I’m in pre-boy time, the minutes or hours before my son wakes up and the day will continue at a different speed.
I’m in AD time (After Divorce).
I’m in the Venn diagram years, when my son and his great grandmother are alive on earth at the same time, even as she forgets things almost quickly as he learns.
I’m in the Trump-stained years, which are coated in a repulsive, sickly slick oil that no one can seem to wash off.
I’m in the years of my living, the short/long time when my light switch is on and I have the great adventure of being awake, awake, awake.
Jenny — there’s so much there. The stories. The brilliance of Ben (I know everyone reading your piece will send greetings to him from afar) and the power of the gathering he’s hosting — to say to him what you’ll say about him — and the glory of the 2 year old.
Oh, Jenny, this made me cry. You helped us know Ben and appreciate him. You helped us be thankful that he has lived a life and that he has given much to those who know him. You have made him a real person to people who don't know him for real. What a gift.
I appreciate the "in the moment" of this poem. Being grateful for the peach which is in season right now, being grateful for the mess you know will be left behind, being grateful-- period--for the small things that are the big things. Lovely.
I feel like I’ve been in “limbo” time (shades of my Catholic upbringing...) for the past few years as I try to negotiate my way through a dragging-on divorce process, unable to either fully put the past behind me or embrace the future ahead of me. During one particularly difficult period, I wrote this haiku – basically a more refined description of that “same sh*t, different day” feeling…
Thanks, Kathleen. I originally had "rest" instead of "respite", to fit with the 5-7-5 syllable haiku structure but when I pulled out the poem this morning, I felt that the latter worked better, for some reason...
I love that you felt driven to condense limbo into a haiku then into four words, and maybe two "unrelenting unchange"! you have the gift of poetic brevity
Thanks, Elizabeth! It's one of the things I love about haiku - that challenge of finding just the right word to fit the brevity of the structure. Like a word puzzle!
Right now, moments are passing more slowly than they were last week, before I started taking meds for anxiety. A little unsettling-am I still me? And at the same time, gratitude for the slowing of the clock hands. I spent most of yesterday playing with my youngest child, being with her in the moment, being silly; the day ended with her saying, "this was the best day."
Thank you! As a mom, I think one of the best sentences a child can say to a parent is exactly that, "This was the day." You make me think of the times I said it to my parents, and I think of the times my children said it to me. It means quality time, time well spent, time spent living our love in the moment. Those days are such gifts, like beads on a rosary we can rub between our fingers, tangible, holy.
Hello Alissa, Being a mother is difficult by any measure. Being with one's children in the moment when one is filled with the pressures of adult life can require more capacity than most of us have. I have vivid memories of the internal conflict caused trying to meet external demands and really being with my children. I'm so glad you had that day with your youngest child and hope you have many more. Please don't give yourself a hard time if they're few and far between. I send support over the energy field.
How do we live toward the vocation of eternity? I love that phrase vocation of eternity. where do we sense it and when do we begin to live it and how? Lovely questions to ponder.
I'm in your time, Steve, with a cemetery conveniently a couple of blocks away. I have my place reserved in the green Eternal Meadow. Hope we meet somewhere in that mystery beyond.
I really enjoyed following all the twists and turns of this stream-of-consciousness narrative poem. So many fine lines and images. “Purpose as an occupation” really struck home.
It is untethered time, in between time. I left a profession that I spent half my life in and it is now time for me to float and just be until the next path solidifies.
It's a time that feels very convoluted, or folded in on itself, spending a few days with an old friend & colleague from 37 years ago; we're talking as if we last met yesterday, but a lifetime fills the in-between...
I get that, Ann. I had lunch last Wednesday with someone I used to work with 40 years ago. We'd like to think we're the same as we were then, of course; except that we are both diminished by losses we share.
It is summertime - nearing a close actually. I am summertime, wringing every drop of daylight over my lips, quenching my every thirst. Time is soon. The closer soon comes the longer soon takes. Or maybe quite the opposite. Best to get drunk on daylight either way.
Time has been standing still for me in certain ways, moving slowly or quickly in others. I've been allowed to come to rest, heal my mind and body from the stresses of the modern world, while simultaneously having been forced to speed through a plethora of skills and their steep learning curves in preparation for the future.
A period of transition is often like this. Fast and standing still, calm seas and stormy waters, the grand contrast of two worlds colliding, two worlds that are, above all, defined by time.
It's a time of grief for me. I am a late baby boomer, lived all my life in comfort and peace (speaking as a Central European, a category that has been shifting). The news of wars, fires, climate disasters, anger, isolation, loss of trust, fear-based politics, harsh patriarchy ... all this shakes me to my core.
What time is it? It is time
to remember that I am but a wrinkle
in the tarp of time.
For a time, an impression of my presence is made visible,
like the dent in a freshly made bed
where I once sat on the edge
to put on my shoes,
like dirt that still clings
to shoes I once wore before
I walked through the door and
was no more.
Time is what keeps everything
from happening all at once.
I am not happening all at once.
I am happening now
until I become what once happened. Time is reputedly precious.
