Carpe Diem

The Return

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The Return

This time last year I returned to KIRA for a visit after my one month artist’s residency. I have been back several times since, but each return is always more difficult than the last. Memories are golden and the reality of the return is never quite the same. Here’s the link to last year’s post on my first return to KIRA: KIRA Return July 2017 .

You can never walk in the same river twice (Heraclitus). This is what makes the return always so difficult. It is like the spoken word that, once spoken, can never be reclaimed.

I guess the return is more difficult for some people than for others. There are so many places to which I have never returned: Cardiff, Gower, and Swansea (Wales), Bath, Bournemouth, Bristol, Christchurch, Frome, Gloucester, Hengistbury, and Wick (England), Oaxaca (Mexico), Avila, Bilbao, Elanchove, Madrid, and Santander (Spain).

These place names scratch memory’s surface, no more, for there are places within those places, also never to be seen again, save in old photos and dreams. Yes, my dreams are tinged with sadness, the sadness of remembering. There is also the great joy of having been there, of having borne witness to this moment and that. Time and memories slip through grasping fingers like water or sand. The ephemeral: it will never last, even though we catch it for a moment in a photo or a verse.

 

On the Cat Walk

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On the Cat Walk

The cat stalks by, her tail held high,
a paint brush trying to paint the sky.
Nose in the air, she doesn’t care,
I guess she’ll acknowledge me by and by.

She’s neat, so neat, on her tiny feet,
moving swiftly, fast and sweet,
heading for her kibble treat
which she always stops to eat.

Some day I’d like to be a cat,
sitting quietly on my mat,
or lying by the open door,
watching chipmunks on the floor,

stuffing their cheeks with seeds galore:
who could ever ask for more?
A reality show on live tv
specially made for my cat and me.

Therapy Garden

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Therapy Garden

Sitting, absent-minded,
empty,
waiting for the sunlight to heal
my old bones and fill my fragile form

with light
so that I may shine,
a lighthouse on the land,
sunshine pouring out from me,
light enough to enlighten
the unenlightened
in their soul’s dark night,

no moon, no stars,
and me,
walking unafraid,
knowing I need fear nothing,
even in terminal darkness,

for my body now overflows
with this therapeutic light
that floats its boat on an inner
sea of tranquility.

Losing Weight

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Losing Weight

First, you must study Nature.
It will make you aware
that trees lose weight
by shedding in the fall
their useless leaves.

Do they ever grieve
you wonder, when winter
winds strip twig and branch?

That dog who owns your heart,
he sheds his coat and shakes
away both water and fleas.
Dogs can lose weight
whenever they please.

Don’t bother to diet.
Step fully clothed
on the bathroom scales,
then shed your leaves,
twigs, branch, and fleas.
You’ll lose a pound or two.
Believe me … and try it.

Comment: This turned up on my Facebook page this morning, a one year ago today item. I don’t even remember writing it. It’s quite fun, though. So: forget those fancy and expensive diets: there’s more than one way to lose weight.

 

Scratch Pen

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Scratch Pen

This old fashioned
scratch pen,
post office pen
with its pointed nib:
a mindless spider
weaving its web
of fine-spun words.

I dip the pen
into emerald ink
and my fingers
turn green with envy
as the nib sails on,
its pea-green boat
laden with meanings
that will never
arrive on shore.

Lost in life’s
traffic jam
of things to do,
I miss the mystery:

star-crossed words,
an empty ocean,
this one dip pen
scratching on,
while I dither
like a mother hen
checking her chicks.

Limpet

 

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Limpet

… like a limpet at the sea side
she clings to her inner rock
as the incoming tide
causes waters to rise,
threatening
to sweep her away.

A wind charges
over the bay,
brings a wave-surge,
white water, urgent,
crashing against rocks.

Rock-face
showered and shocked,
the little limpet
clinging on,
knowing that this
is the way
limpets survive,
from day to day,
from generation
to generation.

 

Old Man

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Old Man

He stops old friends
in the supermarket
and, when he starts to talk,

they stand there,
tapping their feet,
trapped in a doldrum
where no winds fill
their sails to move them on.

He has turned into
a babbling book of hours,
life’s moribund albatross
a warm scarf heavy
on his reluctant throat.

Caught in multiple mirrors
surrounding the barber’s chair,
his tongue is an open razor
constantly stropped.

Anniversary

 

 

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Birthday
a year ago today
… but it wasn’t my birthday

Buy a balloon.
Make sure the color is bright.
Fill it with all your sorrows,
then let it take flight.

Look: up and away it goes
and all your sorrows go with it.
You’ll feel much better now.

Buy yourself a party hat
and a birthday cake.
So what if it’s not your birthday.
It’s always someone’s birthday.

Don’t forget the candles.
Take a match and light them.
Now let your cares go up in smoke.

Diagnosis

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Diagnosis
(sonnet)
posted apparently a year ago today

Diagnosed with a terminal illness
called life, I know it will end in death.
For more than seventy years, that end
has lived within me, walked beside me,
sat at my bedside, and shared my sheets.

We have shared so many things: laughter,
joy, victory, defeat, the soul’s dark night,
the winding ways of fortune’s labyrinth.
When cancer called, we faced it together,
and life won out for a little while longer.

Hand in hand, we are together again,
our ménage à trois, engaged in a three
-legged race, blindfolded, unsure of who,
what, why, where, and especially when.