Wise  seed pods on their stock
dried and dead
released of
silky seeds:
milk weed in the wind

The seed pod’s
bold beauty:
hard,  exposed,
waiting to hold the snow
waiting to hold the cold

What seasons
   are watched by milkweed
dispersed in the wind,
and gathered by the soil
waiting for the vagrant king

Photo by Kelly Herbert

the shimmering aurora
a celestial veil
held between
this earth and heaven

its presence felt
when birth is near
and pushed aside
as death appears

in this transcendent dance
the celestial garment
just waiting
to be touched

I saw a picture of the Northern Lights in Finland that has intrigued me.  When I first saw it, I looked at it for a long time and I still have difficulty putting it down.  I thank my friend, Sue, for sharing the picture and for helping me finish this poem.

 In 2012 I lost the hearing in my left ear.  I woke up that morning in September and couldn’t hear from that side.  I’m a listener more than a talker, and it has been a continual adjustment and a real loss.  Vertigo accompanied the loss during the first couple of months as my brain made the adjustment to a different stability and  I would find myself holding on to furniture and walls as I moved from room to room. Voices and noises bounce around rooms, making crowded places disorienting. So now, when I listen, I must look at people and watch them speak, giving them my complete attention.

The world spins while I am deaf
Silenced by the inner ear,
To learn to listen with the heart.

Am I also blind?
Or is this focused learning
balanced by an unseen hand?

To discern an unseen mask
hidden in the spoken word,
unheard meaning deep inside the words.

Communion

I am very aware of his hand in mine as we walk along. I wonder if he is aware, as I am. I know that he won’t hold it much longer because he is four, and four turns into five. And when he is five he may take my hand, but it will be to tug me along or to pull me forward faster…helping me to get to his goal quicker. Yet, he is four and we walk the block hand in hand. And I savor each step before he releases my hand…savor it as the finest of wines and the best of bread.

Even a poem has a pause.
A place to taste a word or phrase,
a pull-off to take in a view,
or grow accustom to a thought.

It is the comma,
the period,
the exclamation point,
…the requisite punctuation.

We pause at important places,
the emphasis essential,
or lost
because arrival was too important.