Poem 359 & 360 – Nod & Desideratum

Poem 359 – Nod

in the lulls between feasts & films
gifts exchanged
receiving joy & full-belly
laughter, I see her

Loss holds a candle
behind the tree
she is quiet
thought-full
her heart a forest
on her sleeve

we acknowledge
each other with
a nod

& my heart
crawls up her
leg, adds a
cluster of saplings
to her woodland

Poem 360 – Desideratum

the end is near & in its centre
a curious beginning
our collective acknowledgements
expand into lists & rememberings
farewells & fails
frailty flies over us in
murmuration

chaos is drowsy
dizzied by our need
to finalize when
energy has no true structure

so I curl into Nina Simone’s
chasmic vibrato
close my eyes & trust
that I am not alone
in my desideratum
to disappear into
hope’s grand possibilities

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“We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.”
— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

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….there is so much I want to say but the words are pulling wool over their faces and fast-crawling into hiding…so i will remain quiet…let the words hide…seek them out slowly…and continue the grand reflection of this ending with a beginning wrapped around it so graciously…peace…