Kathryn Barker
A poetry blog to inspire others to connect to the natural world, and seek wisdom in the cycles of nature.
These are the musings of a woman going through a transformative season in her life. Follow the journey, as she learns to trust her own voice, and emotions.
#27 dan Poésie
#10 dan Romance
The sky appears as a cracked Robin’s egg.Cool gray, and a burnished aurulent glow seeping through the jagged edges.
The triumphant sun is falling behind the trees.
Raising spirits far, and wide.
Beaming in greeting like an old friend.
The moon awaits her turn to reign.
Bright sunbeams shoot through leaden clouds, clarifying the evening.
Highlighting the grey-brown drabness of buildings in town.
Dappling the new growth colors in warm light filter.
Sunrise brought swirling skies that provided variable tones.
The clouds unstirred paint tossed at the blinding light of the butter sun, by toddler hands at a party.
Unstructured perfection.
Slate, and marshmallow.
A shining golden yolk peeking through.
Creating interest that
nourished my mind.
After a sudden afternoon downpour, a rainbow arc framed the North side of town.
Cars hurried through the wet concrete wastelands.
Tense conversations behind windshields.
Stormy.
The sun peeked through storm clouds,
Leaving gray puddles to shine like polished platinum.
Fanning the embers of inspiration, while it warmed my back.
Spring is coming.
Tiny green shoots poke through the melange of cinnamon hued needles, tattered tan leaves, and downed limbs.
Miniature daggers forged by Brigit herself.
The trees have aged, with swollen elbow joints padded by sleeves of green velvet mosses.
Chirping birds loiter along tree arms.
Gulping worm Hors’D oeuvre’s in celebration.
The trees, and shrubs are beginning to swell with young buds.
Snowdrops, and crocus have donned the medians.
I’m walking to visit the proud lady Maple.
Hoping to witness her burgeoning.
Perhaps planning her outfit for the Spring ball.
Raiment.
Garments forged by the growing light, and clear waters.
Nomadic seeds are sprouting where they’ve landed.
Nondescript buildings bring out weariness in me.
I’m trying hard to stay focused on my path.
Winter rushes me down the sidewalk, as though we are late to an appointment.
I’m detecting earmarks of Spring along the ground.
I feel pin drops of rain blow into my eyelashes.
Tickling.
Closing my eyes.
Breathing in Ozone.
Smelling the storm before I saw the lightning flash across the expansive evening sky.
Baritone rumbling.
Like an ancient belly’s hungry growl.
The deepest string on an ancient guitar being stretched North.
Giant blue fingers release it.
Trembling.
Boom vibrating deep within the Earth.
A translucent sky being shoots currents of electricity through bright violet arms.
It makes me long for the gray blue Winter waves of the Pacific Ocean.
Sea foam churned by tides.
Imagining a great bearded creature, swirling the waters with giant driftwood from below the depths.
Mud splattered frozen cliffs border flooding streets.
The Northern hemisphere is frenzied by storms.
Thick crystal quartz sheets lay across streets cracked by footprints.
Icy tree limbs splintered, and
Fallen.
Power outages widespread.
Shivering, as we await the dawn.
Depression taunts me in the Winter.
It dances along the blade edges of my mind’s deepest ravine.
Winking flirtatiously as it tries to grasp my hands, and pull.
I sprint towards the sanguine eye
Like a bull in a ring.
Fighting, and kicking
Feeling like I have something to prove
under bleak, and overcast-skies.
I relish leaving the curated landscapes of town.
To seek areas where nature prevails over human notions of how wildness should appear.
Feral tangles.
We attempt to tame areas,
animals, and sometimes people.
Calling it civilization.
I slide through the mud.
Knots of thorny brambles keeping me on my toes like a ballerina.
I was not put here to tame the wild, but to dance within it.
Wearing reverence as my shield.
The storm quickens my pulse, helping to urge the Winter blight from my mind.
I round the corner, and come upon the lady Maple.
Branches waving in the wind.
Garnet buds appear on her prominent arms.
They stand out like carmine beacons on a runway.
Signaling.
She’s bejeweled.
We’ve weathered the Season together.
Navigating liminality.
Changes crowning us with the emerald shades of experience.
10 Février 2024 04:07 3 Rapport Incorporer 6Tonight I slipped off to sleep in view of my brightly lit Noble Fir.
The gift of grief was packaged perfectly, and shoved to the rear.
