The Same Song (Sonnet)

I look at you and see a helpless smile;
my pain is yours, we share each piercing wound
that bleeds and weeps and shocks us from denial.
The fear is real and shouts but without sound,
it s volume rising till we can’t be heard.
We feel a shaking of the earth beneath
and while most days we will not be deterred,
emotions are awash with silent grief.
But each day sees us here and still we breathe;
our gratitude for life together soars.
Your painful smile diminishes and we’ve
come through another day with hope for more.
And though life’s tough and sometimes we will rage
We sing our song together from one page

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Sonnet

I long for what I can no longer be,
strong limbs that move and never question how.
I long for who I can no longer see,
the one who disappeared and left me now
to tread life’s path a very different way;
a stranger in a world that I once knew
where land and sky just seem to fall away
and raging, rolling seas, my soul imbrue.
Until a shaft of light somewhere appears
and lulls the tempest to soft whispered waves
that ripple on the shore, allaying fears
restoring peace and hope my spirit craves.
The sun, the moon, the earth now realigned,
and I am who I thought I’d left behind.

Glenda’s Response

My dear friend Glenda hasnt, as yet, started a blog so she asked me if I would post her response to my poem for her, here on mine. So here is is below; I feel very emotional every time I read it; it is beautiful.

The Friendship Experience by Glenda Brown

We gradually flake off each other’s layers,
my friend and I, well understand the nature
of the black beast we are both wrangling,

spinning in the void that is helplessness; yet
we daub ourselves in our burgeoning spring,
create poetic garlands, flow with destined words,

sometimes filch the busy sun’s ancient warmth;
we are impish children, unable to feel remorse
at being nabbed with mature hearts and minds

in the cosmic cookie jar, detecting liquid gleam,
as if some gnarled, beneficent blacksmith in his
workaday forge were creating the history of gold.

Glenda and Me – Swimming Away from the Titanic

Sometimes as we find ourselves wading through adversity and maybe feeling a little lost, the sweet fragrance of synchronicity fills the air and the room suddenly becomes laden with summer flowers in full bloom on a cold January morning.

When I decided to join a writing group 15 months ago. I entered the room tentatively and with trepidation, feeling somewhat clumsy with my four wheeled walker. I was even more nervous as I was joining a couple of weeks after the term had begun and felt the others would have already started getting to know each other.

As I was introducing myself the door opened very slowly and another lady new to the group was arriving.  She was in a powered wheelchair and took up her place next to me; we smiled. She introduced herself to the group as Glenda and a light bulb moment occurred for me. Was this the same Glenda who my hairdresser Chris, had told me about? He has been trying his best to make me look beautiful for many years so we always chat quite intimately, and because he knows of my MS he told me, not long after my diagnosis, of another client of his called Glenda, who  has MS and how he now goes to her home to do her hair as she can no longer sit at the salon. I had given Chris a copy of my Journey Into Poetry book and he asked me if I had a spare copy, could he have one to give to her because he knew she liked poetry. Glenda duly received her copy of the book.
During the break I plucked up the courage to speak to Glenda.
“Does Chris Wallbank by any chance cut your hair?” I said. She looked at me, a little puzzled, and said,
“Yes, he does, why?”.
“I’m called Christine”, I said,  “and I think you may have a copy of a poetry book I have written”.
“Oh my goodness”, she said,  “I have!  Chris has told me all about you!”.

We were not aware of it on that day, but a strong bond and friendship was about to begin.  A year later, we are firm friends and it feels like we have been so for years.
A while ago I was going through a difficult time with the MS and was telling Glenda all about it; she was very supportive. She is further along this rocky road we both ‘walk’  and has encountered, and been hit by, many huge, frightening boulders along the way and yet always remains positive, looking for the small daily gifts. To use her words, “Adversity heightens our enjoyment of life as it keeps us more in the moment as we experience it, and it creates shining highlights for us”.
Her wonderful support that day led to my writing the following poem for her. I emailed it to her and she told me she was overwhelmed by the fact that I had written it for her.  We become closer by the day.

