What to say in a SYMPATHY card

 

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now and I honestly don’t have the words. But I care about you, I’m praying for you. I’m hurting with you, and I love you."

NOTHING IS FOREVER

NOTHING IS FOREVER

She sets jars of purple lilacs around the room
while Judy Collins croons "Forever Young."
Nothing lasts forever, she thinks, especially youth.
Her life is passing, the days rushing ruthlessly forward
too swiftly to stop. There's no going back.
She feels herself moving toward nothingness.
Later, lonely in the silent night
she reaches for her husband's hand,
listens to his soft muffled breathing,
soothing like a lullaby.
She dreams of babies who are grown
as the darkness lays down beside her.

WINTER DUSK HAIKU

 ASHLAND AVE

Welcoming comfort

neighborhood's cozy streetlights

greets gray winter dusk.

The welcome comfort

of her neighbor's cozy lights

greets gray winter dusk.

Kathleen Q Newman  ·   

#days

stars fade in first light

days soft gray serenity

before songbirds wake

Welcoming comfort

neighborhood's cozy streetlights

greets gray winter dusk.

The Almanac

 

The Almanac

Paging through her yearbook of days,

she comes across the first purple violets of spring,

catches sight of the gaudy lilies of summer,

and there are fall's flaming sugar maples,

finally spies the long-needled pines of winter.

Constellations, sunrises and sunsets, a profusion

of celestial events, intricately tangled in time,

day after day. Past. Present. Future. Time is

the nebulous dimension through which everything passes.

It is her intention to find more time, time for them,

the hopelessly ordinary, unremarkable them,

in this last season of their life together, while the moon

spins around corners in the starry night sky,

the sun sends golden shafts of light; and the wind,

that wild, unpredictable wind, uproots it all.

EARLY MORNING LIGHT

 EARLY MORNING LIGHT

Early light flares against the oak tree,
her morning-sun-side glows gold, exuberant in brightness,
back-side still darkly black against the night sky,
all the secrets of the day to come still hidden.

MEMORIES OF AN EVENING

MEMORIES OF AN EVENING

At the dinner table, while they nibbled salad,
before her mother served the pot roast,
she told the old story of her brother's friend,
how he smeared baby oil on the upstairs door knobs,
an April Fool's prank. Hanging behind one door,
her graduation dress, sweet dream of a dress,
disgraced with unctuous greasy splotches.
It was a long, rambling story. Slightly tipsy,
she began to cry before she finished the telling.
Loud piano music spilled from a window
in the house next door. The rain stopped
and the moon came out.
Her mother had strawberries
for dessert, over-ripe and mushy.
She remembered the oily feel of the knobs,
the rotting berries, the ruined dress;

there was a corruption about it all.

- Marianne McNamara -

*comments welcome

SHOVELING JANUARY SNOW

Air heavy with the weight of forecasted snow,

it starts with tiny frozen pellets

pinging against the kitchen windows. 

After a bit, fat flakes flutter

slowly down in the frosty air. 

Abruptly, the north wind shifts, 

clotted snow flys sideways.

The snow comes thickly, whitely, riotously, 

for an hour, two hours, then suddenly stops. 

Suiting up in boots and jacket, 

woolly red scarf protecting his face, 

he shovels his way down the twisty path. 

Enveloped in serene silence,

he pushes on, scraping the sidewalk 

to the gray cement ribbon below. 

Lift-throw, lift-throw, over and over, 

like the ticking of a clock. 

Savoring the sharp smell of wood smoke, 

he clears a narrow passage to the side door. 

His movements muffled, he’s  gloriously alone 

beneath the immense, blank sky.

by Marianne McNamara