It appeared the wrong size, and shape to hold my emotions.
Much too carefully folded to have been prepared by my hands.
It wasn’t haphazardly wrapped.
I’d thought it could wait until after the Holidays.
I didn’t want to take time to open it.
I’d rather be swimming within pools of fresh water possibility.
Surrounded by lush forest.
Cream colored lights danced, as my eyes adjusted to the land of the conscious.
My dad’s handcrafted ornaments dangled from the branches.
Ivory colored Antlers.
Hornaments.
Lit by warm white fairy lights.
I was piled onto the couch in a slumber.
My tiny dog curling into my belly.
Winter reminds me. Darkness is when I gather strength.
I remember to connect to those are important to me.
You never know the when the last time will be, until the chance to talk has passed.
Elongated shadows in the Charcoal night become my fulcrum.
I’m not afraid to let my shadows out to dance in the cold.
I rest before Spring’s fresh peridot growth.
A Pivotal step before the lightening of the skies.
Before the sun takes back the reins.
Before sleep I’d been envisioning the columnar carved basalt beds of
Toketee Falls.
I’ve daydreamed of gazing through that misty air into Jade pools.
Hearing the steady force of falling water.
My muscles are stronger, and my mind is lighter.
I’m ready for a vista view unblocked by walls of regret.
What nudged me awake?
A nod to a far past December.
A large hand on my shoulder.
Warm, familiar, and encompassing.
Grasp gentle.
I’d felt it thirty years ago.
The same sudden awakening in the night.
I was sleeping light, on top of a sleeping bag.
Dozing on the floor next to my Sister, and a friend.
I was sixteen.
We’d been to the Winter Formal dance.
Both girls lay still as stones.
Unbudging.
The light dimmed in my childhood bedroom.
We hadn’t turned it out before sheer exhaustion stole our discussion.
Stuffed backpacks on the floor.
Mixtapes, and books strewn about.
Powder compacts, sable brushes, and blue- red lipsticks.
I felt my Grandpa’s hand on my shoulder.
His essence around me.
I heard his words, though unspoken.
The hand conveying what words could not.
Love, and the last moment I hadn’t gotten with him.
My tears finally came hard, and fast.
Slate colored clouds pouring rain that afternoon, chilled my bones.
I couldn’t get warm.
Our incomplete family gathered for my grandfather’s funeral.
My Father was out of state.
Selling Christmas trees in Colorado.
He had sadly been unable to make it home.
I never even saw Grandpa sick.
It was lightning fast in my teenage mind.
I’d last seen him frying bacon, eggs, and hotcakes in the kitchen.
Standing in front of the mustard colored stove.
My throat was blocked by a lump, I couldn’t swallow.
Teeth gritting to fight tears.
Awkward hands upon my shoulders.
People I didn’t know, and family somber.
Concerned faces looking at one another.
We’d always gathered in celebration.
It was all too formal.
Including the dance that evening.
I had wanted to go weeks before.
I hadn’t expected Grandpa couldn’t beat this.
He’d always seemed strong in ways I couldn’t fathom.
He spoke his mind directly.
Unafraid.
I’d admired that.
After the funeral,
I did not feel like dancing.
I wanted to curl up in a ball.
I went anyway as promised to my date, and friends.
Shadowy, and awkward steps.
Comfort absent.
Shivering in the dark, in my black strapped dress.
Wishing I were somewhere else.
Winter rains beating the glass windows of the school.
Loud enough to interfere with the slow songs.
Grief doesn’t care about ticking hands, or calendars.
It’s not to be scheduled.
I no longer resent that.
We all grieve.
Sadness doesn’t have to be clandestine.
Words shouldn’t be left unspoken.
Truth is important.
Rushing waters come into my thoughts.
I want to remember my favorite moment at the edge of the North Umpqua River.
I was twelve.
A liminal age.
I carried my little journal to her alluvial banks.
A private feeling shore.
A depositional terrace that begs for human visitors.
I lifted my chin skyward.
Monolithic Eagle Rock towered ominously above me.
Leaving a brown shadow darkening the banks further upriver.
That Summer break my family camped in the Umpqua National Forest.
In our usual spot.
My Grandparents trekking East from their country home.
Past the Dry Creek Store.
Into the deeper Canyons carved by volcanic activity.
It was the last camping trip with them both up the river.
They’d lived near the waters of the North Umpqua for most their lives.
My Grandpa a retired logger, and rancher.
He labored for the Forest service.
Creating structures, and blazing trails.
The needle carpeted trail my family would amble along together happily.
Walking sticks in hand.
Gathering blue mountain huckleberry treasures for my Grandma’s pie.
Grandpa was skilled outdoorsman.
Capable Fisherman, and hunter.
Gentle, but toughened hands.
Skin reddened by labor in the outdoors.
Tending their gardens, and the orchard in his retirement.
Taking us up the hill to see his fruit trees.
My Grandma canning the bounty, and baking her pies.
Feeding deer in the mornings.
Grandpa’s callused hands pulling snow white baby bunnies from a wooden hutch for us to pet.
During camping trips, his face would beam with pride, when we’d reel in a trout.
Grandpa was a warm, and steady lap for me, and my sister.
We’d take turns wearing Dad’s cowboy hat.
Happy, and warm within our circle around the fire.
My Dad, and Grandpa raconteurs at the flames edge.
Stories I try to recount.
That Summer trip involved preteen pains.
Grief, anxiety, and changes.
The ones I didn’t speak about.
I was unable to contain my feelings.
They were tempestuous.
My happy countenance seemed misplaced.
I couldn’t focus in class that year.
My teacher’s eyes bored into my skull.
Vitriolic words.
He wanted to talk Rototillers, and religion with the boys in class.
Mathematics seemed an afterthought.
As though we have should already understood it.
Math wasn’t easy for me.
Numbers danced in my head.
Made my head spin.
Running together.
I didn’t want to get failing grades.
He was impatient with me.
I was too afraid to advocate for myself.
There were only two of us girls in the class.
He targeted us, seeming to expect the boys to laugh at us.
Most didn’t, thankfully.
The fact that a teacher thought so low of me, changed the way I saw myself.
As the teacher mocked us,
The words sparked something inside of me.
Building a rage fire.
Embers flying free only to start new blazes.
Unable to forgive myself for what I perceived was a failing inside me.
I wanted to yell.
Stand up, and tell him his mind was small.
Bullying two girls for being born female was wrong.
My feelings too big for my mind to hold.
Too overwhelming for a child.
My head throbbed every day before his class.
I wanted to shrink into the recesses of my dreams at night.
The ones filled cool lucidity.
Things made sense in those spaces.
I felt burned by his cruelty.
Scarred, and marked.
Suddenly self conscious, in places I never was.
I tried plastering makeup on to protect myself.
Lining my eyes with darkness.
I felt less vulnerable looking like someone else.
When I transferred out of his class, I lay awake at night thinking of the other girl.
She was soft spoken.
More introverted than I was.
Kind, with swampy green eyes.
I felt like I’d abandoned her.
Leaving her to be skewered on an open flame.
Guilt filled me.
It was strange to be in the space between child, and woman.
I hadn’t imagined this was what it felt like to grow up.
I was raised by caring parents.
My father didn’t treat women like my teacher did.
He was patient with me, and kind.
I still wanted to feel the wind flying through my hair while riding my bike.
I still wanted to play in the dirt, and sand.
Build rock wading pools in the river with my Sister.
Play pretend.
Unhurried by life, and growing up.
I sat on that tiny bank.
Digging my hands through.
Volcanic grains.
Imagining the rocks, and soils ground to bits by water, and motion.
I stared across the rushing teal waters.
Boulders jutting up without design.
Creating whirlpools.
Miniature storms, within the river.
Cyclone shaped.
I couldn’t take my eyes from the rushing waters.
I imagined being carried upon her currents.
Letting her coldest water cool my hottest pains.
The inferno inside me.
Silently communing with her.
Truth needing no utterance.
She bore witness to my anxious face.
Worried by hormone shifts.
New aches, and bumps.
She wasn’t the judge, jury, or executioner.
Her powerful rushing sound was proof enough to me.
She’d seen what matters.
She seemed wiser than my math teacher.
The sun beat down upon her boulders.
Barely warming the tops.
The canyon keeping the coolness.
The forest guarding her banks,
and the verdure at the floor.
Smelling of Douglas Fir, pines, and earth.
Fish, and life teemed through her clear waters.
I heard her promise to drown my darkest feelings.
She grasped the guilt, rage, and confusion.
Pulling them through her currents,
Until they didn’t seem so crushing.
I could barely hear above her steady flows.
It soothed me.
The sun was beginning to sink.
Everything cooling.
I could smell campfires.
Goosebumps had begun to form on my forearms.
The light had changed.
Looking violet, and amber.
Early Summer evening.
Hours had passed.
It only felt like minutes.
I can still find that memory.
I didn’t want to leave that moment.
Nothing was written, or sketched in my journal.
I had trouble accepting that.
Shrugging back into my sweatshirt.
I walked up her bank to back to our campsite.
Happy again.
Calm, and grounded.
Ready to be with the family.
Transformation complete.
I felt seen by a force bigger than any human.
She saw me the way I couldn’t yet view myself.
She accepted me wholly.
I basked in her power.
Her waters flow on.
She never questions her own strength.
Continuing to cut through worsening fire seasons.
Holding her swishing fish, and insect children.
In the depths of those sacred waters.
Bringing hope to her forested banks,
and the many like me.
People who need to be heard.
I like to think she remembers me from childhood.
I could have stared into those waters for days.
They left me spellbound
Brocading flows.
Serpentine.
Braiding past, present, and future.
I forged a bond with the river that day.
I knew I could never stay away from her.
I made her a promise that I’d always return.
She took my troubles,
She’s always kept her promises.
I intend upon continuing to keep mine.
On Christmas morning I walked my familiar path.
An orange bellied Thrush hopped along next to me.
Turning his head to look over at me.
Sucking worms along our journey together.
Sustenance in the cold.
I smiled at him.
The sun was out briefly.
Warming a spot along the road.
It led me to a miniature waterfall
Created by sudden rains.
Our movement in sync.
The little bird leading me to the falling water.
I can travel across time, and miles within my stalwart memories.
Touching them.
Spring will return.
Winter reminds me to journey deep inside.
Hibernate, and examine where I’ve been.
In the sun spot, I soak up rare brightness.
I think of beloved family, and friends.
Those who have moved beyond this realm.
I like to remember my Grandparents walking along the North Umpqua trail.
Happy, and healthy.
I want to blaze new trails.
As those did who came before.
I am examining how I’ve been sculpted, and carved by my experiences.
Like the banks of the North Umpqua.
No one escapes life without experience.
I am trying to choose which view to look at.
If you look for synchronicities, you will find them everywhere.
Lichen growing on a Coniferous tree.
Ready to be sustenance for Ungulates, and crawling things.
Beryl colored, bohemian laced webbings, nestled within the bark.
The Myelin sheath of the tree.
In dwelling messengers.
Communicating without words spoken.
Mossy overhangs cover tiny damp grottos, within the deep caverns of the thick bark.
Many systems at play.
Silky webbing.
Spider homes.
Tiny mushroom cap umbrellas sheltering bugs.
I’m searching in the cracks of life, and far off spaces for answers today.
This morning I feel like a small nesting doll.
Pushed into my own place between the pillows of time.
Hand painted with care.
Genetic imprints of family known, and unknown.
Mythological figures made known by the stories over time.
Told over generations.
Ancestral musings are stirring deeply within my systems.
Thinking of massive Pendulum Clocks.
Antiquated Isochronic tones.
Buried in the past.
Sitting on spindles in a distant land.
Vibrating my bones.
They quake Winter’s porridge, simmering on the stovetop.
Rouleau wrapped DNA.
Traits inherited.
Gifts, lessons, and mysteries.
Coming from just beyond my reach.
My imagination tries to fill in the gaps in color.
Flashes are happenstance through the shortened days.
Cursory impressions, as I pass a reflective surface.
The mirror I avoid, on my way out the door.
A profile of me that’s changing with the years.
A wisened face peering back.
Happy crows feet crevices.
I ponder mythical yarns.
Pulled through the loops of time, only to be tangled on the way through.
We try to unravel the finest threads.
Sometimes just left to wonder.
Beloved recipes that have been modified.
Familiar scents.
I can’t place them.
Sniffed on the winds that blow swiftly, through my home, when I let in the Winter.
I’m touching a worn fiber, on my Great Grandmother’s quilt.
Brushing history.
Evoking sentience.
Innervating places inside me that have felt long asleep.
Each Hexagon a differently printed fabric.
Scraps left from someone’s clothing.
I feel the work she did for others.
Thoughtful stitches.
