Pharmacological Fog

Recapturing yourself will be easy.

White still in the bedroom,

structure from private, necessary snow.

dreaming of silence.

Your mind is a playground of artillery.

 

Capturing the sense of yourself will be hard,

Lost 2 feet tall in a field of chaff.

The women have needles and no yarn.

A man sits toward the curdling sun,

his face a mouth.

 

Sound your siren song

A gentle offering of wisteria wishes

and sulking letters.

Give her a sonorous rope to tie round her wrist

a little balloon bobbing desperately toward mass.

 

Engagement, Old Friends, Bunnies

I’ve been going through old photos on an old laptop and I have a bunch that I want to post. These photos are all from when Craig and I were engaged, and early in our marriage. It’s quite a walk down memory lane.

This was taken at my friend Emily’s wedding, where I was a bridesmaid. A few weeks later we had our own wedding.

Emily and I!

Out at lunch together.

Adopting Autumn

Scrapbooking! Cell phone cameras used to suck so bad.

Uncle Jerry and Craig

Jack, the best bunny ever. Loving, nondestructive, fun. He died a few weeks before the baby died of old age.

My handsome man when we were newly weds!

I’d never wear something that low cut now.

World of Coke in Atlanta!

Visiting Virginia Tech. Me standing in front of the dorm I lived in freshman year, Lee Hall.

In front of Drill Field at War Memorial.

 

Midwest

Fuzzy snowmen smell like turpentine.

Why all this wistful wind,

this heavy quiet,

these creative snowmen dancing in slow motion

to no music?

Not inaudible music,

or even illegible sound,

but nothing at all-

Machines with no factory.

This snow  covers a ghost city.

The children scattered and died.

Yes, I am freezing.

Would you like to dance?

Churches

Church of memoir,

of discovery,

of chants.

Cloistered in my name are ten lives

I did not live

in favor of a sublime 11th.

What is better than best?

What can joy can be discarded for ecstasy?

The taste of salt lines my mouth

when I look back.

 

 

translated to Xhosa, Afrikaans, and back

Church of Love

 

I find joy

while I lay cloistered in my ten lives.

Auroras swirl beyond my reach.

They will not live.

There is a reason I am so inordinately fond of 11.

What is better than a lot?

 

Why have I ignored peace?

 

It tasted of salt in my mouth.

Power lines guiding me back home.

 

 

Church of Love

Separate the gaiety from the joy.

Lonely in my ten lives,

they live,

it is as though they live without me.

How do I dispose of gaiety?

Of me?

Comparison

Bride of comparison,

you have found me

living through lacy love letters

to the glowing voice of the world.

I have loved and lived

and lavished

like a euphoric angel,

all over the world.

See how North America quakes beneath my hands?

Hear the tender whispers of my name from Europe.

I am tired of molds and braces and boxes.

What They have is not better than what I have.

Always They come with a capital T and claws.

They possess than,

But I hold hands with then,

and waltz over the sea.

3 Poems in a Minor Key

An envelope locked out of sight,

buttercups giggling in the fields –

and then a pink fog rolls over the view.

It is all so dreamy.

Don’t bring a mirror here.

 

Gloomy, graceful ghosts

lounge under the beach umbrella.

They are nudists.

They are like frosted glass.

No sunburns will befall them

as they get drunk

and carouse on the beach where they

washed ashore.

 

Welcome to the Life Center

With sparkly resources to help you warm winter.

Are you a cartwheel?

A suspicious glance?

A still wind?

We can help you get back to work.

We offer many courses:

Earth Spinning

Bone Knitting

Light Painting –

and certifications in

Prebirth Fantasy,

Pain Sculpture

Freeway Fashion.

Visit us today in the building of roses,

at the corner of Air and Fire.

God’s Design

Today I read something really interesting in my devotional. It talks about God wanting us to pay attention to the way He designed us. It says we should dive into the things God has designed us to naturally focus on and that we should examine where our talents lay. Our talents are God given, and they tell us something about what He would like us to do with our lives.

How did God design you? What are your gifts and passions, and how are you using them? The answers to these questions can tell you a lot about how your Creator wants you to live.

I need to give this a lot of thought, especially now that Craig has decided we are stopping at one child. Right now Angelica fills my days, but she is growing fast and will soon be grown. I only have 14.5 years til she is 18. I will only be 42 when she goes to college. How can I make sure my life is still productive and vital after she is gone? What will I do when there isn’t a little person who needs me?

I will have to find a way to harness my gifts (what are my gifts?) and pursue my passions. I don’t intend to go back into the work force.  But maybe I’ll open an art supply store or maybe I’ll volunteer through a church or start a ministry or open an art gallery or teach classes in something. I know I’ll be writing. I will write no matter what. I know I’ll be scrapbooking. I know I’ll be blogging and taking photos. These are all things that I can do in the season of motherhood and beyond to further enrich my life and keep my identity. But what causes and passions can I pursue when Angelica is grown that maybe I can’t pursue while she is young? What does God want me to do with the second half of my life, now that I won’t be raising children into my 40s and middle age?

I’m excited to find out what life has in store for me, and to design a life that my Creator wants me to have. In my devotional it talks about God being excited to take on the journey of our lives with us, and I love to think of that. Maybe God is as excited as I am about the next twenty years, and the twenty years beyond that. May God help me to craft a creative, fulfilling, accomplished life that touches the people around me.