Figuring Out Life While Aging
The glittering lake mirrors
the sun that faded
your young grin.
Is this peace or loss,
or simply the sun’s rotations
announcing changes?
The world’s surface shifts -
a kaleidoscope of constantly
burying and emerging stillnesses -
Glittering and storming times,
dark and morning lights,
red pains and quiet waves.
We wade watching
the swimming others
until we, too, drown.
There’s peace during and after
our time clasping hands
too tightly and not tightly enough.
The shadow of a bird
flicks over the
white seed globes of dandelions.
Seagulls criss-cross over
the undulating waters
and the air smells green.
Water slaps rock.
Birds chirp.
I am in the quiet.
Spring unveils herself first
from behind the curtain of winter
with small flashes
of colour: purple crocuses, yellow
daffodils, green sprouts,
the golding branches of willows.
The winter green of evergreens
is present always through
bare branches,
but now Spring drapes a pale
scarlet mist around a few trees
and bright greens clutch her limbs.
She teases, displaying swelling buds
as, on the ground, red tulips open,
then she flaunts her magnolias, and
wanton displays of pink blossoms,
white ones ripening, variegated
greens hiding branches.
Spring unveils herself
to the swelling sounds of birdsong,
through sunlight and rain,
through ducks and swans and flying geese,
through colours, growing touches and sounds -
warming her waiting, watching audience!
A Portuguese term, saudade, is a deep emotional state where love, absence, memory, and time intertwine. It is not about missing something you love. It is about something that continues to exist deeply within you even when it is physically far away,
I drive by ghosts on familiar streets,
their eyes downcast,
their hands pocketed,
their voices silent,
I see them blindly touch bare-branched trees,
ignoring the magnolia blossoms
and the electric green leafing
of trees celebrating
spring’s resurrections.
The rain pocks the windshield
as I look away,
steering past,
not calling their names.
They lived here but we’ve left that time;
the unevenly greening leaves and buds on bare branches
sing new paths, new stories,
and the brief glories of magnolia blossoms
speak of the ongoing joys of life.
Cross-posted at Substack – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/saudade
From The Winter of Listening in David Whyte’s Essentials
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
The grey mauve of twilight
clouds the approach
of darkness
as I watch and wait.
Change gestating within hope:
Advent’s promise
teases me with the solstice’s
diminishment of darkness.
I pray to be more
capable of creating
light
before the darkness.
In this busy rational world, how do we recognize our own feelings? When my life companion, my husband of 52 two years, the father of our daughter, was diagnosed with a fatal cancer I just kept on. Like Gladys Knight and the Pips sang, I just “kept on keeping on”. And when he died, I continued the same way – except I was upset that I felt so numb, that I wasn’t grieving, as I imagined grieving to happen. I found myself struggling at journalling but I kept pulsing out strange poems, poems that I came to realize were my grieving coming out in strange ways. Then someone I knew, who had seen my poems on my blog, recognized them as grieving and suggested she write prayers to speak to each poem, and that we put together a book.
Encountering Grief in poetry and prayer is published on Amazon
Excerpt 3 - Difficult Awakening
On the day I wake,
still on my side but
stretching into
the centre of our bed,
I notice I no longer
listen
for kitchen sounds
or the key
opening the door.
Knowing I am attuned
to being alone
is the loss
that feels like a betrayal -
as though I have accepted
your absence.
I am sharing excerpts from Gill’s and my just-published collection of poems and prayers dealing with grief, Encountering Grief – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999164865 – also in other markets
When I Lost Myself
I am extinct.
No part of me goes forward.
I am ashes
underground.
My stories silenced.
My mutating memories
dismissed.
My sorrows and joys erased:
blankness bracketing grief.
Encountering Grief is available on Amazon.
We hope it provides comfort and understanding.
The grey of dusk slips
down over the lake and land:
a gentle embrace.
Waiting for my eyes to find
enough light
to move through darkness,
I discover
a need for humility.
In a twisting labyrinth
of fears and suspicions,
moving slowly, cautiously,
still stubs toes
and bruises knees,
but even dark dawns reveal
possible paths
that offer
chances to choose
towards light.
Learning Living 