Encountering Grief – Excerpt 1 –
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.
Daylight Saving
The grey of dusk slips
down over the lake and land:
a gentle embrace.
Night Sight
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.
I Dream of Silence
I dream of silence,
stillness,
like midnight after snowfall
underground in winter
after summer’s shiftings.
What is the story’s
meaning
after the return,
gripping the chalice
we all must drink from?
Choose the ending
hoped for,
and dance towards,
(with new steps)
the never ending music.
Golden Light
In a dream I cross
the path to my past.
The windows of our home
warm with welcoming golden light.
I enter the unlocked door
and open my mouth to call your name -
and remember -
I don’t live there
anymore.
Cross-posted – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/golden-light
My Left Eye Weeps
My left eye weeps while
my right stares stubbornly out
at the world’s beauties
and horrors.
What, in this time
and place,
can I do
but acknowledge both?
I watch birds over a lake,
and listen to traffic noise;
beyond thought,
I await what is to be.
Cross-posted – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/my-left-eye-weeps
Ghosting
Like the flame on a burnt out candle
you flicker,
ghosting through me.
A photo triggers new puzzles,
whispering to me
of what I hadn’t searched for.
Lost memories haunt my hopes,
but my hands remember
the truth of your sight.
Cross-posted – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/ghosting
The Jester
(Written in my early 20’s)
On Reading the “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple” Anthology
My noisy mind
grafts
my longed for
or my feared
events into
stories I’m revisiting.
The frontispiece
says 1992,
from my dead parents
with wishes
for my purple
old age.
Now I read
stories I fear
and remember
setting the book aside,
pleased I kept it;
knowing it’s prophetic.
Learning Living 