Marinating in a sad mood, Searching for reasons, heavy and low.
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader 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 pretty 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.
Pandemic Lament, January 15
Wanting spring or the summertime lake, I mourn this pandemic winter. Netflix doesn’t solace, Zoom only teases, and constant craving defeats joy. I yearn for comforting news, for boring times, and a “normal” that will never return.
Sitting in Solitude
My tongue, seeking textures, tastes the flavours of lonesomeness. I must sit in solitude, my breath composed, awake and aware the space between our rough edges opens in quiet time alone softly present sweetly touched by grace..
A Transient Moment
Someone I love is burning incense for a holy day I don’t observe. Someone I love is waiting for results that may delay sorrow. Someone I love is writing poems to grasp a transient moment.
Imperfect Meditation
Like the farmhand during a church sermon
dozing
and the housewife planning
grocery lists,
I meditate
imperfectly.
Composing poems and
prayers,
resisting
resentments,
Seeking God,
seeking
peace.
In the Midst of Life . . .
Slow death and muffled grief
drum
their long passage,
marching me through
the parade of my life.
November
Watching the wild branches writhe in the wind, I surrender to mourning. Colour is leached from the sky, the branches bare, the earth cold, only glimpses of sunlight. Waiting for winter, I close my eyes, remembering warmth, waiting for silence.
The Lonely Runner
The lonely runner swims through the streetlights’ pools and into the dark again.
Masked and Hooded
Like a shy girl, I stand, masked and hooded, bemused by the empty street, waiting to learn how to be in this time. Where is the answer to the unformed question hiding under the weight of lost hopes? Which way to turn to nowhere? There is no rushing, only waiting while fools seek blindness for comfort, and the wise try not to weep.
Before the Cold
The intensity of autumn colours: beauty and immanent loss.
Learning Living 