No mistakes.
Quilts sent to children who had no blankets.
Her name was Sophronia.
She went to another realm before I was born.
I wrap in it to feel her compassion before I sleep, and prior to waking.
Desiring to feel more of that essence.
Remembering her journals.
Records of wagon train travel.
Creaking.
From the low, and squat trees in the flat core of Texas.
Settling amid the rushing emerald green waters, and old growth trees of
Western Oregon.
We can travel outside the lines of reality.
Coloring life as we see it.
Subjective experiences.
Like story weavers, and dancers.
Poets, painters, and sculptors.
We can take the path of scientific exploration, if we wish.
Filled with Astronomers, numbers, and secured evidence.
Words chosen carefully.
Factual snippets.
Nothing left to chance.
Venus is the centerpiece of the light indigo sky this morning.
Halcyon horizon lighting up the Yuletide.
Crisp morning air biting my cheeks.
Coffee mug steaming.
I tread by feel.
It’s still so dim outside.
The bumps, and cracks of the sidewalk are instinctual to my soles.
Sedimentary, then finely pulverized patches of concrete, I’ve walked before.
I can feel it all underfoot, and it comforts me.
It’s what I know well.
Worn pathways of routine.
Leisurely enjoyment.
No morning traffic noise.
The world is fresh from the Winter sleep of her children.
Air icy cold.
Dark moon tonight.
It’s soon too be an amber morning.
Chase Bank is lit by neon.
Appropriately titled.
Capitalism lighting the American morning.
What are we pursuing, and who is winning?
I’m standing on the sidelines,
Steady, and ready this morning.
Dawning glory.
My internal rhythms beg me to dance.
Coffee mug partner in hand.
I’m a bit too stiff yet.
I woke with the birds this morning.
Two crows flying by my window.
Looking navy blue, from the warm light cast upon their feathers.
Crafty, and watching from an Ash tree.
I wonder what they’ve witnessed.
My Dad always rose before the light.
Heading out to fields of Christmas trees.
Spired seas of piney green.
I remember trying to get up with him.
He was leaving in Old Blue.
Our farm truck.
Named aptly for his sky blue paint skin.
I was too loquacious before Dawn, as a child.
Dad needed silence, and coffee.
Mom needed more sleep.
When I got older, there was no one to tell me to go back to bed.
I’d follow in Dad’s footsteps with coffee, and getting ready for work.
I would leave my son in my Father’s care, before heading to work.
Listening to comedy shows on the drive to the hospital for day shift nurse work.
Laughter has kept me alive.
The mornings I couldn’t let loose were tough.
Those were the days I’d write feverishly, or before tossing my journal onto my car seat.
Dripping feelings, and coffee all over the journal.
Coffee stained pages from unsteady hands.
I was six years old when I had a lavender diary with a golden lock, and key.
Tiny shooting stars, and clouds.
Scented pen, smelling fruity.
It came under the Christmas tree.
I loved having secrets.
Nobody could take them.
It made me feel twice my age.
I wrote in purple.
Dashing home from Elementary school to scribble childish scrawls.
During Winter break, before bedtime,
I’d lay under the Christmas tree.
Staring up the tree trunk.
Branches tickling my nose.
Ornaments became characters that I made stories out of.
Gazing up, imagining a village in a Noble Fir.
A Christmas world.
Fresh smelling, and lit in rainbow lights.
Sparkling icicles dangled.
Winged fairies danced among the Noble needles, checking on the ornament folk.
Tending to them while I dreamed of lucent things.
I’d dream of massive cities where I could search for colors like the tree lights.
Hues not common in my hometown.
Places where adventure happened, and everything was decorated.
Leaving nothing untouched by human hands.
Youth is fickle.
I was torn in many directions by my own creativity.
I dreamed in neon lights.
I thought I wanted to be an actress,
as a teenager.
Wanted to be someone grander than little me who imagined silly stories.
I wanted to step inside someone else’s story for awhile.
Trying it on like a formal dress in a chandelier lit boutique.
I am fascinated with people.
Understanding what kinetic energies move them.
How far emotions will drive us in life.
The stage was fun, but it left me self conscious.
I kept searching, and grinding.
More scrawling in my journals.
Penning out poetry in between dated entries.
I continued to pen writing through the years of labor jobs, and healthcare work.
So many characters met.
People to commiserate with, over steaming cups of watery coffee.
