Word Rummager

losing bits along the way navigating the ever-elongating routes of synapses in a distracted body means the dreams are vivid but confused, memories play like harmony, interchangeable with stories or scars real or imagined another year will have passed and it’s a time of survival, not growth but if the flower is meant to bloom, it can skip a season and be spectacular later

Shift in seasons Around the edge of the house the sun is bold and indiscriminate. It feels like there’s a parade complete with marching band everywhere the warm rays touch. It is delightful to sit in cool shadow with the last of the lilies, tracking clouds, marking time only as it pertains to blooms. The quiet is endearing, almost hidden, with just a hint of song in the breeze.

More than the sum I am not magic. My blurred vision, dark circles, and belly shelf all tell of my misuse of my body. My thoughts gurgling out like a swollen creek cresting after a storm show my selfishness. My dusty floors, craft projects in flux, and spider webs reveal my housekeeping. I am magic with you, however. Our wanting natures meet and make a whole. There is no mess or noise or dullness when we are together. The world is large outside and small for us with just what we need at our fingertips.

there aren’t enough chairs but I’m all alone with 9 seats around me the table is beat up and beautiful as the sunset glances at it sideways the killdeer are in the marigolds waiting for tomorrow’s mail the wind picks up always unexpectedly carrying and depositing magic willy-nilly the bed is half made as I want to be ready to be wrapped in the quilt, often there are so many lights I’m not using because the moon is enough

what’ll we do what do you wanna do I think over and over and there is no response but for some vultures, waiting what happens when you lose sight of whatever dreams you had and each today is interchangeable it’s a funny thing to feel at home in skin that lets you down attached to a wandering mind going nowhere I want to gulp the world and chase it with something time can’t define like a interstellar thunderstorm

blame it on gravity I miss the way my body turned lightly, with care at the ballet now I am a hippo in the muck I remember stepping through gardens in France feeling like a sprite never a lady I wonder what I would have been with more encouragement and less imagination is it ok that I don’t like opera but love stories with resolutions and poems without sense I hope I don’t get tired of flowers or rivers or stars or clouds because that’s where I see hope

the rock n roll riff from the ‘80s that made me tap my foot was incongruous with the uphill battle that feels bleak inside and never-ending like the memories of old storms and let’s not talk about the rainbow in the wrong place pain prevails even when the sky is beautiful it’s so hard to get moving on mornings full of promise why is it I still feel the ache of loss with a big unknown looming

when an afternoon drags across a whole week with daydreams dropped like old piano keys without a sound but a beautiful memory of order in chaos we track progress like flight over an ocean and hope nothing falls

Cloth and the shape of home The tablecloth isn’t the grail. Just a favorite thing to give away, as if making a home for 30 years is easy. How do I blithely give away history? What do I do when I visit for dinner besides try not to stare at the homespun? How do you switch from being a melody to background music? When they ask my opinion, do my kids really want to know or do they already know since they’re in the wise 20’s and I’m somehow regressing and know little… I have no model for this. I know how to let go lots of things but not how to let go and hold on at the same time. 
I’ve barely held myself together. The tablecloth isn’t love or home though it feels like home when I see it. I had no model for that either but made one and now so will my daughter.

I see the broken bits and have ideas how to fix them but no gumption to move there are things growing in the mirror that make me lose heart when it’s almost Tuesday and the thought of facing the door is terrifying on either side the dream is sitting there right in front of me but it’s night and there’s no moon