The sharp chill of a cold spring day as Good Friday reigns over Easter.
Widowhood
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems.
Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia.
She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter.
Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry
Birdsong Again
Birdsong again, and green shoots - the earth gentled by sunshine and rain: Rebirth.
Lament 13: Changing
I’m remaking myself alone, discarding patterns, forging others: Listening to waves, smelling rain-damp earth, talking back to crows, ignoring stumbles, I explore paths previously unsought.
Lament 12: Afterwards
Under noise, I almost hear the music. Walking down stairs, I sense a faint perfume. In the dark, my eyes cling to the fading ember. Consolations.
Outdoor Rink
On the porch, at night in winter: A street away, the scrape of skates, the slap of a puck.
Another Lament
The terrible sting of sugar doesn’t erase my parents smiling into the camera, a cemetery behind them, my grandparents gravestone beside them. They all lie there now.
Lament 10: Anger
Anger is easier than being sad, like a boil you can ignore till it erupts. Grief locks your time into a blur of absence that can't be released..
Lament 9: Necessary Rituals
All my necessary rituals hold me, keep me standing. All my necessary rituals keep me rigid and stuck. All my necessary rituals are collapsing letting me fall, bruising me. What rituals can support what I need now?
Lament 8: On Writing
Writing at the raw edge opens the dimness for a brief glimpse of my now. Writing at the raw edge unlocks the gates of my whirling for a moment. Writing at the raw edge spews my dark lava onto a screen for a moment of now.
This Bleak Midwinter
Christmas lights the colour of twilight, and a heritage nativity set, - A bleak celebration avoiding plastic Santas or plastic regrets Awaiting a new year, watching changes from remembered winters, listening to the noise of fools heard on the tv news.
Learning Living 