To Become Light

I stand free

Ready to become

Light - no more

Excuses - I shift

The childhood

Inherited back beneath

Thunder's umbrella

Deeper than shadows

Of the past

I join to the present

And vow to remain

Here, now

ALONE

In the solitary moments of my separateness
I wonder why you occupy such space
And yet take up so little room
It’s as if you’re everywhere and nowhere all at once

My heart’s chambers on the other hand
Are scoured empty as old pails of lye
Rusting through now in its various weak spots

That comes as no great shock really
Since I’ve been scrubbing at the vestiges of caring for you
Long enough to diminish the thickness of the walls

And even though scars grow without my permission
Over damage we have inflicted simultaneously
I seem able to lessen their callous nature as the years go by

Until they too grow less able to sustain themselves
And eventually I sense them falling off
The way the last withered leaves depart the trees of autumn

I wonder, in my isolated soul, if when I am finally
Irrevocably emptied, without within, unoccupied of energy or life
Will I finally feel the peace of being one with all
Or will my aloneness be the peace I’ve sought all along

Desperately Missing You Who are Gone

I walk at night in the graveyard, and I walk alone

Hoping against despair somehow I will run into you

Knowing in my heart, and in my soul,  you are gone

Reading the stones, I weep, but still you are gone

I try to take it in, realize the truth of it, I am alone

No matter how I twist away from it, I don't have you

Oh what I would give for just one day more with you

It does not matter that I tell myself our days are long gone

No, for then I am left with the sad fact again, I am alone

So, I am walking on alone without you wishing I too were gone.

S.E.Ingraham©

Latching the Gate

A mind floods

with past indiscretions

and other bits

of curvaceous lunacy

Its owner gives

chase as they lace

through narrow synapses

spinning past gateways

permanently stuck open

Trying to map these

is a lesson in futility

as they ricochet

at warp speed from

dark alcove to darker

Gaining even more speed

with dangerous

invisible intent

Any idea of eventual

dwindle, a dim impossibility.

S.E.Ingraham

CHOOSING NOW

In the summer of our lives

When eternity stretched

Before us like a lazy cat

And fall stayed hidden

In the dark corners

Of bureau drawers

Housewives were just something

Our mothers became ...

Never those of us who played ball

Spent months perfecting our pitch

Felt the sting in the palm of a well-worn glove

Choosing to remain ignorant

For as long as possible

Subtracting years ahead

From the now of it

We spurned the future

Chewed the rind of a bitter lemon

S.E.Ingraham©

Routine Hangings

In a strobe-like flicker

It's caught like a black and white

Snapshot - no more than a gesture

Less than the thin skin

Of a timpani drum

Their lips barely touched each other

An act defiant before ...

They stand back to back

Hands tied together

Heads strain through ropes

Meaningless words are uttered

Chairs kicked out from under

They are sent off.

S.E.Ingraham©

We Are

Grief older than the sea

Rawer than the cliff-face

Rips at the tops of the grove

We are giants, we are holy

Trembling is not in our nature

But our roots are being shaken

There is death colouring the sky

Slashing through the pines

And the taste of it is bitterness

Smell the sulphur as the lightning

Strikes,  splits an elder to the ground

The thunder booms triumphant

And we know the game is on - but

We bend together, try for grouping

Try for strengthening - stand as one

It is cyclical we know and can tell

This through the rings that count

Our age - but we also know the time

And feel it to the marrow of our wood

When the sky grows copper bright

And then is limned with lightning too

We whisper urgently as we huddle

Ever closer listening as the storm

Begins to take apart our lower limbs

It sounds like hunting season as shots

Are ringing out - each time a branch

Breaks off and one of us comes closer

To dying while the storm goes raging on

The storm goes raging on bringing death

With every crash, every flash, every sound

And all we can do in our terror, in our fear

Is stand bravely, and hold to our truth

We are older than the wind, we are ancient

We have outlived such chaos before

We must trust we will outlive this

As some of us fly apart in the fierceness

Of the end of days, the rest carry on

It is our destiny, our fate and we embrace it

We are the ones, we will stand tall, we are.

S.E.Ingraham