The golden light
Catches on the venetian blind
For just a second, in the harvest sunrise
I lift my head walking in
Through the bedroom doorway
To catch a glow of autumn
Folded Hands
My tired hands
Clasped one another
While I thought
Bent over this shaggy
Ruby mat
A bad moments buy from the Target
Staying bound together
Resolved to sad thoughts
My throat burned raw
I was immobile
Looking at my feelings, still laced
The hands glowered scarlet
Until I, lifting them
Upward with such effort, was surprised
Felt this carnal red rush
Blood beating through the fingers
Still interwoven
In crimson contemplation.
They had turned the color
Of this floor carpet
Completely transformed
As red as candy apple
I was so immobile
Looking at these fingers
That had florescence before my tired blinking eyes.
Child's Gift
She laced her fingers
Into mine at the pumpkin patch
Like the coolest compress
This action of a daughter
Calmed hours of fire and buried fury.
Easing something so unnoticed.
I realized it then,
"Will you be okay Mommy?"
Her fingers are so Long
I thought feeling them detached from the autumn
My children have this gift
Amazingly long thin digits, fingers,
She wrapped my wounds
As surely as I realized
This pain I'm carrying
"Will you be okay Mommy?"
The need for love, acceptance
The beauty of this child's simple action
We walked on the muddy straw
Corn mazes, pomegranates
Squash, breathed in
Turquoise bright, tangerines
Thinking lost to buzzing bees
"Will you be okay Mommy?"
Hands
The clock hands
Pass by
Circling
Marking the passage
Of what we know
My hands
Hold the pen
Scribbling
The passing
Of what was once felt.
I Walk Them Out
Everyday I walk my little class out
To a tree
Expectant faces looking for a parent
Or the babysitter
For some affirmation, a smile,
One by one they tell me
"He's here for me, teacher.
Or say, "My babysitter."
Sometimes no one smiles
Sometimes no one is there
So I say, "Stand over here by the wall.
I am waiting with you,
They are coming."
Children worry about it.
Scanning they do get filled with concern.
I do this everyday.
I used to allow children to play in the room
Be distracted by the piano, blocks, books.
But the "system" mandated
This higher level of concern
The release in this format.
Which is identified as
"Being on the same page."
I wish the parents
Understood the fleeting nature of these days
In the six year old lives
Grabbed them up with hugs
"How are you's?"
"I missed you sooo much."
As I walk out holding
Madeline's hand
She turns saying,
"They are here for me, teacher."
It seemed macabre
Skulls, the dead
So for years
Las dios de la muertos
Was a day
In teaching that just passed
This year I saw a friend
Dressed for the Day of the Dead
With her daughter
So I went to read
About the origins of the day on Wiki
Rites, places and reasons for this
Remembering those passed on
The ephemeral nature
Sugar skulls
Every bit crafted
For a moment in time
The beauty of life.
How quickly time goes
Quick, sharp searing pain
We lose one another
One child said to me.
As we made our skulls,
"We all remember someone
It's so sad."
And so we celebrated that realization.
Wonder
What would we sing?
What would we do
If we lost all the past
And started now?
Beheld nothing
Through the lens
Of history or mistakes
Curse or cure
What would we do?
Skull's Eyes
Some filled the cavities with flowers
Others drew spirals
Fake eyes
Strange lakes of color
Floating in the skull
Looking out blankly
At time passing us by
Laughing at their work
They shifted back and forth
Showing ideas one to the other
Concentrating
Examining the work
Eyes taking in the designs.
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