For My Sister, Barbara

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Sharon

We learned all about metamorphosis
from watching frogs go
from eggs to tadpoles to polliwogs to frogs
in the flood control ditch
that ran behind our neighborhood.
I get a little nostalgic
thinking about how we
were probably one rainstorm away
from drowning in a tragic childhood accident.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

The Voyeur

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Sharon

I hear the long trill
like a baby’s high-pitched raspberry
my eyes dart to window
and there he is
moving from side to side
up and down
pausing
slaking his thirst
his never-ending hunger
now resting
drinking deeply in
the cool morning air
I sit riveted
watching it all
until
he flies away
from
view
in a flash
of iridescent green
and the feeder needs filling.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

For Monty Python

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Sharon

When Andy died
on Flag Day
1970
I was 20
How could I know

I would learn
to hold back grief
choking the fire back
until it would rip

Exploding the
walls with banshee
shrieking and howling
terrifying

Consumed with loss
and no one
else to feel the pain
or walk the path

I had to walk
on my own
continuing on
losing my loves

husband, mom and dad
the bodies
began to pile up
at faster rate

Mourning becomes
exhausting
leaving deep wrinkles
where eyes sparkled

Eyes still sparkle
lips still smile
and, for all its risks,
desire persists

My heart craving
going back
for more of the same
I’m not dead yet.

Posted in Poetry | 3 Comments

Father’s Day

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Sharon

I remember looking through cards
at the neighborhood grocery
during one of those times
when you and I
were so far apart
that worlds stood in the space at our kitchen table.
I read, sigh, and replace
looking for the one
the one that acknowledged your effort
gave credit to your sacrifice
thanked you properly
without sounding gushy
or mushy
(because I wasn’t feeling it
hadn’t been feeling it
didn’t know
if I would
ever
feel it again)
or like a lie
that would forever
hang over generations of your grandchildren
believing they couldn’t live up to
a person who never existed.

There are no cards for you today.
No kitchen table
No worlds between us
No space between us at all
And once again,
no card that can do the job.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Like a Baby

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Sharon

So many new babies this spring
and news of more babies
and pictures of minutes old
days old
week old
babies.
Imagine seeing through their eyes.
Just waking up
just now seeing the world
just now
just now
just now seeing
until they stop seeing things that way
like us.

I’m seeing the world
a little differently these days

today

just now.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Cleaning Closets

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Sharon

I cleaned my closet from top to bottom for the first time in four years. I decided that I could get rid of the joint tax returns from 1983-2003 along with all the baggy saggy long winter undies and ball caps with salt-stained rims and receipts for purchases made long ago, along with the boxes for the laptop and its successor. I finally let go of my mother’s rainbow colored dressing gown. Cleaning things out and rearranging them gives one more room to stretch out and breath and see what’s there, internally as well as externally. One of the reasons we hang on to things too long is because we feel like we will lose the moments in our life that those things represent. It’s a lie, but we still do it. I am boiling those moments down and condensing them; making them more portable. I’ve been sitting still long enough. I’m ready to move, and I plan to travel lightly.

Posted in Blog Post | Leave a comment

The Squatters

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Sharon

A pair of robins have stolen the vireo’s nest under the awning over our porch. Vireos have been nesting there for at least the past four years. The robins moved in while I was away in Maryland. They’ve been nesting there for a while, and it appears they may be in the final stages of incubation.

Today a vireo showed up, and there has been some drama. He (I’m assuming it’s a he — it could be a she) has been flying in furiously and getting whichever parent is not sitting the nest all riled up and they both fly back and forth while the nester hunkers down. It gets quiet for a while, and then he’s back, stirring things up again.

I prefer the vireos. Their nests are much neater and more compact. Robins nests are big and sloppy in comparison. I think the vireos blame me somehow for the loss of their ancestral home. One of them dove at me, twittering madly yesterday (the bird was twittering madly — just in case you got a different visual on that). It did get my attention! I think the vireos are lobbying for me to throw the squatters out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s between them and the robins. I don’t wish to be involved.

Posted in Blog Post | 2 Comments

Another Sunday Haiku

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Sharon

We will spoil the earth
hubris unbound not knowing
it is but a speck.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Sabbath Haiku

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Sharon

Please do understand —
anything that is not pure love
is not close to God.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Haiku

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Sharon

Cleaning the office —
pages torn from school notebooks
sharp pencils, new lists.

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment