Slow death and muffled grief
drum
their long passage,
marching me through
the parade of my life.
In the Midst of Life . . .
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.
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.
Pandemic Moments – September
At a table on the sidewalk, by the coffee shop - bliss in the sun. Two masked women rush together, hug, masks rubbing, then step back - physical distancing for talking.
Childhood Cottage
Looking for my childhood cottage, rain welcomes us, and my mother's landscape was unrecognizable now. except in some corners of my psyche.
Enough
By the midnight fluorescent flickering I wander bemusedly searching for a meaningful question in this empty time. The rain sweet breeze blows in the open window and, as I breath, my heart loosens, throbs, hesitates, yearning to warm and accept the dark otherness with its questions without answers. I am pulled to the dark lake And the windblown moment: And now is enough.
Now Normal
Cars are driving fast again
cursing detour signs
sprouting like COVID masks
A Pandemic Series – My Red Lipstick
A Reposting of the Three Red Lipstick Poems, in Sequence
These three poem-videos belong in this sequence, not in the reverse order in which the blog displays them below, based on when I initially posted them.
1
My red lipstick is annoyed,
muttering behind my mask,
wanting an escape.
2
My red lipstick explains
shyly,
she is not annoyed;
she is afraid.
Afraid I will permanently abandon
her, and my rings,
and the new dress fluttering on its hanger.
Now –
and for all the roiling days
masked in the fog
of an un-normal future.
3
My Red Lipstick Mourns
My red lipstick mourns,
huddled in her drawer,
as I mourn, too,
bare-lipped behind my mask.
Now – I groom for “meetings”,
my red lipstick appears,
digitally
trying to represent who I was.
I yearn for, mourn for,
the times I touched, hugged,
and groomed for,
locked away now,
Learning Living 