I give; hopes and dreams
Labels; closed off, walls, no trust
I give; challenges
Labels; negative
No one is entitled to your trauma
There are bells here in Evora, the little town where I live in the east of Portugal. Bells that remind me of the trains I heard back home.
Home. A thing foreign to my tongue, a concept that escapes me.
Home was never the house I grew up in or the house by the lake that straddled Texas and Oklahoma that my grandparents expanded from a one room cabin. Home was never the dwellings or house I shared with my husband of sixteen years, the one I tried everything to hold on to when we parted ways. Home is not my father's house by the lake in the too far north of the northwest.
Though I think of these places fondly, if I ever thought a place Home, it was the little house on Loree where my girls had a yard for nine years. Where they met the neighboring pups at the fence. Where one barked at the rumble of cars passing and the other sat still in the grass, lording over her domain.
Perhaps Home is where we three all grew old, that place where my loves last breaths were drawn, where life took a turn and I chose to leave.
In my little town of Evora, I surround myself with nature and color, create days of health and and constantly discover beauty in the cobbled streets I trespass. Still, I wonder if I'll ever find Home - again?Or if I had it at one point and didn't know.
"home, where my love lies waiting silently for me..." ~ Homeward Bound, Simon and Garfunkel
shallow she breathes then deep
such minor results for so great an investment
happy when she goes along (interests align)
jabs and stabs when she knows what she knows
what she wants what she will
won't budge when cajoled
shallow she breathes then deep
tired of investing
parts assembled
or a burl gnarled
turned and shaped
by the world sharp
by the girl she was
by the woman she is
into a thing polished
but still at heart...
looking past looking
through applying
preconceived notions
of shoulds and wants
like epoxy poured
to reshape into what?
a thing she neverwas
consumed in
passion and grief
overlong then
naught but
existence and being
unseen truly, deeply
all along as-is
“Once inside you’re afraid they’d find…” ~ Cowboy Junkies, Ring on the Sill
I was never a girl. Pretty sure I was born full grown. The weight of the world somehow eased in when I was about four or thereabouts, whenever relative cognition set in. It hasn’t eased up since.
The challenge with that is that I never learned to sort it all accordingly, in the correct order. And when challenged, put on the spot, I stall, a deer in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler carrying a butt-load of manure.
The heat of August, the hum of cicada has always drawn out a stillness, a pace where I can hear my own rhythm in shallow breathing and a quickening heart. A space between lines where I can think to write.
There are no cicada here, only an unidentifiable thing underlying the heat, an ember quickening, ready to spark.
I was a redhead for so long; I didn’t realize my hair was graying
I wore gray for so long; I thought it was my favorite color
As I age, the Sun keeps my hair motley; and it’s okay to wear pink
At the end of my street there’s a tiny mercado about the size of my 12 by 8 living room. The assortment of fresh, cool and dry goods is astonishing for such a small space and I wonder how anyone larger than me might maneuver. For my small frame, it’s an “enter, step, turn, shop, backup, turn, pay, leave” situation.
The lady who attends to me speaks no English and emerges from behind a beaded curtain when I enter with a loud Ola!
My Portuguese is more than rough, but she smiled when I first came in and stumbled through azeitona, proudly producing a large new tub of mixed olives and filling a plastic bag.
I walked out with more olives than I could eat in two lifetimes, but ecstatic with my first purchase, alone, in a new place that felt familiar.
Noticing plants in crevices amidst the walled streets of Evora, I’m reminded of Texas where the microscopic flora flourished in barren rock amidst a grain of earth, suckling moisture from the humid air.
When a seed lands, it can choose to root or die.
nothing comes easy
the doing or the waiting
I sit myself still
purposely;
desirous
of a thing palpable
so close I can almost taste
my apartment in Evora; gets
sun late into the day,
afternoon, evening; it’s
too warm to sleep; until
the wee hours, early morn; the
lull of the oscillating fan; makes
waking slow and sweet
things I thought
precious I kept
in a cubbard shut
in a box wrapped loose
in a drawer dark
infrequently fingers
tracing lines slowly
Covetously unused
the years between expanding
things I thought
precious I kept
in a corner swathed tight
in a gut soured deep
in a heart caged rattling
rarely lips-wetted
Surfacing attempts thwarted
as a dry throat swallows
everything back into place
our song wasn’t really
our relationship
wasn’t
really
I know you were there
pictures tell me you
were
there
happy? you Looked in love
an easy thing for a someone sometimes
but the song was mine
the relationship was what
I made it
the melting
was all me
every hour of imaginary grace
you got all my giving
In hindsight, I wish I had celebrated my body more, found a calling, an interest. But I always felt, was made to feel…not enough, never…enough., the things I found of interest were not worth time.
The first fifteen years of gaslighting that was Mother filled every crevice. Sixteen years with the inattention of a husband committed only to himself shied me off connecting after it was done.
I’m hindsight, the continuance of the two years between should have been longer. At 53 I still struggle acknowledging my accomplishments and shrink at compliments from others.
