you are old now.
this is how
it happens, right?
all those years of working
just leading up to a couch
and a blaring television.
you hold long wisps of white hair
and eyes that look but don’t see.
your mind goes out like the tide,
it drifts off somewhere.
in that place of pause,
that place of stillness,
you ask how i was feeling.
in two decades, you haven’t.
for twenty years, you’ve looked at me
but have never seen me.
now, with your fragility
and mortality watching you,
in a small room
with a loud television,
you ask how I am feeling.
but I think you see a younger
version of yourself
tucked somewhere in me.
“how are you?”
it is in that moment of lucidity,
in the stillness where
the delicate place where alzheimer’s
has lost its grip,
where I am just a mirror.
“how are you?”
but it isn’t a question for me.
you are asking,
‘did i live? or
just exist.’
but the tide goes out,
a stillness returns,
and you resume existing.
Tag: awareness
the call of geese
reminds me;
of time and time –
it reminds me
of this thing
we call time.
a figure with
long legs stretches
shadows blur the
hands upon skin
two figures now
shadows merge
them together
one being with
long legs stretching
now, it is cold here.
my back stiff, like a plank.
a million times
and still my first.
“okay, jeremiah..”
but i ignore the rest –
i know the routine,
this is my first time
after a million.
i want to say, “thank you”
as they look,
as my body is searched
for disease,
but i am tired.
so i lay still,
my back stiff and still,
like a plank;
after a million times,
yet always my first.
breathe.
i have not forgotten how to,
but i wonder
how i learned.
these breaths i hold,
have you also tasted
the same air?
how did i learn this?
who held my mouth open
and put these words
in it,
words like “i”
and “you.”
i find the words alone.
i sip hot tea alone.
there are no longer questions
about its worth.
alone is sacred.
aroma of skin
soft light falling gently on arched
body
that shifts
to my touch
sacred fingertips
gentle touch
a sound
no words
none
I thought, ‘this is all there is.’
It was such a normal thought,
as though I had had this belief a hundred times.
It is a reexamination of so very much.
It might seem apathetic or numb.
it wasn’t –
It was true,
human – it is so very human.
the
the driiiiiping snowmelt
snow –
melt
with a bird singing…… it says
something –
always some thing something
some
thing
i waaaant to
speak the laaaaangue
of birds.