Huddled within seldom used break rooms.
I met the directors, players, dreamers, and movers of the hospital machine.
Grandma told us stories.
As my Sister, and I stood at her side in the kitchen.
Peeling potatoes, and washing dishes.
She played cards with us.
We learned of her youth, and the Mother she’d lost to the Spanish Flu epidemic.
The mother she'd pined for, everyday of her life.
Mollie.
Buried young.
Forty years she’d lived.
An entertainer, artist, mother, and wife.
The daughter of a Norwegian violin maker, named Odd.
Ethereal.
Her painting was careful, and accurate.
Capturing a scene of alpine splendor, on a stretched canvas.
I was drawn like a magnet to her framed photograph, as a child.
Scanning her easy smile, and gentle eyes.
Looking for clues.
Knowing I would have loved her.
I like to imagine she still views the Earth through my light eyes, from wherever she is.
My great Grandfather's picture sat diagonal to hers in a shiny gold frame.
His name was Jim.
His nose was Aquiline.
Giving him charisma.
Lachrymose eyes, and one side of his mouth turned up in a half smile.
Three brothers in black, and white.
One brother was going off to the so- called Great War.
This was the final photo taken of the brothers together.
He would never return to the family.
Killed in a battle, on French lands.
My Great Grandfather never recovered from the loss of his young wife, Mollie.
Never remarried.
My Grandma was given duties overnight.
From a child to a woman.
She took care of her father, and brothers.
Doing the jobs her mother would’ve done.
When the youth left to begin their own chapters, Jim was left to find another path.
He dwelled on the edge of a mount, at one time.
Procuring a pet raven, he named Doc, who spoke keenly.
My Grandma told me she was afraid I was too sensitive to be a nurse.
I’d shrugged off the comment.
She was prophetic.
She’d seen under the antiseptic halls of the hospital throughout her life.
Down to the depths.
Nuns who tended her sick mother.
White gowns, and whiter habits.
Swishing among the ill, and death-bound, like specters in the night.
I had a lucid dream years after my nursing career ended.
I was standing in an old sickroom.
Dimly lit darkness.
I smelled sweat, and sadness.
I looked down.
I was swathed in milky colored cotton.
Dark shawl pulled around my shoulders.
Long loose chalky white skirt grazing my calves.
White belt cinching my waist.
Legs smothered by itchy stockings, and ending in cream colored leather shoes.
The floor was old, and wooden.
I sat up abruptly, filled with knowing.
I’d glimpsed somewhere else.
Some other dimension.
I’d been dressed like a nurse.
From an era, long before my birth.
Today these stories sustain me.
They’ve become as familiar as the path I’m treading on.
We are braided together.
Trusses thicker, and longer than we can fathom.
Past, present, and future selves.
A conglomeration of lessons.
Connected by the human experience.
Genetics, and cultural mores.
We share more than stories.
Each of us tethered together by the fibers of time, family, and friendship.
Interest in the Esoteric has brought the past closer to me.
This is my season of remembrance.
People who shaped me.
The search for authenticity has led me here.
I’m learning new ways, in my fourth decade.
I’ll still be learning through my remaining decades.
Hopefully, every sense will be sharpened by the tools of time, and wisdom.
Heart space softened, and expanded to a place of infinite reaches.
16 Décembre 2023 19:07 1 Rapport Incorporer 5I’m treading downstairs.
Seeking Biophilia.
Yearning for cold air on my cheeks.
Outside, a tepid rain is falling.
Puddles of brown water stretch beyond the edges of the street.
Lapping waves splash onto the sidewalk.
A cement seashore.
I’m wading through in my boots.
It’s Spring warm, in December.
Rains have historically calmed me.
I didn’t need the layers today.
Sweat is beginning to dampen my back.
Threats of flooding loom.
Geomagnetic storms.
The air feels electric today.
The tides of my emotions are changing without warning.
I’m tiring quickly, and feel inflamed.
Piles of rust colored leaves form a precarious barrier between sidewalk, and road.
A smattering of leaves are being pulled through the rushing currents.
Expeditiously, they move through the rain made reservoir.
The skies are marbled.
White, and swirling.
Charcoal colored clouds.
Spiraling ominously.
It smells of cheap candles, and
fetid odors from open trash bins.
Everything looks much too verdurous for December.
Reminiscent of warmer months.
