spring encounter

On a wet green morning at the cusp of spring….

[photo courtesy Kaarina Dillabough via Visual hunt]

32nd anniversary, revisited

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens when a [person] loves you….”

shadows

Blurred shapes creep and shuffle at the outer reaches of her vision, gloating that she cannot turn her head in time to halt their ambush.

war bride

Did you search your mirror, breathless,
for shining eyes, flushed cheeks, signs this must be, must be love?

hard battle

Plato was right; we all fight our own hard battles in this life.

letter to my Muse

When you’re all set to begin a solid day’s writing, only to discover that your brain has left the building!

writer’s block

Thoughts milling in my head, tense, high-strung, a gang of neighbourhood thugs restless … More

the passing of a year [the crone speaks]

And so another year falls away, into the midden heap of empty promises, failed resolutions, tender hopes and expectations that never … More

Bleed, on warfarin

The thing is, you see, blood thinners prevent blood from clotting. That’s their job. They do it well. Great for … More

Word play

True haiku is a Japanese verse in three lines, a mood poem that uses no metaphors or similes. The first … More

For My Father

Wikipedia: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic inflam-matory disorder that may affect many tissues and organs, but principally attacks flexible … More

Thin air

We streak along this narrow asphalt ribbon into the stratosphere, zig-zagging through switchbacks, slipping around hairpin curves designed by mountain goats … More

Spring creeper

Raw and sensitive as a newly-closed wound that tingles to the touch, I creep into this bright new day, a … More

The call

We are dancing now on the mummified remains of ancient sisterhood, and I, weary but duty bound, am loath to be … More

Hard bucking (32nd anniversary)

Beginning to be comfortable, we two, after all this time; this stubborn, persevering love, sturdy now as the two old … More

The gift of Pandora’s box

Ebb Tide Abandoned rowboat on a barren beach, its treasures gone – oars, bailing can, worms lost to the endless tide. … More

Stalemate

Every deep relationship has its ups and downs; there are times when, no matter how hard you both try, you … More

Grampa, by scent

Here is another prose poem, written during a time when poems simply leaked out of my heart and all I … More

The hard rind – redux

Collection Out of the button-down regimen of my daily life, I scavenge fragments of wonder, shards of joy in brilliant … More

Catherine wheel

The Catherine wheel (Catharine wheel, pinwheel) is a type of firework which, when ignited, rotates quickly, producing a display of … More

Roadmap

Looking down at my own hands, I see instead my mother’s; wrinkled and careworn, freckled with age and sun, blue … More

Living on purpose

An uphill journey, this, of growth and change, and the attempt to live something more than an accidental life!

House of women

Salt-of-the-earth women, Scots Presbyterian, strait-laced, undemonstrative, unremitting. The aunties with their hair in stiff sharp pleats, frozen finger-waves, and loose … More