Swimming Away from The Titanic

I suppose we are quite different
in many ways.
But here we are, thrown together
at a random moment in time
by creativity and illness,
two of us keeping afloat
on the same flotsam of
our own personal Titanic,
waltzing with icebergs.

She seems better at it than me somehow,
this illness thing,
more professional, more skilled
while I flounder about, a mere trainee
unable to cope with this or that
or the other.

I wish acceptance grew on trees.

I ask her for advice,
tell her how I cant stop crying
at something seemingly trivial
and she understands.

I want to be able to help her too;
maybe I do.

We have come together
at different stages of our journey
and I am very grateful.
I look for something to thank
so I gaze at the stars
with their brimming drops of light,
and say thank you for a cold January morning
when limbs protested far too much,
and we both grappled for the same
small piece of wreckage that is still afloat.

Maybe one day, together, we will swim away.

Winter

Winter – (sonnet)

How sad and pale the tree is looking now
her faded skin, dry bones that now pierce through
and shiver every twig along the bough
as if she dreads what now may be her due.
Does she grieve the loss of summer’s face
when filled with life she whispered with the breeze,
or simply bow her head with gentle grace
to brilliance that waits beneath to ease
our aching hearts, for all, it seems, is dead.
There is no rush, the earth will slowly move
her way through darkness, new seeds to be fed
and once again her certainty will prove
that season’s change has come for reasons known,
embryonic life already sown.

Breaking Free

The trick is to know when,
and for those who truly seek to bloom
their time will come.

There will be an urgency
like a rebirth,
the years of confinement over
and time to take a risk,
to burst through,
break loose from the safety
of the bud and say
Here I am.

This is true discernment,
a risking of good for better
and better for best.
Because a bud will eventually
outgrow its purpose
and if not broken
will droop, hang limp,
a withered head, brittle
and packed tight with
the crushed brown petals
of what could have been.

Time to Sing

The tall tree at the
bottom of the garden
is no longer depressed;
I think the birds are
giving her hope.
So very long has she been
winter-sad, standing limp
wearing only grey
unable to raise a smile
or jump for joy
the way she knows she can.

Then this morning
as the sun broke loose and
the birds arrived like Heinz 57
singing all at once and
miraculously in tune,
the happy tree in her
opera-singer white frills
bowed to her audience of one,
joined the song and
now she can’t stop.

I have no sense of pitch
but I am singing with them anyway;
you may hear us sing our way
through summer,
and perhaps even beyond
if we remain aware that
even on the darkest days
the song will always be there;
all we have to do is remember to sing.

 

Still Time

Today has a different feel to it.

It’s warm enough to open the doors

 and I watch the sun

play a game with spring

though I think winter

is just on a coffee break.

Are the green shoots being fooled

or am I?

They poke through the soil and grass

and talk about life starting over.

Maybe  it’s not too late for me;

maybe there is still time.

Song of Compassion

How weary the tree looked today.

as if a dull ache in

every chilled, naked arm,

joyous acceptance of change

worn thin;

(we all have our moments, well I do).

And then a small bird

carrying a huge song landed,

and so accurately too,

on wafer thin branch,

sang its even bigger heart out

long enough to feel a

sway of pleasure

under its tiny feet

and away it flew,

hope restored.

NOW

Now

Life changed when
illness arrived;
it seemed like
I had stalled,
quite out of the blue
in the middle of a busy road,
traffic all around me,
this way and that,
impatient, hurried.
And a black cloud of sadness
overwhelmed me;
a total eclipse.

Until I realised where I was.
it was simple;
I was right here in the now,
where clouds will never look the same again,
and with all the time I wanted just to be;
to rejoice in the depth of animal eyes
and be swept off my feet by the
colour of a bird’s tail.
Freedom, and a second chance
to notice all I had missed.