to
attack the neighbor's shattered pine, fallen across the chain link fence in the back, crushing a
narrow section and bowing out the rest...fallen into MY yard and they unwilling to tackle
the job (remembering the lightning-blasted pine we suffered 2 years ago, which sat there for 3
weeks until I sawed it up and stacked it for later winter's use)...removing the branching limbs,
and then breaking it down into smaller sections, stacking it on their curbside for city
pickup...thighs and forearms scratched and abraded by the rough and wetted bark, from hauling
the logs across the way, and skin prickled by the resin and the needles...tiny itching red spots
from where stray cones have pricked the rain-slicked skin, and a long bloody scratch where a
limb slipped from overloaded arms and raked itself down one thigh....feet wet and soggy in
hiking boots, socks mere wicks at this point for the rain, but bare feet impractical as to footing
and to safety....tired, wanting a hot shower and cool sheets.....
Evie yellow-slickered against the beating rain, laughing as she chases the squirrels raking in the
hearly harvest of downed pecans and chinese chestnuts and stomping through the puddles,
finding three bird's nests intact from where they had been blown from leafed security .......Megan
sullen but still helpful carting armloads of the springy boughs towards the burning pile in back...
none of us really wanting to do the work, but knowing it must get done...and with other storms
Atlantic-spawned and waiting, having to be done now......
5 SEP 96//APPROACHING STORM
Sitting on the front porch, bricked steps cool and clammy under
short-garbed thighs, prickling mortared clumps into goosebumped skin...
coffee in hand and auburn hair whipped by rising winds, "Fran" already
making her stormy presence known....rain falling steadily, a rushing drench
of sound and wet, sheeting haphazardly through the soughing pines and
lifting whippy willow fronds and stately dogwood boughs upon the shifting
winds....a heavy grayness slowly lowering down upon the face of
Fayetteville and me...clouds piling, layer upon streaming layer, burdening
the sky with weighted moisture and ethered winds....raindrops tossed by
wind and bough striking at bare legs and feet, and pouring, gushing from
the eaves to fall, an artificial waterfall pleasing to the ears and
mind.....the world blanketed by the rising storm, the winds picking up and
sending trashcan lids dancing down the street in a minuet of plastic and
aluminum, and the already fallen leaves tiptoeing over rainy puddles...and
with a sudden veer of direction, wind-driven rain drenching t-shirted form,
plastering teal blue cotton to now-chilled flesh and auburn hair to wetted
cheeks, as - laughing- I scoot back away from rainy edge, coffee sloshing
hot over bare and naked thigh as I unsteadily lurch without rising to
escape the onslaught of the rain....tickled both by fancy and by the
spattering drops...
4 Sep 96//DEATH OF A FRIEND
Sandy died this afternoon.....not much of a set-back compared to world events, I'm sure, but a
stone in my heart nonetheless....a boisterous companion in her earlier years, 65 pounds of coal
black, curly kindness....all wet nose and wiggly rear end as a puppy - tripping over her fat round
belly as she tried to run up the stairs, or sitting half-way down, front legs stiff and straight, hind
quarters slung out side-saddle two steps above....head cocked to the side and those fiercely smart
brown eyes peering out from under curly fringe...adoring to play frisbee or go to the beach where
she would prance and bark and growl at the incoming waves...or curl up beside Meg upon the
blanets in front of the tv, resting her head on childish back and grinning at me as if to say "see,
I can control her".
Controlling Sandy was a challenge....enrolling us both in dog obedience classes, where
she charmed everyone with her winsomeness and affectionate behaviour, while managing to give
the impression that we were only there to help train me!!!! And after several junior "puppy
shows", trotting her out in center ring for a real "obedience" show....gliding through the paces 'til
the point where we had to remove the lead and with a firm "STAY" command, walk 50 paces
away, turn, and with a solemn "COME" command, call her to my side...with no effect. Was I too
quiet??? Did I sound unsure of myself in the midst of the competition? Was I confusing her with
a "maybe yes/maybe no" voice? Well, no matter, I would remedy THAT problem....and
so, raising my voice and adding a firm note for emphasis - "SANDY, COME" - and giving the
permitted one hard slap to my thigh to punctuate the command, I watched....as she levitated 3
feet off the ground as if goosed and with a wild-eyed look in my direction, took off in the
other....bounding OUT of the ring, OVER the delineating ropes, bouncing through 3 OTHER
competition rings (oh, how the conformation people hated me!), and then running full-tilt
helter-skelter through the crowd, pausing to eat proferred peanut butter sandwiches from infants'
hands and sniff responses to the other dogs. I caught her finally, panting the both of us, on her
third circuit around, nose-to-nose with a great dane and both tails wagging to beat the band -- to
return, in shame, to the obedience ring where the judge insisted we complete the circuit - me,
humiliated and red-faced; Sandy, panting, happy and comical looking with a glob of peanut
butter at the corner of her upper lip.....we did not compete in obedience again....
Growing cunning and even more intelligent in her middle years, able to open the refrigerator
door at whim to devour whatever goodies she desired from within, carefully opening the famed
tupperware 'burp' seals and selectively picking first the meats, then the cheeses, then the butters
and the sauces....eating the vegetables last....or the Thanksgiving dinner, when the 27 pound
turkey was draining in the sink while I went to answer the telephone... and on the floor, one leg
and thigh conspicuously missing when I returned...and loving to jump and run, oh run so
fast, chasing frisbees and tennis balls, and the odd golf ball that would crop up, chewing it down
past dimpled cover, rubber-banded guts to the hard springy core.
....the way she'd solemnly lift her left paw when commanded "shake", and reverse it to the right
when told "other paw", confounding the girls who would try to trick her with giving her the
"other paw" command first...grinning at them toothily as the right paw was daintily extended...no
fooling her, the dog with the great brown intelligent eyes and laughing mouth...tongue lolling
wetly as she rolled and tumbled through Megan's childhood or as she complacently dragged Evie
through the house while Evie learned to walk by holding her tail ('til tired and worn out she'd
suddenly sit and dump Evie nose-first upon the floor).
Old age did not truly become apparent until earlier this year, the once glossily black coat dull and
greyed, the step a little stiffer and the self-control a little less apparent....wanting to lay upon
your feet, or pressed up against your knee...or her sudden fondness for laying right on top of the
air conditioning vents, or climbing into the porcelain bathtub and laying there, stretched out,
feeling the coolness seep through the thick and once-black fur....
'til 5 days ago she decided to simply quit eating, and no amount of coaxing gaining a result...no
rice or lamb or broth or peanut butter, no soft white bread or mashed up liver....instead a silent,
solemn, appraising stare without complaint, without a whimper, a moving away with dignity and
self-awareness.....two days ago she quit drinking.
One day (yesterday) she curled up in a relaxed ball, nose to tail, beside the coffee table, on the
cool wooden floor and did not move again; but suffered us to rub her ears and talk nonsense to
her, while she feebly thumped her tail against the wood.
And so, today - 12 and one-half years after she first entered - Megan's Chesapeake Sands left our
house.
