Post Parting

almost two weeks now
Dad has gone to parts
unknown though i feel
him wherever i go

the most haunting when
Alexa at Toni's house
started singing without
being cued and a blues
song about sin and crossing
Jordan came on, my Dad's
last name Jordan and he was
a Baptist preacher, oh, he
is around all right watching
over my mother, checking on
me in new ways, i feel
less of a loss i think than
those of my kin who believe
in a far away heaven where they
will join him some day what we
know is little, but people keep
telling me they felt him close
when they saw one of his favorite
birds, a cardinal come and sing
to them, when i heard affirmations
from him when i was writing his
funeral poems, is it true i have
an extra advocate unseen helping
well if it's not true than i'm 
not hurting myself much to feel him near

Feminist Musings–Published unedited

it has been more than fifty years
since I began to think of myself in
feminist terms though I was born rejecting
the third class citizenship card i was given for no
other reason than my birth. my mother is 91
and will lose a bunch of the compensation my
father had when he died a few days ago though
she was married to him for 71 years and worked 
by his side on the mission field and in churches
across Maine until she got her master's degree 
and began teaching school though well past her prime

i turn seventy in a few days and live on the nothing
that is the result of raising children in my youth and
divorcing when I was forty, working to get my boys through
high school with almost no help from their father my ex and theirs
he rides high in his retirement while i collect $312 a month
from Social Security and the yahoo clown in our white house 
continues to banish those of us who have very little in support
of his cronies, though we are used to that from those who rule us
and scream that we should vote. for what? another version of the screw job?

We are all on this road to perdition. God on the backs of those who persecute
and care little for their souls or the anguish of those who find themselves
unable to live. i am a believer in Love, in a world created and sustained by
this phenomena very few take time to understand. it is not a secret hidden in
sacred books interpreted by powerful men, but an announcement written inside each
soul and proclamation of nature loudly stated by stars, waterfalls and oceans.
i chose this day to be kind, to love as if tomorrow will never come to ignore the
lies that make up our daily lives and to be concerned and guided by nothing but the One
Creator, sustainer, lover, giver, and caretaker of all that she has made in fact
sometimes when i look in the mirror I can see my resemblance and it is about the only
thing in this wide world that makes me smile and keep on walking there is nothing
better for me than knowing where i come from and where my inheritance resides that
there is not one little piece of creation to which I am not kith and kin to the Great
Mother Father origin, essence and presence of all the Universe be honor Amen.

OM

his lips are open only
the lower half of his
false teeth in his dry
mouth i swab it bringing
back childhood memories of
Jesus on the cross, I want
to take his picture but
my camera won't pick up
his spirit hovering
soaring above his failing
body hesitant to let it go
he hears the trumpet calling
over the sound of the furnace
and the sorrowful heartbeats
of his wife and children love
pouring it's tune into the silence
some of the children still hanging
on tight to his one good leg
his picks his crusty nose like an infant
unconcerned with protocol
his empty stomach gurgles 
echoing empty, saying, "No one home."
he is flying unaided
by mortal invention
he is making his way home

of planes and pasts

 

I wake to another migraine

they come like morning these

days as i combine two of the

elements that haunt me from a

childhood i fought to keep from

my own children…my demons:

moving and flying away alone

i fly away on Sunday in the middle of a move

but add to the mix my Dad dying

 

my little brother not anything little

any more is flying today and we

reminisce of our boarding school

past flying as little children on the

WWII surplus DC-3’s that were the

main transportation of our Brazilian

past the time my sister and i were

in the cockpit with the pilots when

they could not get the landing gear

down, how my father cried tears

when he put us on the rickety plane

by ourselves and we lost most of

our sense of permanent family

left to vacations and furloughs

to call home we return this week

from Florida, Virginia and Colorado

back to our roots before Brazil before

the war and the missionary zeal

back to the love of family to the

roots that made us strong enough

to endure the leavings, the losses

the opening of new worlds that made

us citizens of the Universe,

back to singing hymns

at the bedside of our loved ones

flying, circling, coming home to a strange land

Light of the World for Maria Popova and all the lights

she speaks of Rilke and Rodin

and the letters to a young poet

that is in one of my most beloved

books passed on to me by Silvana

Cenci, my amazing sculptor friend

who used explosives to make her art

the concept of empathy she finds originated only

a century ago lies at the heart of my teaching

in the sixties from a great man and my beloved

professor J.Whitney Shea and even her

text on Freud makes me remember my

years of the study of Psychology before i

decided it was an industry of ¨thera-pee and

thera-pists¨ her name is Maria Popova introduced

to me by a beloved artist, poet and friend

that is how these magical connections settle

into my being spurring me on when the poet´s

road gets too lonely and the night seems dark

and hard i remember all my foremothers and fathers

how they persevered through broken dreams and

though they sometimes cut off their own body parts

they left a legacy like a great neon sign to point us to the

Light of the World

 https://www.brainpickings.org/

Is The Universe A Friendly Place

two days past my determination

to get this memoir published

this is my take on life lived from

the dimension of spirit

 

go quickly forward not knowing

how or when, just following the

small signpost you can read from

where you stand, then if everything

blows up in your face and you melt

and wail, don´t worry itś just a loving

universe touching your cheek holding

you anyway and moving you down the

path to the next place you can read the signs

 

like Einstein said, the only question you

need to know the answer: Is the Universe

a Friendly Place????? If you can answer

YES, your safety will not be in question