I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.
It struggles now alone
Against death and self-doubt,
But underneath the bone
The wings are pushing out.
I’ve had this poem saved for quite some time. This concept of death and rebirth, of flying above grief, of returning to ground–burned and naked and alone, of nature’s laws, of beginning again . . . even when you know what inevitably lies ahead. The cycle and natural order of everything. Nothing is permanent, yet everything is cyclical, everything returns again, just not exactly the same as it was in the past. The warm nest of inertia, yet the tingling tickling of wings prickling and pushing out.
It was never a question of if I would return. I knew I would. But who would I be when I came back? Exactly who I am supposed to be, right? I knew from my past extended break that I needed poetry in my life, but I also knew that I couldn’t force it or feel guilted into it. It would happen when it was supposed to happen.
I got some bad news in April 2018 and it was enough to snuff my candle for a while. I tried to keep the poetry coming, and I did until July, but I had lost the spark. My heart just wasn’t in it. So I chose to refocus my energy. And then as I settled into a new normal of sorts, my old mistress Poetry came calling… I told her I was done with her, and she said . . . . well, you know. So here we go again, always we begin again.
And one cold starry night
Whatever your belief
The phoenix will take flight
Over the seas of grief
Here’s to taking flight.
Here’s to simply beginning again.
With love, Christy
Happy New Year everyone. May your crackles be few, and your losses fewer.
We sadly lost an unborn calf today, and yet, just on Christmas Eve, another cow miraculously welcomed happy and healthy twins. Such is the cycle of life . . . and of death. I am slowly learning to accept both.
Thank you for being here with me. Love, Christy
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
When everyone had gone
I sat in the library
With the small silent tree,
She and I alone.
How softly she shone!
And for the first time then
For the first time this year,
I felt reborn again,
I knew love’s presence near.
Love distant, love detached
And strangely without weight,
Was with me in the night
When everyone had gone
And the garland of pure light
Stayed on, stayed on.
Words ... for the Time Being 