In hindsight is not a healthy place to live, but the present can be difficult to celebrate.
one two three four bruises
low on my left leg
at and below the knee
I cannot say how they were got
only that they were noticed;
one deep cut on my shin
from a screwdriver dropping
the throbbing immediate
another scar only I will know
another scar the Sun will fade
I fast forward through scenes
extraneous, evocatively meant
to elicit emotions but elicit
sorrow for a life never-was
never-will manifest
another scar only I will know
another scar the Sun will fade
takin’ paint off hinges
the hours they knew
stories past, stories lost
who will remember me?
who will recall?
packing photos, aside I set
things thought, things desired
people transient, moved along
kept where most in pockets of
pocketless gowns never worn
anyways,
becoming layers of
paint on hinges
Some days my mind thinks I’m still 34 on a fresh start from a sixteen year marriage newly ended. My body reminds me, that was nineteen years and over 3 degrees ago. When I…wanted, when I was…proving myself to that girl still digging out of a concrete foundation of low self-worth that was mother’s gaslighting. Now, my heart longs for those summers in the yard where I escaped to the sleepy drone of the cicada and the sun quickened my heart to an empathetic thrum in the heat.
Down to the wire, I’m sore and exhausted, overwhelmed with the giving, selling, gifting, donating, and trashing, the parting with things I sometimes struggled to purchase in the first place, financially or emotionally. I am not in my bed familiar where the time between lovers grew until they were recollections. I am not in my house haunted with wonderings of the years and hours of those who lingered, meandered day and night before me. I feel I am…”not” for I am in a place void of history and seeped in transient comings and goings, one foot in, one foot out. Mostly, I no longer hear the pattering of feet, the scratching of nails on wood and tile. That was the thing that meant life was good. That is the thing I need to get back to.
Massive Attack ~ “Teardrop”
pulling pictures
out of frames I struggle
to recall the names of
faces from past lives; I question,
is it the third? the fourth?
the fifth life? I approach, surely,
but who were theses people?
who was I? as I pack the frames
for gifting, donation, disposal,
I pack the photos for archival,
much like I pack the girl, ever-tinged
in a sorrow of worth on the horizon
pulling pictures
out of frames, I choose
to love the broken thing I am
from my window
in my hood I seen
coyotes in the street
a strolling, the smaller
one a limping.chatting
close, speaking soft:
a man, proper in boots, jeans,
white shirt, hat
on a horse at a light:
ducks in the rain
that left the yard a pond :
an old horse clomping
leading a boy on a longboard:
eagles, hawks, owls
parakeets wild; jays
harassing cardinals timid
and squirrels brazen:
neighbors driving lawnmowers
In the street
what will the day be,
bring; there’s a plan,
a to-do list unwritten,
spatially conceived,
sketched and plotted
echoes the stillness
calling…later.
sitting in chaos amidst
the Things I thought I
needed, loved, cared
for with attention and
upkeep: time and money
spent to exhaustion
body spent to ruin, mind
butterflied and pinned
behind glass on the wall
There are little red pin-dots circling my ankles
when did they arrive and why?
She was barely 50 when she passed to ether, my older sister who is younger than I. She was the pretty one, the troubled one, too wild for taming or the grind of 9 to 5.
Happy Birthday, sister…
When Robert passed, I was left shattered. I knew it while I was going through it. I spent at least a year crying when no one was watching, grasping stolen moments trying to feel…something, emoting broken lines in poetic verse only to myself.
Over 21 years later, I’m still unsure all the pieces were collected, that I was fully formed anew. In journals, I am finding cracks and crevices, not where the light got in, but where the shadows leaked out, I tear page after page, a burst in stops and starts, attempts toward understanding and an infinite lack of conclusions.
It’s a wonder I still wonder after all I’ve gone through and felt, but with the discarding of material things comes the discarding of that shattered girl, who I was and when I was, the discarding of myriad lingerings on hopes and fears.
In discarding things and words, I feel a creeping melancholy for a life unrealized yet an unburdening of weight on my spirit too long nourished as something that should be.
In discarding things and words, I am shedding a life and tuning toward another.
who knew
my old house creaks
settles, little sounds
hard to hear;
lately I've noticed
that and the humming
of the a/c compressor
of the refrigerator
who knew
when all I loved
was the shuffling
of my heart on
hardwoods, the
click-clack of too
long nails needing
to be trimmed and
the near barks
when fuzzy things invaded
Their yard
these eight years
they had a house
a house that creaks and hums
who knew
to ether gone are
the shuffling of tiny feet
on wood and tile
the sharp bark
when cats invade the yard
the soft cuddles
left am I with
a quiet house
a clean house
an empty house
a heart too sore to mend
I can’t regret
the hours, the years
spent (I am)
they got me here
where (?)
the weight of…things
I am shedding
and age is arbitrary
I can feel
knots in my neck
untangle
and the thrumming
in my temple
abate
breathing deep into a long
emphatic
oooooooooihhhhhmmmmm
breathing deep into
a beginning
again
Here I lay, half my heart
in slumber; it’s soft spark at year end
having traversed the rivers deep
and the bridges old
to fields of soft clover and long grass
where running wild
her eyes brightly shine
as a child
age as a number was
foreign
there were just those
who were
older
there were no
expectations
to grow old
to outlive
everyone
to lose
joy
to want a
do-over