Tonight I cut her hair,
an intimate scalping…
a butchering of beauty.

How inadequate my scissors
for this surgery,
slowly staged
to ease the reality
to be faced in every mirror…

mirror on the wall
who has cancer…

First long tresses
to only tears…
this sacred shearing
my soul left bare.

Someone I had met only a short time before this sacred moment, had been diagnosed with cancer.  She had a hysterectomy and then went through a round of chemo and as she began to loose her hair, she asked me to cut it before she lost much of it.  She had thick curly hair that she was proud of.  I tried to spare her by cutting in increments, but in the end it all came off. 

Through the summer’s watch
I heard the cooing of the doves,
watched them build their nest
and waited when they’d rest.

One would coo and then the other
then the ritual of the gifted twig,
the constant care and change of shifts
behind the screen of leaves.

Attentive from my chair
through the summer watched,
The partnership
of mourning doves.

Isn’t it wonderful
to find each other
when we awake.
You with your big smile,
Me with my gray hair.
One discovering,
One afresh.

I’d been watching you,
your adventures under lid.
then you moved and
I knew I’d see you soon.
As one eye opened
you balanced in two worlds
then came fully here
to find me
and you smiled.

There are these rare moments with young children,  where you get to watch them and then they see you.

A woman’s heart, true and torn
Winds the valley, dark and hard
Winds the foreign soil
Descending down
Descending down.

Hammered, hammered
The path unknown, steep and narrow
Confused yet learning
Alone in sorrow
Descending down
Descending down.

Change and more change
How long this path so lonely
…So cold and stony
Descending down
Descending down.

Moving down to grip the hand
Small and brown
Confused but learning
Winding a foreign land
Bright, cold and white…
She begins her ascent…

Moving up a path unknown
Winding up a foreign soil
Moving up to heal the tear
Moving up to care and love
Moving up in untold story
Moving up toward the son
Moving up
Moving up
Moving up to live anew

Mary Herbert – began in April 2013, finished in January 2014

I began this poem shortly after a young woman came to stay with us…she was newly widowed and pregnant with her first child.  She faced so many challenges over the months she was with us: grief, delivering her first child, parenting alone with a little help from us, her own parents far away, and so much more grief.  But she began the ascent and continues it still.