January Whispers

Knee-deep
Admiring winter’s ballet
Icy pirouettes
Twirl to an herbal symphony
A spirited blizzard
Frolics in the morning sky
The world is veiled
In fragrant sheets of delicate neutral
Transcending ambiguity
Glistening icicles play on the eaves
Stalactites of radiant topaz
Shimmering like stained glass
Alight with inner grace

I renounce the bitter cliché
Portrayed erroneously
By the literary ghosts of yore
Their words are a fallacy
This is not the season of everlasting death
There is no malice relayed
In the whisper of the January wind
No clandestine demons lurk
Beneath the frost
I refuse to see depression
In unparalleled majesty
Perfection

Rosy-cheeked
I shovel out the narrow portal
That leads from my chicken-noodle haven
Back to the pungency of civilization
Secretly longing
To leave the white dunes
Where nature intended them
A barrier against society
Proffering mountaintop freedom
To hibernate in fleecy pajamas
Until the onslaught of spring
Dispatches its colorful harbingers
Dragging me from my lair
With the hook of a vengeful thaw
But this is a 4WD nation
Besot with shoreline myopia
Irked by the fallen snow
So I dig to join them
Begrudgingly

Hot-cocoa Sunday
I peel away my stiff garb
As the storm follows me indoors
Arctic souvenirs
From the tread of steel-tipped boots
Embellish the foyer
Snow clouds have beatified the boulevard
With their benevolent caress
A glacier-blue glaze
Postponing the commute
For another day

I am beguiled once again
To think only of love and home
A day enveloped in patchwork vignettes
With its myriad refugee snowflakes

Amassed on my front porch
Awaiting the riposte of my shovel
A crescent smile surmounts my face
Perhaps I alone appreciate this season
And its frosty sojourns
I become entranced by the scenery
Beyond the stenciled window
As the numbness cedes
And my toes begin to tingle

Mother's Promise

"I’m scared, Mommy"

Sterile lights

Discerning white glare

Upon the wintergreen tiles

Of the hospital floor

The unfairness of life

Had blown into her atmosphere

Like the catastrophic breath

Of a roaring tornado

Leaving only jagged ruins

In its wake

"I don’t want to die"

Every word was a cleaver

Slashing away another chunk

Of her shattered heart

Her child was barely five years old

Disintegrating before her eyes

Ravaged by disease

Failing by the day

She had done her best

To create a safe world for him

Of freshly-mown grass

Sprinkled ice cream

A vanilla-scented jamboree

For him to grow in

But he would soon be leaving

Taken from her too early

Thrown into a mysterious realm

Of uncertainty

She was helpless

Unable to intervene

He did not fully comprehend

The concept of death

His tender mind

Was not ready

"I’ll miss you too much"

She searched for the words

That would offer succor

Any sentence

That could pacify

His needless suffering

"Mommy will be there, honey"

A vibration of hope

Tingled in her chest

As the phrase departed her lips

She elaborated:

"Yes baby

Time has no meaning in heaven

Someday Mommy will pass away

And when I do

I’ll just come right back here

To meet you"

"You will?

You promise?"

He sniffled

A deluge, frantic tears

Pooling copiously

Beneath swollen eyes

"I promise, my love

Mommy will never let you down"

She affirmed

"Cross your heart"

He demanded

"I cross my heart and hope to..."

She turned away

Not allowing the word

To escape her mouth

Confirming the inevitable

The unthinkable

She said a silent prayer

Raising her inner voice

Up to God

Asking for her child

To be spared

Begging

For the evil that consumed his body

To be erased

Solemnly

She prayed

For a miracle

But a miracle

Was not to be

Tiny coffin

The deep drumming

Of hallowed soil

Dropping into a new grave

The intrepid aroma of tiger-lilies

A hurricane brewed

Within her scattered thoughts

Trust became a question mark

In parentheses

The church was a vaudeville act

God, a mad jester

She would never again

Pray to an aloof deity

Residing in an unproven afterlife

Why should an innocent die?

And why does God not listen?

Heaven, the eternal reward

Offered like an invisible box of rain

To the stringent soul

Impervious to corruption

Baked in a kiln

Glazed and hardened

Faith was only a luxury

That took its tax

In time

I’ll just come right back here

To meet you

The promise plagued her

A blistered rash

On the soft flesh of her spirit

A hasty pact

Made in a desperate moment

To shear the cloying twines

Of lineal existence

Doff the threads of chronology

And meet her baby in the hereafter

At his point of crossing over

It was a vow that she knew

Could not be delivered

Her last words to her shrinking child

Were a lie

She felt disgusted

Frightened and perplexed

She could not bear the thought-–

Her little boy

Sleeping in the cemetery

His soul gone

His vitality

Lost forever

Never to be touched again

Unanchored

Hanging on the thinnest shreds

Of her beliefs

She hoped idly

* * *

Years crawled by...

She grew old

Worn

Cancer had infested her body

Stealing her esophagus

With its decaying fingers

Jaundice had dyed her skin

The color of ancient papyrus

Scribbled with the cobalt veins

Of forgotten language

Fading away

She lay motionless in bed

Chasing specters

Across the shadowed ceiling

With her eyes

Resentment had evacuated her mind

She had no anger left

No energy

Her sole thought

Was of the child she had lost

So long ago

And the empty vow

That he had carried

To his premature grave

Mommy will never let you down

So here

In the final stanza

Of her shrouded life

She submitted her soul

Before God

Allowing herself

To be sated with love

Unquestioned fealty

Pure devotion

She could feel the trappings

Of her mortal body

Peeling away

The shadows were closing in

Quickly

With her dying breath

She offered up the remnants

Of her trust

That was all she had left

To give

In this world

"Please forgive me"

As the first rays

Of the new morning

Began to filter

Through the drawn blinds

She closed her eyes

For the last time

And kept her promise

Alley-Oop (Photos & Haiku)

Roll with the punches

When the world has strikes to spare

Don’t be bowled over!

Thursday, January 18, 2024

~@~

The Fog

Happy MLK Day!

"Darkness cannot

drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate:

only love can do that."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

~@~

Danse Haiku: Act I

Scene #1

Vocal cords

Shape notes

The spirit sings

Scene #2

Corporate trapezoids:

So many angles

None of them right

Scene #3

Anticipating the shot
More painful than a prick

From any needle

Happy New Year!

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of the year.

~Elia Wheeler Wilcox

~@~