Shame for Worrying

Who worries for nothing?

I've worried for so many things. So many to count.

Mom said, 
"You're the only one I don't wake up for at night and worry about."
Worry as a compliment?
As love?

I only heard "The one I don't wake up for."

What comes from worry?
Not much,
unless it's accompanied by careful, calm thought.


No, usually it's frantic, like the tree next door,
that grew too large, with it's brutal red leaves,
shutting out the sky blue and sun,
long branches whipping in a good strong wind,
with no purpose except perhaps a warning: 

"Danger, it's chaos out here!"

hurrah

Cheers  for one,
he got the worst and the best.

Deserved peace, but spent so many years
at war with indecency and fear, 

Not chosen,
not deserved, 
not deserved at all.
We have to fight the indecency that brought us down.
Aren't we,
aren't we to fight?

Some will not, 
can not, 
should not,
I'm not sure, but 
some will keep the balance 
as hard as they can, 
as hard as they can.

As well as they can.
Don't stop, you who were knocked down.
And we won't.

He reaches, 
continuing to reach for the right.
Sharing it where received.
Zig zagging out of the wrong 
as fast as he can,
as fast as he can.

We did our best they say,
crawling til walking
then running in joy.


Some came who could,
who would.
Some could not, 
should not,
I'm not sure, but
we tried as we could,
we try as we would.

Let the wounded go on
let him rest on laurels
Let us go on ahead,
as he wished, and wishes
to rest in his home
as we go by into the right.

Hurrah for the man who
directed the war 
led and fell back
leading the wounded,
willing or not.

Trying, looking to good and to right
stepping back
when it was time.

don't get close!

...
Losing two doggies,
one sick, one old,
is no picnic lunch at the beach

with a table cloth to cover the sand,

big rocks holding down the pretty print,
sand blows and sticks to the food
no matter what measures taken.

See poetic avoidance?
Get to it.

I KNEW:
no more dogs!

Think of the freedom...no dog sitters for vacations.
no dog hair.
no dog worries.
no dog attachment.

Why look in the news ads for puppies.
Makes no sense.
Doggies cause TROUBLE.
Doggies cost MONEY.

At the vet, 1 1/2 days in,
we told how Penny
had a sick belly, wouldn't eat
wouldn't drink: especially concerning.
ER Vet said maybe parasites or virus
not worse, probably, hopefully, sick-with-worry-ly.

$$$ spent to buy pup
$$$ money spent to fix pup

There went the freedom from vet debt.
How do you factor money into bonding time?

I thought we'd had enough pain,
enough to know not to get a dog.
..
...

Trying to figure things out...

...is not one of our slogans, I was told.

Why do I ride?
It's lonely without good curious rider friends,
curious about every part of riding. 

Why do I read about architecture?
And the British Monarchy.

Why do I wonder and puzzle over relationships?

Who will call?
Tell me lots of fascinating stories about horses 
and do I want to go riding with them.

Is the purpose to work towards
anything besides improving my skills?
There is only so much intimacy with horse and trainer. 
So solitary, though intimacy is what I crave.

Round and round the arena.
Getting a bit better at balance and posture.
But is there more? A point?

I think this has something do with this year's many endings.
Dogs, trees, hair color.
White hair has me trying to recognize that woman.

And figuring things out leads me astray;
weak with obsession, it pulls me in again.
Shaky hands are proof of failure to comfort.

Baby holds my heart, but she cannot be my all.


I thought I heard a dog sigh tonight.
There was no dog.
There were no children to help with the Christmas tree.


...

Hoarding wonderful things.

Too much things fill my house 
just like my House Dreams, 
just like old memories
filled with people, 
antique toys
and dusty 
furniture. 

Still, there is something 
about each thing 
in my house 
I love. 

Whimsy
Color
Aesthetics
Nature
Odd uses
Childlike
Memories
Beauty
Education

Too many things to contemplate as much as I'd like. In an ancient apple orchard estate lies a fallen gray branchlet on new sandy white dirt just uncovered by a clearing machine, wrapped with attached lichen: two kinds, near dry crinkly rattlesnake rattling-grass.


A handed down whale tooth sketched with marine scrimshaw, an enormous tooth from a mouth so big as to be unimaginable; whether old or new, I don't know; keeping me wondering in who it had resided.


Old lady relations' laced and tatted bed spreads, perhaps homemade, and huge starched linen sheets, whiter than the full moon, made when mattresses were wrapped with only flat sheets, lie folded in the closet for 30 years.


Chopped off whiffs of white, red and blond tresses, dear to me as those upon who's heads they grew, a each wave of hair tied with a ribbon, in a small monogrammed, glass box. these stay.


How can a person yearn for minimalism with these treasures, piled and packed away, saved for best but never be used or touched, or even found? 


And today I brought home a thin, slightly warped, faded old biography of Stradivarius with a cover of now-gold-red; fifty cents of clutter. Fifty cents bringing times of contemplation and information. A treasured heirloom it becomes, call it disorder or not, how do I let it all go?

Crashing the Party without Me

I remember you crashing the party without me.

How absurd to have a party for only the adults, the children are not invited, when the children are twenty to thirty. It's for their father. This prejudice is locked away in brains raised that way. Careful seating to keep Society balanced. No intellectual curiosity, no leaving the generational presence. I thought we had rebelled, sick of the veneer.

Irritated, drunken welcomes for the interlopers, slurring words, wobbling hugs, breath in their face. Would they remember, "I just love you!" because they would mainly love in stupor?

Then I felt left out with doubt and anguish of do they love me. Now I would stride home and close the front door and head out the back to garden in the cold rain, my fresh breath in puffs.

Off Balance

Yes, I leap because I cannot walk.
I smile because that face of mine cannot.

I quickly sit at the empty table with expectation.
I know who will come!

My beloveds.

They'll order something egg-ie they tell me,
if that's what I'd like. With coffee. I wait.

Youth sees me. And Youth is impulsive.
And youth struggles mightily with the way it is, mightily!
Youth fights for rights, thank goodness, 
because I think youth must find solutions to wrongs.


Someone old said I am a youthful elder.
Old age defined so tactfully.

So move, I'm told, there are 5 before me needing that table.
It is their right because they are first, he says.
Youth scouts the room and scolds, fights for rights.
Shames me.

My pleased self stutters to a stop. Confusion is the new friend of my youthful-elder mind I now can see. Deafness prevents me from hearing his reality, his vision, and because I'm old I sit in that confusion, alone, un-hearing. And I see the room blur.


Reality and understanding has always been my false god. But it leaves me now. Can the real God let me lie here alone in the blurry confusion? Defending girl. I thank that very God that you are here; you step beside me. The world doesn't spin as much for you and now me with your presence. You are solidly on the oak floorboards, assessing the situation. 

I am not part of that party, you say, there are not 5 in that party.

Because I am Asian, you think I am with that party, you make it a party of 5 Asian faces with me in it because you are seeing only what you see, not reality. You see only my FACE and put me in that party; not with my husband, mother and father. Step back. 

With a beautiful look, she communicates. 
Step back, she says.