11.03.2016

we can't handle the truth


november begins with the return of my brother, disappeared for 12 days,
depressed, suicidal.
returning shaken, crying.
my hands are empty and ache from the trying. 
there is nothing more i can do. 

Baseball runs over football, done with a bang, over at last. Cool air pushes against warm. Rain threatens. I turn the radio on and Steve Earle bumps into Jim Reeves, George Strait eases into Led Zeppelin. October gives way, and November begins with still warm days, the cat hiding half awake in the monkey grass, fallen leaves a roof over her head. Her fur matching the leaves, her eyes matching the grass.  I could've walked back into the house, tracked down my camera and taken her picture, but it would have ruined the moment, and, especially lately, I am letting the moments just be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it is time for a change.

it is time to stop insisting we wear a uniform called woman or artist or mother or republican or unmarried.  it is time to stop.  time to start.  time to listen.


labels is labels, not the music.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i sleep hard without midnight awakenings, or i don't sleep at all. in the mornings, all the aches i took with me to bed are waiting.  i bang my knee against a chair, i drop a can of coke from fingers not yet ready to grasp the new day.  i am bruised outside and in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night the neighborhood wolf dog escaped his yard and flew under the streetlights - I knew it was him; he is bigger, moves differently and faster, and my god what a gift to watch him go. The other animals ran toward him or away, fights almost started, owners shouting. I could hear them as they circled the streets, closing in.  Skyecat climbed to the third floor porch and watched from above. I came back into the house and watched the last of this year's baseball, then turned off the tv and the lights, reading, as always, by the light of the Kindle. The close-by sound of an owl from the backyard, once, twice, scooted the cat back in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

10 comments:

  1. Labels. Never liked them, hated that so many are spread about. Easy like butter on hot toast. Sounds in your night were peaceful compared with our celebration of a wild ride in baseball. Into the wee hours of daybreak the horns, shouts and fireworks of 108 years of waiting finally set free.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. perfect. perfect. they are easy like butter on hot toast. perfect and true.

      Delete
  2. You write so beautifully, even as you write about worry and exhaustion and wanting things to change. Have you written a book yet? If not, I hope you will one day. You have a gift.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you are always so kind. thank you. and no, i have no book. i only have these small moments, a few sentences, not even poetry. i haven't yet figured out how to make a book from all that. :) xoxox

      Delete
  3. stunning, so beautiful, you mesmerise me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh sarah. i wish you'd been with me, standing at the door watching the wolf dog. he seemed to not touch the ground. he seemed mostly spirit or shadow.

      i remember years ago watching an owl fly over the streetlights - wintertime, cold, still, his belly white against the sky. i've never forgotten that image. and now i have this memory to add to it. hashtag my neighborhood.

      xoxo

      Delete
  4. Labels are like tiny prisons. Your writings make me think more deeply about things... right now, how many labels I have just accepted without noticing, even though I want nothing to do with them.

    There was an owl outside my window last night. Three calls, and he was gone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That seems like a message, doesn't it? A sign. A goodnight. Goodnight moon, goodnight owl.

      xoxox

      Delete
  5. Oh, you write with the rhythm of the ages, the way history and her story were passed to each new storyteller, the way we learned that life is hard and life is hope, and only the moments mattered.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for this. It is a conversation, or as I once told Mark S., a duet. An exchange of moments. We listen.

      Delete