Good Morning World

Good Morning World

On the front porch at dawn

watching the world wake up

greeting ‘good morning’ to folks

walking by with their dogs

after saying goodbye to visiting 

family off on a long journey home

I stay here with my coffee and words

offering a a thankful hello to 

A New Day

                                       JoMae
                                        9/27/17 

Dawn

A Savored Memory

One early August morning, 

the summer of John’s death, 

in that sleepy state of half awake, 

I caught a glimpse of him 

neatly dressed for the day, 

walking around the end of our bed, 

over to my side.  

The vision quickly vanished.

yet remains engraved  -

a gift that brought to mind 

an early morning moment captured

many years ago in this small poem:

 ~~ DAWN ~~

Up at dawn 

he gently tucked her with the sheet

and fixed it where the mattress corner

had come undone above her head

then slipping out

went down to put the coffee on

He did not know

that in her semi conscious morning sleep

she was aware

and felt the precious oil of his love

flow through her veins

 a secret blessing

JoMae
7/29/88

                              

Broken Puzzle

Year after year John's Prize Geranium blooms on

 

“Past Life Lives in the Living”   —Wendell Barry  

I’ve been reading Barry’s “Sabbath Poems” these days.  They speak to the pondering that goes on within as I pick up the pieces scattered about by the earthquake that took John and left my own core scattered in the wind.  These jigsaw cells, once us, now strewn, must be collected and re-configured to discover whose were whose and which live on. And how.  It is a puzzle. A broken puzzle.

 Broken Puzzle

Putting the pieces back together

when half have disappeared

is nye unto impossible

Yet hearts, they say, do mend

though not without deep scar 

tissue filling gaps of

Missing Pieces

JoMae
9/10/17 

Holding Hands

YOUR HANDS

Sitting in this room alone

I feel my hand in yours

As surely as if we’re on an evening walk

Strolling down the avenue together

I feel your palm

Quite coarse from woodworking

Soft fuzz on the back of your hand

Your fingers squeezing mine 

In fond recognition of 

Loving camaraderie 

I know your hand entwined in mine

Now resting on the sheet 

Swollen strange and puffed

At the end of an arm full of tubes

As you lay dying

Those young strong hands  

Now elderly and frail and still

Baseball hands. Swinging golf clubs

Draftsman’s hands, always designing

A gardener’s hands, a craftsman

I have the work of your hands all around me

In this old home you refurbished 

Your carpenter hands creating beauty

Were the hands of a dad who could fix anything

Beloved hands

I feel them on my cheek and 

Wish them in my hair and 

Everywhere

Your hands holding me

Our hands holding each other 

For almost 60 years

JoMae

8/21/17

[Re-posted:  9/15/19]

Total Eclipse

ECLIPSE

A  phenomenon of majesty

choreographed by Godde

A grand display of wonder

moved across the sky

An ancient rhythm seldom seen

known and yet unknown

Stars came out to play at noon

the sun slow dancing with the moon

The universe displayed its

grand Divine design

As awe struck creatures

 marvelled

Yesterday

JoMae

8/22/17

Two Faces Into One

TWO FACES OF MY DAYS -

Two opposing tracks weave together in my life these days.  On the one hand, I’m getting used to living in solitary silence.  Even with the radio or TV on, the void is so dense you could cut it with a knife.  I wake to long hours of empty air.  Not feeling very social yet, so no schedule or commitments.  

On the other hand, I wake to an abundance of empty hours and the quiet solitude I’ve always loved and carved out time for.  Now I’m swimming in it and actually making good use of it.  I’m writing my way through this journey.  The blank page each morning has become my good friend!  Some pieces I share and when kudos come, they wrap around me like warm hugs.  

For example, I somehow pulled a muscle in my hip so have stayed in and favored it this week.  Stayed off my feet as much as possible to let it heal.  So it’s been a string of quiet uneventful days.  Phone calls most days, meaningful conversations online, but little or no in person interaction.  

Earlier I joined a private Facebook group for widows and have watched and been impressed with  the caring and encouragement that goes on there. It is a safe place for some to scream their pain and others share small joys of healing. All of us trying to figure out this new world we find ourselves discovering.  Our new normal. Our new identity.  Seeing how our stories, while so different, overlap, the other day I shared one of the piece I’d written about my journey.  The response was kind of overwhelming.  As the hugs and thank yous began to pour in, and women conversed on how my words had helped them, I saw a glimpse of purpose in this quiet week. A sense of confirmation that life has not completely stopped.  That out of this dark silence, perhaps my pondering can bring a bit of solace to another.  A thought which brings me joy.   

