Category: Poetry

No Word For Wall

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

The Tohono O’odham people have no word for “wall.”

Native lands in geopolitical purgatory,

Half Arizonan, half Sonoran.

A nation with no sovereignty.

The Mohawk live with one foot in Canada

And one in the United States

(note oxymoron to use later as classroom example).

The Seto people are Estonian,

Or Russian,

Or Estonian –

Depending on street address

Or school district

Or maybe just accident of birth.

Africa and the Middle East –

Ancient tribes, too many to count it seems,

Sliced and diced and filleted

Into starter kit nations –

Just add war.

How far back does it go?

Did the ancient Judeans or Eqyptians or Sumerians

Conquer and divide

In this same way?

Is it just the way humans are?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

The Tohono O’odham people have no word for “wall.”

Absorption

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

Grief is a separate class of emotion.

No, it’s a bundle of many emotions

all vying for attention,

sometimes at the same time

and sometimes at different times.

Grief is a new layer of skin.

For awhile, it’s the surface layer.

Over time, it works its way into our being,

no longer the layer closest to the nerve endings,

but a new part of who we are in the world.

If we absorb it fully,

the pain, anger, denial, and sorrow transform

into reminiscence,

gratitude,

and a sweet sadness

that comforts a bit more

than it hurts.

The Spring Sun is Different

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

The spring sun is different from the summer sun.

The sun in summer is omnipotent, omnipresent.

There is no escape from the relentless oven of the summer sun.

It WILL find you. It WILL burn you.  It WILL roast you.

A July sun in Tennessee is like being wrapped in a wool blanket

over a turtleneck in a sweat lodge.

 

The spring sun is different from the fall sun.

October evenings the sun is waving goodbye

from a place in the sky that seems farther away.

It is the recessing sun, the melancholy light of days gone by.

Its passing is honored by the momentary capture of its essence in a backyard fire pit

on a jacket night, under moons full or waxing or most likely waning.

The fall sun sits on the flatlands of West Tennessee and

sizzles its final goodbye as it sinks into the Father of Waters.

 

The spring sun is different from the winter sun.

January can be so dreary and damp.

The winter sun is often absent entirely.

They say it’s still up there, beaming as always behind a thick cover of clouds,

but I don’t always believe it.

It’s a good thing the red and green of Christmas happens in winter,

otherwise a Tennessee yule would be nothing but grey.

 

The spring sun beckons like an invitation.

It doesn’t burn; it warms.   It doesn’t kill; it enlivens.

The spring sun has a different light altogether,

one that brings promise and joy and flowers.

We are reminded that life goes on.

We are reminded that we go on.

The spring sun is different.

Snow Day

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I had a great idea for a poem,

A succinct nugget of insight

which summarized and symbolized

and synthesized

One of the secrets of life.

 

It was so profound and moving

and true at the core,

I didn’t write it down.

I knew I would remember.

I didn’t.

 

So, I can’t share it with you.

I can only believe it

still lives somewhere in me,

Somwhere currently incommunicado

with my conscious mind,

and that it can teach me

what I don’t remember

but need to learn.