So am I.
So are you.
For now.
-Dwight Lee Wolter
I love the dent on the freshly made bed. We are but impressions on others, but what lovely impressions we make!
Wrinkle in the tarp of time is my favorite bit!
Thanks, Jackie!
Thank you. Elizabeth.
Yes, the dent! Really vivid writing!
I never thought a dent in a mattress made by my butt would become so popular!
“I am not happening all at once.”
Yes! Time stretches us out, warps us!
Thank God for that. Time also warps space. It used to be, when I was a kid, space and time. Now it is spacetime.
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
Yup, Claire. Can you imagine otherwise?
Is it ME or is it Time that is swirling by
unlike All the Other Times before..
like a cosmic collision about to happen.
The inter..section of Time and Space
nears, and once more
I have forgotten to wind my watch
I like this very much: "Time is what keeps everything/from happening all at once.
I am not happening all at once. I am happening now until I become what once happened."
I wrote that in a huge hurry on my way to the church I pastor. Just got home and am meeting what I wrote as if for the first TIME!
I love "the tarp of time." Tarps are picked up and put down on the forest floor, and then picked up again and put away. Ephemeral.
Yes! Good catch, Sam!
I’m in pre-boy time, the minutes or hours before my son wakes up and the day will continue at a different speed.
I’m in AD time (After Divorce).
I’m in the Venn diagram years, when my son and his great grandmother are alive on earth at the same time, even as she forgets things almost quickly as he learns.
I’m in the Trump-stained years, which are coated in a repulsive, sickly slick oil that no one can seem to wash off.
I’m in the years of my living, the short/long time when my light switch is on and I have the great adventure of being awake, awake, awake.
Love the line she forgets things almost as quickly as he learns. Great perspective
Me too! I had this sense of a generational relay, where he was catching and running with what she was letting go.
I like the ticking off of all the current realities. And I love the way you’ve used the Venn Diagram to feature those intersecting lives.
I love this perspective. I remember those years, that short/long time. You describe it well.
Ben’s Celebration of Life
It’s time to choose an outfit.
This morning, we’ll gather
on Zoom
to share dorm stories
and goodbyes.
We’ll pretend
this is what 40-somethings do.
Remember how you wore
moo-moos to class?
Smoked cigars? Made us laugh
‘til we bent in half?
I should mention
Ben’s hosting.
That he’ll hold his 2-year old
to the screen like a prize.
The Empress, he calls her.
Received the bad news
shortly after she crowned.
Told us that cancer
was eating his tongue.
It will be soon, he said
in the invite.
Let’s gather one last time.
So I’ll choose an outfit
something bold and breathing
perhaps a magnificent hat,
one an Empress
would approve of.
Jenny — there’s so much there. The stories. The brilliance of Ben (I know everyone reading your piece will send greetings to him from afar) and the power of the gathering he’s hosting — to say to him what you’ll say about him — and the glory of the 2 year old.
Jenny, this aches with such beauty. Isn't Ben showing us the brave way we want all our good-byes to be remembered.
Oh, Jenny, this made me cry. You helped us know Ben and appreciate him. You helped us be thankful that he has lived a life and that he has given much to those who know him. You have made him a real person to people who don't know him for real. What a gift.
What an amazing gift Ben is giving his friends and you are giving him, gifts bathed in so much sorrow, but still gifts.
Treasured time.
It is time to bite into a peach,
to allow the sweet sugar-juice
to run down my chin, my neck,
to drip onto my clean shirt
to leave proof of
simple joy I embraced
today.
I appreciate the "in the moment" of this poem. Being grateful for the peach which is in season right now, being grateful for the mess you know will be left behind, being grateful-- period--for the small things that are the big things. Lovely.
Your description evokes a deep habitation in time! I can feel the peach juice running down my neck!
I feel like I’ve been in “limbo” time (shades of my Catholic upbringing...) for the past few years as I try to negotiate my way through a dragging-on divorce process, unable to either fully put the past behind me or embrace the future ahead of me. During one particularly difficult period, I wrote this haiku – basically a more refined description of that “same sh*t, different day” feeling…
…
LIMBO
Rising brings no respite.
Stuck in revolving-door days
of unrelenting unchange.
Thanks for sharing Anne - the tone and mood of your piece resonates.
Thanks, Tomás - and nice to see you on here!
Limbo - can certainly identify with that through former Catholocity—and life! I really liked it first line.
Thanks, Kathleen. I originally had "rest" instead of "respite", to fit with the 5-7-5 syllable haiku structure but when I pulled out the poem this morning, I felt that the latter worked better, for some reason...
I love that you felt driven to condense limbo into a haiku then into four words, and maybe two "unrelenting unchange"! you have the gift of poetic brevity
Thanks, Elizabeth! It's one of the things I love about haiku - that challenge of finding just the right word to fit the brevity of the structure. Like a word puzzle!
It’s time to explore living this one, miraculous life as if it’s mine.
Powerful declaration there Wendy - thank you!
