the year of lost things

One year gone.

With each hour
spanning a dozen,
and months
that numbered
a thousand days.

Dali-esque
persistent ticks
of melting clocks
with sleight-ed hands.
The bend of space,
the warp of time.

Some of us forsaken,
moored to the wreckage.
Victims of the ricochet,
the collective grief
that chokes and sputters
on the charred,
scorched,
remains of the day.

Some of us saved.
The eye of the storm,
still and clear,
our heads above water
for the first time,
in a long time.

Breaths of pure
unsullied air,
ours for the taking,
in the year
the clocks unwound.

_________________________

Some of you found good things,
all the good things.

You baked.
From scratch.
Crusted loaves,
consumed,
hot and greedy.
Fed them to each other,
with butter
running down your chins.

Nestling into blankets
on snow-covered nights.
Beside raging fires,
sparked
by bated breath
and beating hearts.

You stoked the hearth,
teased the embers.
Breathed new life
into forgotten things.
Crafted a beautiful life,
with splashed paint
and spilled laughter.

You fought hard.
And made up harder.
Unions of
complicated beauty,
bound,
by devotion,
and sunshine,
and song.

Voices carry.

Across rooftops.
Melodies tickling
the railways
of our spines,
trailing shivers
in their wake.

You loved your neighbours,
and took care of strangers.
Resurrected the dead,
the hibernated,
the dormant:
Caring,
Community,
Common decency.

You were kind,
when we forgot
that kind could be
a small series of
good deeds,
that carve
the world
with the power
of a butterfly’s wings.

You schooled your babies.
In science,
geography,
and ‘new math’.
Because old math
is just so…
yesterday,
when all our troubles
seemed so far away.

You were a teacher,
a Zoomer,
a work-from-homer.
A daily commute of
ten miles,
reduced
to ten steps.

And the planet…

—Breathed—

And so did you.

Arms raised
to salute the sun
with a mountain
at your feet,
and a namaste
on your lips.

—-S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d—-

Your mind.
Your body.

Coaxed the kinks
from the knotted places,
to release the person
you were
before this cold world
broke you.

You found
peace
and solace

Peleton

And God

And it was good.

_______________________________

Everything you found,
is what I lost.

I am Alice,
devouring cakes
in Wonderland,
too much space.
I am the room.
North, south
east and west.
Everywhere I turn,
there I am,
a funhouse face,
in a hall of mirrors.

Gone…

My words.
My purpose.
My path.
My self.

Missing.

Fled…

the undercurrent of strength
that guides me
through difficult times,
the thread,
that tethers
my fragile grasp
to this unforgiving life.

Expected…

to hold the world,
despite my arms,
shivering,
shaking,
the futile efforts
of a broken girl.

Drowning…

in a deluge
of collected tears,
the shards
of fractured time,
littering the
quicksand shores
of a sea
I cannot leave.
The sand, in a perpetual
dance to desert
my feet.

Hoist my spyglass,
scan the seas.
The waves,
they batter me.
Choppy.
Angry.
My vessel,
forsaken,
adrift unseen,
rules by tides
that were never mine.

___________________________

I’ve lost respect…

Network news,
riveting,
dangerous.
Consumed,
like poison.

Sold its soul
for a filthy buck
and a ratings hike.

Words as weapons,
thing of beauty,
transformed,
into a frigid bitch,
a searing heat.
Competition
for the admiration of an
empty, soulless world.

Social media,
a wicked
temptress.
Crooked smile,
beguiling eyes.
Takes your order,
serves you lies.

Anti-maskers
Political hackers.

Election swings.
Fuck vaccines.

Donald things.
Tiger Kings.

Swung our heads,
from left to right.
Whiplash
from the
constant fight.

________________________________

I’ve lost faith…

In our ability
to be decent,
tolerant,
to appreciate…
difference.

To quell the rage
inside our heads,
and listen,
to something other
than the grating sound
of our own
unchallenged opinions.

No one ever
changed anyone else’s
mind
by being
the loudest,
rudest,
most obnoxious
person
in the room.

And it helps to
be wise,
to know
when it’s time to
lace up your boots
and…

Walk away,
make a better choice.
To know that
being at peace
is so much more
than being right.

The bigger person
is not the better person.
It’s the one who
has the wisdom to know,
that hurt people hurt other people,
and that we don’t
need to become
the thing we hate,
the demon we despise.

We don’t have to
wake one day,
morphed
into the monster.

The last word…
Needn’t be a word at all.

_________________________________

I’ve lost regard…

for my city,
its leaders.

Shuttered our libraries,
in the middle of a crisis.
Cut a lifeline,
an escape,
an alternate reality,
for every kid
who has ever lived
with less than the best,
and more of the rest.

Poverty
Abuse
Neglect
Homelessness

Children living without…

Options
Internet
Resources
Escape
Safety
Space
Supervision

The ones,
falling through the cracks.
Parents tormented
by impossible choices.
Pay the rent,
or feed the kids.

We put locks on doors,
to protect ourselves
from those
who could never
afford a key.

We could have
problem-solved it,
because they are weak
where we are strong.

We could have shown mercy,
cobbled a shoe
for the foot,
that kicks the ass
that opens the minds
of the ones
who turned
a blind eye.

We could have made it essential.

But we didn’t.

So, the rich became richer.
And the poor became poorer.
And the gap grew wider,
and the shackles cinched tighter.

The haves continued having,
and the rest,
continued having…
naught.

As though
that’s all they deserved.

Be grateful, we say…

For the pitiable crumbs
we feed through the cracks
in the floorboards,
that prop up the glass ceiling
that will never allow you to stand,
never allow you to rise.

__________________________

And so,
a year has passed,
a second now begun.

A threshold crossed,
an invisible line
that marked
a milestone.
Ribbon broken,
in a race
that no one wanted to run.

We have shown
the best of ourselves,
but also,
the worst.

And so, the question begs,
What is left of us?
What remains?

Hope, I think…

Hope.

That the bearers of light
might rise,
like never before,
their sabres plunging wildly
through the stain of
our collective darkness,
piercing the blackened sky
till the darkness falls away,
like a curtain from a stage.

So that we might
see better today,
than we did yesterday.
So that we might
BE better today,
than we were yesterday.

I light my candle,
and cup my hand,
the only way I know
to shelter
this tender flame,
my fragile hope,
a whispered prayer.

Keeping the faith…

That everything we’ve lost,
might be found again.

____________________________________