Month: December 2015

“bluets” by Lora Mathis

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry6 Comments

There is a poem
about forgiveness I have
been trying to write, but
don’t know how to. So instead
I talk about the wild blueberry
patch in my grandmother’s backyard.
How she spent
the summer in the country watering them,
picking them, making them into
jam. How she would hum softly under
her breath in French. How her
hands would brush over the berries
as gently as they outlined the heads of her children.

After her 81st birthday, the home was too much work
for her to maintain alone
so her son sold it to
a young couple who wanted to visit
the country on weekends. The night
she put the keys in the couples’ hands,
she fell asleep listening to soft French songs
and not humming along.

By the time she was 82, the blueberry patch
was overgrown; untended to, unloved.
She swore off blueberries for most of that Summer,
but one day in July,
she took the bus to the grocery store,
and bought three bushels of them.
That afternoon, she sang Ne Me Quitte Pas
loudly as she filled the counters with fresh-baked
blueberry pies. I found her at night with a slice in hand
and a smile on her face. She offered one to me as she said,
This is how to move on.
This is how you mourn what you loved
and forgive yourself for losing it.

— bluets, Lora Mathis

 

Find Lora on Twitter AND …. Check out Lora’s very first full-length book of poetry, The Women Widowed to Themselves, available now on Amazon.

The Women Widowed to Themselves by Lora Mathis
The Women Widowed to Themselves by Lora Mathis (click photo to view on Amazon)

 

PS- Lora is currently raising funds for a new computer, so if you love Lora’s work and would like Lora to help you with a poem or even send you a hand-written poem, check out the various ways you can help each other. (I do not know how long Lora will be offering these services, so if you read this in the archives later just know it is all subject to Lora’s discretion.) -Christy

“Shopping on a Saturday Afternoon” by Jennie Hope Meres

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry10 Comments

They walk out of the store as I’m tossing groceries in my car
I never noticed before, I never looked before
I just never saw what I refused to be me before
And somehow I missed it
because I had it for a while; the sunny smile,
the hand in mine
I didn’t need to notice the other people at the store
As I watch them walk across the parking lot,
hand in hand –
I notice them now, I see them now;
her laughing at something said, him looking back
bringing their joined hands up to
her face to brush against her cheek,
pushing their grocery laden cart with the kids walking behind;
arguing as siblings do
For a minute I thought it was me and,
for a second,
I forgot to remember
that that only used to be me and I knew how it felt;
I knew how it felt to be that
And I looked around and realized I hadn’t noticed before,
or maybe
that I just refused to look before,
or
that I just didn’t see before
I just never saw that just wasn’t me anymore,
just a ghost of the me before
And I watched as they packed their bags in the car;
laughing and talking
And the kids clamoring for attention;
an impromptu tickle fight buckling them into the car
The children’s squeals of delight cut through me like a knife
Her laughing as she climbs smiling into the car
And for a minute I hate her,
for a second I want to warn her to take care
She just may not notice before,
maybe she just won’t see before
a ghost of the her before –
walking out from a store, catching her off guard
while tossing groceries in the car
Realizing in a minute, knowing in that second
that she never noticed before,
she never looked before
she just never saw what she refused to be her before
and somehow she missed it
and it just wasn’t her anymore

~ Jennie Hope Meres, via The Voices Project

“Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

On By Christina's WordsIn Music, Poetry2 Comments
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

 

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

 

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

 

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

 

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

 

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

 

Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou

 

***

“Someday Sparrow” by Laura Cantrell

“These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections… (Levithan)

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote

“These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.”

– David Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary. NPR review and excerpt. 

“Testament” by Hayden Carruth

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

So often it has been displayed to us, the hourglass
with its grains of sand drifting down,
not as an object in our world
but as a sign, a symbol, our lives
drifting down grain by grain,
sifting away — I’m sure everyone must
see this emblem somewhere in the mind.
Yet not only our lives drift down. The stuff
of ego with which we began, the mass
in the upper chamber, filters away
as love accumulates below. Now
I am almost entirely love. I have been
to the banker, the broker, those strange
people, to talk about unit trusts,
annuities, CDs, IRAs, trying
to leave you whatever I can after
I die. I’ve made my will, written
you a long letter of instructions.
I think about this continually.
What will you do? How
will you live? You can’t go back
to cocktail waitressing in the casino.
And your poetry? It will bring you
at best a pittance in our civilization,
a widow’s mite, as mine has
for forty-five years. Which is why
I leave you so little. Brokers?
Unit trusts? I’m no financier doing
the world’s great business. And the sands
in the upper glass grow few. Can I leave
you the vale of ten thousand trilliums
where we buried our good cat Pokey
across the lane to the quarry?
Maybe the tulips I planted under
the lilac tree? Or our red-bellied
woodpeckers who have given us so
much pleasure, and the rabbits
and the deer? And kisses? And
love-makings? All our embracings?
I know millions of these will be still
unspent when the last grain of sand
falls with its whisper, its inconsequence,
on the mountain of my love below.

~ Hayden Carruth