JoMae
7/27/17  

Hibernating

MY NEW NORMAL

Most mornings after breakfast, I settle in my chair, open my laptop and think, read and write for a few hours.   I might not step outdoors for almost a week if I don’t need to run to the store. All the while feeling slightly embarrassed about it,  slightly guilty,  sort of a concern that others, if they were aware, would think there is something wrong with me. Wondering, what would people, my own kids, think if they knew how truly I am hibernating here.  As if this is something I must explain or make excuses for. As if this hibernation is abnormal. I know it will not always be this way, and yes it is abnormal - from what life was 7 months ago before John died.  But for now it is my normal.  And it is OK.

This now is my day.  My work.  My purpose.  My joy.  I can send away that ‘shoulds’ monkey on my shoulder and embrace this abundant time of quiet I have for healing and for writing. I can drop the apologetic stance and mindset I’ve been carrying around inside of me. It feels like a sigh of relief!  It is OK!  This is who I am. I will embrace this new routine and gradually modify it over time.   I might even go outdoors and read in the sun for a while this afternoon!  

JoMae

7/19/17

Silent Blessings

Life After Loss

BREAKFAST

once a time of pleasant  conversation

has become a source of quiet

CONTEMPLATION

JoMae
7/1/17

Daydreaming

~~ DAYDREAMING ~~

I'd see her sitting in her wheelchair, just outside her door at the nursing home where I visited my Mom.  A diminutive, grey haired woman looking intently at the paperback in her two hands.  Every day I’d see her there. Reading, I thought. A kindred spirit. Another book worm.  Maybe one day that would be me, I smiled to myself.

Then I noticed something.  Her book was upside down.  A twinge of sadness accompanied that realization.  The book it seems was just a prop.  Or perhaps an echo of a lifetime of enjoying stories.  

That picture in my head is at least 15 years old and still as vivid as if it were last week.  Today  the vision of her comes when I am daydreaming.  I love to daydream and do it more and more as I age.  I wonder now, if that dear old soul I see in my mind’s eye was not so much staring vacantly at that wrong side up book, as she was daydreaming  Aha.  Still a kindred spirit!

I’ve always daydreamed.  Always with a sense of doing something I should snap out of.  A sense of wasting time.  The first conversation I recall concerning this propensity goes back to third grade.  My parents, returning from a meeting with my teacher, shared what I did well and where I needed to improve.  As all parents do.  As I did many times over.  But the only assessment I remember - and remember vividly, was that if JoMae could only stop staring out the window, dreaming, she would do so much better in school.  Perhaps that is why I’ve never seen this as a positive habit.  

Now that  I’m alone after a long and happy marriage, I catch myself daydreaming a lot.  Sometimes remembering.  Often imagining.  I’ve been noticing lately how similar it is to writing.  While I love to write, I’ve never before connected the two hobbies.  Now I have decided to embrace those daydreams.  Try to capture them.  Recognize this practice as something positive.  Write down those small scenarios that carry me away and see what happens.  And if someone should observe me staring into space, don’t worry.  I’m not vacant or lost or mixed up.  I’m writing!

My little old lady from so long ago, no longer living, I am sure,  still lives on among the pictures in my head.  Only now I think of her as gathering stories.  She may not have been able to write them down, but I suspect they were vivid to her mind’s eye and entertained her hours on end.  I’ll try to write mine down for both of us.

JoMae
6/22/17

From Both Sides Now

DOUBLE VISION

I see the world from both sides now

the dream the dance

the final bow

I see the inside out of life

as grief wraps tight around me -

 blankets me with memories of laughter

I hear the silence screaming out

the void, the empty chairs

where quiet conversation was the norm.

the look, the sigh, the grin is gone

the whistling is dead

hollowness abounds

I feel the shift of weight upon my shoulders

which once, resting upon two,  

was shared with joy.  

I move through vacant rooms

and see you there

without the music, hear your song 

I fix a meal and eat

uninterrupted by the sound of

your companionship

the everyday comments

often about nothing

yet everything to me - now gone

<><><><><>

before I gave birth 

I could not imagine the experience of that 

separation of two beings out of one

either the birthing or the

life that followed as a mom

- so full of joy

before knowing the death of one truly half of me

I couldn't fathom an experience so profound

as the separation of the two of us

either the immediate loss or the

learning to walk on my own

so full of grief

~~~~~

yet tempered by the 
healing mystery of 
GRACE

JoMae 

4/24/17