Recovery

first poem of 2021

It has not felt like, celebration.

These weeks have weighed upon us

like anchors, cinder blocks, the gravity

field of planets larger then our

own homes. We walk out and back again,

concentric circles of vigilance,

the measuring of distances,

the counting of minutes; always, balancing,

price versus cost. Rent, or electric?

Food, or medicine? An hour of music

for my soul or looking for work

for my pocket? Who do I owe the most to,

today? I connect in the smallest moments

possible, atomic weights. I put up lights

I cannot believe in; I struggle to recall

how normal conversation feels like a hug

in real time. Life is a sandcastle crumbling

at its edges. I cannot find enough water

to hold it all together. The disappointment

in my mother’s voice comes through

louder than her words. Fear that the world

will find another 12 months of excuses

to not employ her daughter. I hang a lantern

in the doorway but it is my soul I am trying

to set on fire. Stay or go? If go, where?

Who wants a middle-aged woman poet

with no children? Ghosts already haunt my

memories of the future. I dread odd numbers,

picture frames of faces at the table

where friends used to sit. What lie we were sold

in first grade- all in this together. The Golden Rule.

I miss him. I miss you. I wish you all

were here. I miss teatime and talk of

sailing ships and the art of waging peace

with shovels and torches. Today I realize

I am alone in ways from which one

never fully recovers.

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

pain has that quality of resemblance like nothing else. And I have no way of requesting to the sky validity or acknowledgement to any one Gods authority, who snaps his/her copious fingers to replace what was lost with existence again. It is gone, a year, a time, a name, a soul without petition, request or requiem . But the imperative of poets, the studious inquiry and methods that are used like Jelly Roll Morton used his switch blade after card games: To get everything lost back with uproar and festivity. This poem was light and heat communicated from a more divine agency and your best work.....dana

[Poetic Beauty]

This last year has been trying and rough for almost everyone. The isolation from companionship and all the struggles with money on top of it has left many feeling empty and lost.

This poem tell the struggle that many have gone through endlessly

[Relic]

I find this poem very relatable to anyone who reads it. I'll bet many can say, I know what you mean. There's a feeling of desolation that is permeating the air.

With talk of a second wave coming that desolation, that loneliness, weighs heavier all the time. People can't pay their rent, people are losing their business. Others are killing themselves.

This has been a year that none of us will forget. We can only hope next year gives us more leeway, more hope, and more strength to keep going.