I feel sickened by the smells.
Rotting fruit bobbing in the water.
Uncollected, and inedible.
People driving uneasily through the flooded streets.
Two Grey Squirrels tower precariously on a small branch of a Paper Birch tree.
The branch bows with their weight.
They are attempting to escape the boggy ground.
It’s unseasonably warm.
Feeling much like the South.
Swampy.
More tropical than Pacific Northwest.
This doesn’t feel like home.
Did I slip into an alternate reality?
I’m waiting for frigid winds to cool my face.
None come.
Stillness.
A jacked up pickup truck
careens sideways on the new lake.
Roaring through the flood.
Fishtailing purposely.
Dirty floodwater flying at my face.
I closed my mouth just in time.
It’s in my eyes.
I’m dripping.
He’s whooping.
Thinking he’s funny.
I’m not amused.
I feel a blinding rage.
An inferno spreading from my face to my body.
Indignant tears.
He could have hit me.
Heart thundering under my shirt.
I feel my pulse in my ears.
I feel awkward, and dripping now.
Much too vulnerable.
I amble to a park to catch my breath.
I find my favorite stump.
The one that holds me, when I can no longer hold myself.
I perch like a Barn Owl on the edge.
I’m pale faced from the darker months.
My golden strands laced with silver under a dripping umbrella.
Waiting.
Knowing the storm will pass, but tired of holding on with razor sharp talons.
My hands are growing weary.
I want to let go.
I rock myself to the tachycardia beat of the raindrops.
My favorite soundtrack.
I want to lay down.
Feeling dizzy,
Pulling the umbrella low.
Wishing I was an earthworm,
to burrow into the coolness of Mother Earth.
I watch one stretching out in the mud.
Taking advantage of the easy tunneling.
Slumber has started beckoning me.
Winking at me from across a flooding street, flirtatiously.
Batting half-mast lavender lidded eyes.
It’s dimming outside already.
I’m feeling much too buoyant.
I’ve forgotten my anchor.
My purse.
I must’ve left it inside.
I’ve carried weight on my shoulders for years.
Always preparing for impending storms.
Freedom is frightening when you are used to being held captive by deep seated emotions.
Cruel captors that beg attention, when you are trying to function.
A Migraine is throbbing at my temple.
The past feels too close.
I always had a flighty spirit.
In childhood, my book bags were heavy.
We were latchkey kids.
Every year a brand new cloth bag
with bright neon letters for the school year.
My generation decorated the inside of our electric blue metal lockers.
Mine with scotch taped rock’n roll faces inside.
Beacons of boldness.
Who I wanted to be.
Plastered to the inside of my locker were
ladies with big hair, and black leather.
Kohl rimmed eyes, and carmine painted lips.
Fierce, and loud.
Punky creatures.
Voices gravelly from hard living.
Icons of the Walkman Era.
Before the worldwide web.
We rode our bikes, and skated.
Racing down gentle slopes.
Feeling wind on our faces.
I can still feel it.
Nostalgia.
Piling onto threadbare couches in someones garage.
Listening to our favorite music on mammoth speakers.
Some of us playing it on our guitars.
Life was still new.
Possibilities were endless.
The world felt vast, and tasted of adventure.
The library was my favorite place.
I whiled away hours.
Breathing in the smell of books, and seekers.
They smelled different somehow.
Anything I wanted to know could be investigated.
I felt like Nancy Drew.
I’d thought it possible to prepare for anything.
As a young mother, I felt I was bobbing aimlessly in the surf, of an unfamiliar sea.
I was scared, and twenty- two.
Trying to be someone I didn’t yet know how to be.
Desperate to find my place in the world.
Excited to sail to the ends of the Earth, and learn the ropes.
Mooring ropes braided thicker than my child sized hands could hold.
Grimy from seasoned fingers.
Older women, and men with experience.
Simultaneously, I panicked at the thought of an open sea.
So much at stake.
Parenting my boy with an unpredictable father.
He could be funny, and kind.
He could also be controlling,
He was drinking too much.
An alcoholic.
Violence eventually came.
Showing me it’s violet, blue, and brackish face.
Mocking me with yellow bloodshot eyes, and calling me stupid from the corner.
Surely I’d known better.
Laughing at me cruelly, as I lay seeing stars, and feeling weight crushing my neck.
I couldn’t see straight.
My hearing was gone.
