Impossible and unending (revised)

I arrived

during the homily,

gladly found 

a place in the back.

Thought of you

and prayed for you.

For all this week

has brought your way.

But more,

for daily life, fear, pain

that must seem

impossible and unending.

Afterward I hopscotched

my way forward through

congregants making

their way home.

And lit a candle,

thinking of you.

And hoping for something better,

anything, better.

I lit a second,

and quickly a third.

Soon realizing I would run out of candles

before I ran out of people and prayers

So I quit.

Quit lighting candles,

that is, not prayers,

and left.

Winter 2017, Bellingham

Never thought
I'd get tired of snow.

I was wrong.
Very wrong.

post Easter reflections

It must be
the day after Easter
I've got a ham
sandwich for lunch

Wherever she goes

Balancing herself on the edge of a step
our granddaughter reaches
to touch the switch. Asking,
"Can I turn off the dark?"

Soon enough she will learn that "we" say,
"Can I turn on the light?"
Cute phrasing will drift and fade as she
is squeezed into social correctness.

Yet I choose to hold hope,
that there will remain within body and breath
an ever-kindling coal nudging her
to turn off the dark, wherever she goes.

                                 

                                   Reading at SpeakEasy 19, Poems of Darkness and Light.
                                        April 8, 2017, Mt. Baker Theater, Bellingham, WA.