Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Incommunicado” by Paul Groves

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

What sort of a marriage is this? She hasn’t
spoken to me all day. I’ve started to blame myself:
something I’ve said must be responsible for
those tears. And when I speak she doesn’t answer;
she just looks disconsolate. Her behaviour
is atypical, hard to fathom; for years
we’ve got on well, with few disputes. Then this.
And why does she put our displayed photographs
in a drawer, prepare lunch only for herself, pick
at her food like a lovesick teenager? I try
to cheer her, but she’s beyond reason, inarticulate,
inscrutable. This is ironic conduct for one
who spent time yesterday in church, though
what she was doing there—it being a Tuesday—
she has not said. “Look,” I say, “be reasonable.
Tell me what’s bothering you.” But she rises, without
answering, and walks through me to the kitchen.

“Incommunicado” by Paul Groves from Wowsers © Seren Books.

“I always turn the radio” by Robin Merrill

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

off
when I stop at the
stop
sign
by the white cross
where you died

I always turn the radio
off
some sort of ceremonial
moment of silence

today
I forgot
for the first time
to turn the radio
off

I was talking
to a new friend

can you forgive me
for forgetting
to turn the radio
off
and also
for living

“I always turn the radio” by Robin Merrill from Laundry and Stories © Moon Pie Press

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough… (Morrison)

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.”

Toni Morrison in Tar Baby

“My Love Is Like to Ice” by Edmund Spenser

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

“My Love Is Like to Ice” by Edmund Spenser; Public Domain.

“And when you think about it, poets … (Ruefle)

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote7 Comments

“And when you think about it, poets always want us to be moved by something, until in the end, you begin to suspect that a poet is someone who is moved by everything, who just stands in front of the world and weeps and laughs and laughs and weeps . . . ”
~ Mary Ruefle