All senses were blighted.
Halfway to unconscious.
Then complete darkness.
Terror.
I channeled every ounce of rage I could muster.
I kicked upwards with everything I had left. Hard enough to make his hands to let go of my neck.
There is a gap of time lost to me.
Traumatized brains try to protect us.
I’m grateful for that.
Surges of adrenaline.
The front door was swinging open in the wind.
I felt it before I saw it.
Icy rains of late February.
I was too tired to scream.
I felt weak.
Peeling my body from the tan carpet.
I locked the front door.
I couldn’t risk waking my son.
I didn’t dare cry.
Packing bags in the night.
Dialing my best friend on a cordless phone.
Fleeing with my baby boy to the safety of her family home.
Grateful he was half asleep.
Unhurt.
Bruised, and choked.
It was painful to move.
As my nurse coworker leaned against me,
I tried not to wince.
Ashamed.
Court appearances, and restraining orders.
Going to school, and working.
Custody battles.
It wasn’t my first deadly rodeo, and It wouldn’t be my last.
I kept trying to empty my water logged boat.
Trying to hide all of it.
It festered like an infected wound, that
I didn’t want anyone to see.
Blowing back and forth upon an angry sea.
I didn’t know the waters.
Didn’t have a clue how to run my ship.
Sometimes my boat was full.
The water would rise to my waist.
I’d toss each heavy bucket of water back into the raging sea, as it gushed in through the cracks.
Eventually I started to sink.
I no longer remember kicking my way to the surface.
It feels like a strange diorama now.
Dreamlike.
Disconnected.
As though I’m viewing through a tiny hole from another place.
Some Memories so vivid, and close they can be touched.
Others are fleeting.
They sound tinny, and barely audible.
They look like an unfinished canvas,
Painted by an unknown artist.
Today, I can’t believe I left my purse inside.
My getaway bag.
It feels like progress, in this moment.
I’d imagined foolishly that the skies would open.
Some bright light would shine down from the parted clouds.
Like a great silver sword slashing through a gloaming sky.
Maybe a moment of truth, and granted wishes.
Remembering fairy tales.
Little Golden books.
Healing isn’t linear.
It comes in pieces.
Sometimes it’s like finding the missing piece of a beloved puzzle.
The one you wanted to throw away.
Hope lost of ever completing the picture.
I’d needed a place to breathe deeply.
To let go.
Somewhere to soothe me.
Around me, the branches are heavy with moisture.
Dripping, drooping, and fresh smelling.
They are creating a shelter.
A natural umbrella.
I can put mine down.
Breathing in the heady scents of wood, and pitch.
Closing my eyes.
I’m in my own grove.
The trees are surrounding me.
Faithful, and wise onlookers.
Roots large, and blanketed with peridot colored moss.
Needles creating a bed for my tired feet.
I want to lay down.
Stretch my limbs on the potpourri of pine cones, tanned bark, and tiny branches.
Cool my senses.
I want to feel the rain washing over me.
A tiny spider crawls on my wet pants.
The rain is dripping on my face.
Whiffs of pine.
I’m seated between four towering Evergreens.
My own fortress.
I have both feet flat on the ground.
I’m aware of my surroundings, though not hyper focused.
Lucidity is a gift.
There has been a shift in me.
No blinding lights, but a feeling of peace.
No unseasonably warm afternoon can shake me.
That truck did not hit me.
Not like a towering man in an alcohol fueled rage.
Wisdom isn’t just a gleaming crown of silver hair.
It comes in slowly.
Piece by piece.
Moment by moment.
The hard ones polishing us like fine wood.
Grains vibrant with cadmium yellows, burnt oranges, and inlaid with mahogany colors.
You can see my grains, like the stump I’m sitting on.
Rings spaced by floods, flames, and time.
Stiffened, and cratered bark surrounds my heart.
I’m carved by stretch marks.
Surgical cuts, and scars.
I also have laugh lines.
Ley lines on my body.
My skin may be damp from floods, but
I’ll dry.
I’m healing.
I’m letting go.
Allowing the flood swirl around me.
I’ll float, and breathe deeply.
If the waters rise around you,
find your own stones to cast.
Gather resources,
and your own crew.
Be unafraid to raise your own flag.
Let it fly proudly.
Let no one make you feel unsafe.
Find your own island.
Let the storm rage around you.
I’ll wave at you from across the water.
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