Right now, moments are passing more slowly than they were last week, before I started taking meds for anxiety. A little unsettling-am I still me? And at the same time, gratitude for the slowing of the clock hands. I spent most of yesterday playing with my youngest child, being with her in the moment, being silly; the day ended with her saying, "this was the best day."
Thank you! As a mom, I think one of the best sentences a child can say to a parent is exactly that, "This was the day." You make me think of the times I said it to my parents, and I think of the times my children said it to me. It means quality time, time well spent, time spent living our love in the moment. Those days are such gifts, like beads on a rosary we can rub between our fingers, tangible, holy.
This was the best day. Wow!
Your poem really helped me slow down and pay attention. So happy you could have that time with your child. All the best. 💚
Hello Alissa, Being a mother is difficult by any measure. Being with one's children in the moment when one is filled with the pressures of adult life can require more capacity than most of us have. I have vivid memories of the internal conflict caused trying to meet external demands and really being with my children. I'm so glad you had that day with your youngest child and hope you have many more. Please don't give yourself a hard time if they're few and far between. I send support over the energy field.
TOWARD THE ONE
Decisions, decisions -- I'm of that age
where it's time to start planning my own
demise -- how it will look -- green burial,
cremation, traditional burial with headstone.
I roam the local cemetery and read the names.
Each one, I'm sure, wanted to leave more
than letters carved into a slab of stone --
leave the world better than they found it,
life easier for children or grandchildren.
They are out of the game now -- without
ethnic identity or nationality or allegiance
to any creed -- part of the great unknown;
perhaps marching with saints into a homeland,
perhaps put into exile, refugees adjusting
to an inhospitable climate of sorrows.
Maybe we're just worm food, dust
in the wind that a relative dutifully spreads
on an ocean or favorite forest trail.
I'm here to find one name,
leave flowers; none of the other names
mean anything to me, they might as well
be refugees stacked up on a border,
any border, anywhere in the world,
who wore out their welcome, took up
space that couldn't be shared without conflict.
Each car that passes by is in a hurry
to get to some destination. No one
wants to be here. Our medical establishment,
anti-travel agents, working against
your arrival at the only destination
where everyone is equal and can be
equally ignored by the living; who think
that living is the goal, rather than death --
disturbance, rather than a state of rest --
purpose as an occupation working
against the vocation of eternity.
How do we live toward the vocation of eternity? I love that phrase vocation of eternity. where do we sense it and when do we begin to live it and how? Lovely questions to ponder.
marching with saints into a homeland,
perhaps put into exile, refugees adjusting
to an inhospitable climate of sorrows.
Love the words about in death there is no ethnicity. Thank you for lots of inspiration
Steven, this is so beautiful: I especially love your line, " I am here to find one name". thank you!
I'm in your time, Steve, with a cemetery conveniently a couple of blocks away. I have my place reserved in the green Eternal Meadow. Hope we meet somewhere in that mystery beyond.
I really enjoyed following all the twists and turns of this stream-of-consciousness narrative poem. So many fine lines and images. “Purpose as an occupation” really struck home.
reminds me of a Cuban proverb, the only qualification for death is living.
This is beautiful to read. Thank you.
It is untethered time, in between time. I left a profession that I spent half my life in and it is now time for me to float and just be until the next path solidifies.
Love the image of floating; ride the wave!
It's a time that feels very convoluted, or folded in on itself, spending a few days with an old friend & colleague from 37 years ago; we're talking as if we last met yesterday, but a lifetime fills the in-between...
I get that, Ann. I had lunch last Wednesday with someone I used to work with 40 years ago. We'd like to think we're the same as we were then, of course; except that we are both diminished by losses we share.
It is summertime - nearing a close actually. I am summertime, wringing every drop of daylight over my lips, quenching my every thirst. Time is soon. The closer soon comes the longer soon takes. Or maybe quite the opposite. Best to get drunk on daylight either way.
And Sunlight?
Time to harvest the barley
and early potatoes but
not yet the still-swelling
hard perfumed apples
on their shaken trees.
So beautiful!! Thank you!
Memory Care
Winged clocks in
Old cartoons
Time fly
Hands circle ‘round
Willy
nilly
Finally land at
What o’clock
Kids know
Digital
Analog goes
Way
Of black
And white
Screen scratch
What device will
come with memory
Tests?
Only time will tell
tell
Those short staccato lines are really powerful here.
It is time to speak up for those who can’t. It is time to care without judging. It is time for the FALL OF THE PATRIARCHY!!!!!!!!
Time has been standing still for me in certain ways, moving slowly or quickly in others. I've been allowed to come to rest, heal my mind and body from the stresses of the modern world, while simultaneously having been forced to speed through a plethora of skills and their steep learning curves in preparation for the future.
A period of transition is often like this. Fast and standing still, calm seas and stormy waters, the grand contrast of two worlds colliding, two worlds that are, above all, defined by time.
It's a time of grief for me. I am a late baby boomer, lived all my life in comfort and peace (speaking as a Central European, a category that has been shifting). The news of wars, fires, climate disasters, anger, isolation, loss of trust, fear-based politics, harsh patriarchy ... all this shakes me to my core.