poem

People are walking around
texting, googling, facebooking
eyes to the screen
in an unreal world

while that tree over there
is on fire
brilliant orange, red, yellow
lighting up the sky

wild turkeys are waddling around
the rest stop
picking at each other
wondering where to hide in November

deer wandering the shaven cornfields
vulnerable, delicate
unaware, perhaps, that the calendar
creeps frighteningly toward hunting season

an old man holds the shriveled hand
of an old woman
sitting by the lake
bundled up against November chill

savoring each day
knowing that winter comes
bones ache, hearts beat irregularly
and every moment now is a gift

a squirrel stops and stares at me
wondering whether to run
hoping I will not approach
goes this way and that

and I laugh

as a child
I stood at my window
looking at the light across the way
my first longing, my first heartache

loving, dreaming
that he would wait for me
to grow up
and our names would share a line

the only way to survive
was to write my childish passion
my truest feelings
that seemed silly out loud

or to live in a world
so achingly beautiful
so tender and astonishing
not understanding why so many others

didn't notice

the only way I survived
was to write
to fashion words around
my soul

lest it be consumed

and then that first time
that first loss
that shattered the very ground
on which I stood

when my heart was mere
fragments laying broken
in so many irreconcilable pieces
around me

cancer and death
the first disillusioning blow
to my dreams
and hopes

oh god

i wouldn't be here
if i couldn't put one word
in front of the other
pouring out my heart

like blood on paper

my prayers
my keening
my fists shaken at
a silent sky

all on paper

an offering

given
so that i may be redeemed.