Poetry
Forty-two
She was forty-two
Alison, whose words live on, in the poet’s voice
Who sits next to me in this circle
On this mountain.
He reads her poem
about letting go, loss, and choosing one’s favorite song wisely
In light of music being the last thing frequently our brains will remember.
The lesson learned is plant flowers in the Fall
Even if you are certain you will not see them in the Spring.
Tonight
The moon will be circled in a ring
The luminaries and fire in the forest will burn
My sins and regrets to a shard
And ’No Time’ will be granted
To suspend us
Between the Here and Now, and the What is to Come.
There are rocks, trees, tears
earth, fire, ether, mist…
There is sky.
I don’t know if those past are under my feet
Or over my head
But I walk this maze with others lit only by the luminaries
Connected in spirit,
Baptized in our humanness
Praying that this is a true reality,
That I can weep and leave the past behind
Tears splashing the rocks, warmed by the fire of the soul.
I am inland from the Ocean
My life afloat a memory from the year
I am relishing the strong magnetism of the rock
Earthy, heavy moisture of the leaf-laden cloak of the ground
I am balancing that part of myself that was unleashed,
Untethered, literally floating on salt water in the tropics last season.
The storm is anticipated
Unsure and bipolar in her path,
Threatening the Coast, and building walls of water
Of heights humans can only equate to buildings or mountains.
She is forty-two
Her last name Christian
Like her relative Fletcher
Who sailed aboard the same ship
The Bounty.
What will happen of her soul?
This Christian who the sea wants
during this time of No Time,
When the veil is thin.
Her body recovered,
But her soul released.
Will she decide to exist on the sea’s unwavering consistency,
Or relinquish her spirit to the sky, or earth?
I will race the storm home,
Heading South,
Despite the fact that the Geese have turned
Their biannual migration
completely around,
back to the North
the poet beside me reports.
The forces it takes to change the cycle and path of Nature
Can be nothing shy of Immense
And I fear for the Coast’s safety, and for all in her path.
I string my words together
So small in the shadowy gauze.
I embrace my newly-minted writer friends
And I head the direction the Geese
Have convinced themselves not to fly.
Southbound and Lonely,
Racing the storm,
Finding the pocket of calm,
Ducking the cyclone
And exploiting the troph,
I make it home to a place
Which she has only kissed,
The storm that is predicted to pummel
My native coast, and flood the tributaries
To leave my chosen sister without power
And blow the trees down.
This weekend is a testament to Faith
This No Time is a testament to Love.
These hours and this energy, a ceremony of Trust.
This time an investment in renewal
and recognition of Strength, Will, and Providence.
Power of Circles,
Vibration of Rock, inheritance of Stone
The bending of the elm
The permanence of the mountain
The life here on Earth
The space between I and You,
The sanctity of the here after, the ever after, the never after.
The soul’s release to the mist
The watery graveyard.
There is connection to it all,
To God
To the cherub faces of my brother and sisters of the Alphabet,
To the words ringing through this mountain side,
To the leaves falling through the forest
Ushering in the beginning of a long sleep.
I feel the timber of the storm,
Her signature is apparent in the ring around the moon,
In the muffled voices of the preparation
To leave.
In the Exodus of return,
And the respect of the raging winds offshore,
In the water built in walls of potential destruction
And those struggling to survive as the Bounty goes down.
The signs, the subtle clues
Pointing to survival, and potential loss of Today, and Tomorrow.
The friction between here and there,
Between once was and now is.
I am alive in the-in-between,
On this side of the veil
Of my forty-second year.
Gretchen LH Witzgall
November 2012, Kirkridge – Bangor, PA
A Lonely Valentine
Valentine’s Eve 2009
Death is in this room with us,
Your Death and my breaking heart.
Between the two of you
there is a count of eight legs,
Closer to the Earth than I,
Instinct over Need.
I already feel the emptiness,
yet you are both still here,
my old friends.
You know my soul like no human,
You have made it what it is,
You have grown me up
and taught me Love,
Compassion,
Adaptibility.
In your Ancient Knowledge
You have accepted me though mere mortal.
My empathy is great for any human
that has never loved an animal.
The warm fur, the wild sinew, the most
uncomplicated, strong love…
To have missed this
would have forfeited a great experience.
I have a friend who says
the animals are our guides…
That when we have reached our next soul level
they leave this Earth and go…
Knowing that their work is done.
This thought does not leave me much incentive
in my evolution.
Their souls so intertwined in my heart,
their innocence,
their acceptance,
They are both leaving me…
One
The tumor, hot and angry
pushing the scapula up…
Reminding me to file these moments
in my memory,
the warm, the purr, the sweet flick of the tail…
The other
losing the legs,
sloping down,
majesty faltering,
neurology spinning…
The days following their departure
will be filled with a loneliness,
with its own trademark emptiness.
No human, great or small,
will fill.
I will feel broken for awhile,
until that landmark in my heart
is surveyed….
Clearly delineated and marked.
Where the memory of felt-feeling ears,
cold noses, whiskers, and fur is carefully
tucked away, but immediate,
Where love lies….
Gretchen L.H. Witzgall
‘Feathers’ St. Mary’s City – June 1st or 2nd, 2010 – looking over Church Point where I met Chris in January 1989
I have come to think of feathers differently my fortieth year. Such strength lies there that I have not recognized until now -
Yesterday only, was I able to recognize this in the osprey circling and crying, holding court in the high tree – his mate in the nest with their two offspring – Calling them by him and her, I saw such strength in that which when broken down in each separate attribute would not be strong on its own -
Feathers, one by one, which could blow away so quickly on an air current – float without direction, without purpose. Beaks, which without Spirit would simply be triangles of cartilage, deeply hardened with no song. Talons, which could not hold fast – could not bear the fish of sustenance, of Life -
And here on this cliff, today, I share with the Osprey, their embodied Spirit, their flight, their warning song, their downy-headed reproduction in their two hungry chicks -
Spirit embodied with Purpose, with flight, with Instinct, clear, concise – Purposeful -Feathers, cartilage, eye, sound, downy-strength, fierce Instinct – Birds of the Water…