Emerging from the Debris
In May of 2008, after ten years abroad and after a severe and incapacitating emotional breakdown, I returned to the U.S. to do intensive therapy and emotional healing in New York City. The poems in this section are from this new period in my life, beginning with the first steps of my emotional healing process. I’m not out of the woods yet and I don’t know if I’ll succeed in getting out, but as long as I write and have Internet access, I’ll post selected poems on this page as I write them.
Poems are listed (from left to right) and posted below in chronological order.
Soft-spoken Musings || No Answer || One Chance || Routine || Fairy Love || Golden Joy || Like a Fish || Raindrop || The Solitary Flower
Soft-spoken Musings – 17 October, 2008 NYC
Soft-spoken me
like a fluff of poplar
gliding
on tippy toes
through the air
Angels
flitting
in bolts of light
to an accident scene
White light
with a golden hue
trying to reach you
through the fog
And the flow
the natural flow
of a joyous world
held up at the foot
of your grief
Everything floats
from here to you
on a wing and a prayer
if you let it.
No Answer – 17 October, 2008 NYC
helpless in the wind
the question
tossed to and fro
hoping for the mercy
of an anchor
One Chance – 17 October, 2008 NYC
One love
for a life
a life
missed the mark
One soul
for a soul
must
past life
unite
A lonely life
shroud in waiting
awaiting
waiting
alone.
Routine – 21 November, 2008 NYC
How do they do it?
Every morning rise,
is coffee a ritual?
the newspaper
radio? ready!
off to work
at a desk
day-in
day-out.
I cannot.
but what can I?
fall apart
upon the meaninglessness
of life.
Fairy Love – 7 February, 2009 NYC
Gentle, gentle, gentle
fairy -
dust dancing
to and fro
flutters like a feather
and shines a golden glow
Flitting
now here, now there
what moves within her mind
is known but to the angels
and to the one who calls her “mine.”
Golden Joy – 8 February, 2009 NYC
Golden
joy
gleaming in the sun
sprites dance
unseen on leaves
fluttering
rejoice in their love!
Like a Fish – 8 February, 2009 NYC
Like a fish, if you grasp at me, I will always slip away,
But hold me free in the palm of your love, and there I shall ever stay.
The Solitary Flower – 26 February, 2009 NYC
light
feather flower
delicate
to touch fragile
even the wind
must breathe softly
on her.
she sits tall
alone
in airy wisps.
the world,
harsh on her stem,
has not felled her.
her mind
in heaven
heart
broken
beating yet true
for something better
than sucking bees
in
to poke her.
Raindrop – June, 2009 NYC
My life will pass
from this world
leaving barely
the ripples of a raindrop
on the surface
of a tempestuous sea
My presence in this world, unperceived by man,
likewise my absence
for who can hear a still, soft voice
amidst the harried roars
of a human civilization
You will not see
I touched down here from above
but, unbeknownst to you,
I will have sprinkled the glistening jewels
of my unconformed and solitary heart
down
into your firm minds
like a gentle spring shower
positing a sweet morning dewdrop
upon your cheek,
the love within my words,
like myself,
too delicate for your perception,
nonetheless found home in you.
And long after my passing
you will ask yourself in a whimsical musing
“Whence this drop upon my cheek? My eye? A fog?
The heavens above?”