Questions 20151124

The Cinder Path

My knees bleed prayers,
jeans torn and bloodied,
while you stare
at another story  

Why do I worship
your distance,
race after you to
pull at your coat,
begging?

You jerk your coat away,
again;  I will
patch my jeans
one last time

and let my knees 
heal
away from
these burnt out relics,
this cinder path.


The Cinder Path

Untitled

Standing in the kitchen with her hands clasped, 
she watches him
enter, 
his arms full of 
unasked questions.

"I want to tell you..."
she starts.

"What do we have
to eat?" he asks,
his head in the fridge.


Sitting in the bedroom with her ankles crossed,
she feels him
step along the hall, 
his bare feet whispering
under his purpose.

"Something you should know..."
she begins.

"What do you want
to say?"  he laughs,
landing them both on the bed.


Waiting in front of the tv,
she hears the door
move,
his voice twisting
through the flickering dark.

"You know what happened?" 
he opens.

"I have a phone call
to make." she tells him,
her voice filling up her ears.


Untitled

Not Thinking of God

I am afraid of believing
something so unscientific, irrational,
conventional, but
what can I do now, after
my feet have walked me back
into the Sanctuary?

What can I do now after
I have brought my child and
asked that the water be poured, the promises
given, the bread and dark libation
offered and swallowed, after
I have served and been served?

What can I do now, knowing
the beginning of secret workings;
our minds and hearts walk forward
lurch, run, limp on paths we have learned
to fear and distrust, fighting ourselves
as we’re wrenched, unwilling, into this Wilderness?

A sober drunk and drug addict told me
once, 
just before he resumed
the lost weekends
of his relentless flight,
that choice was the illusion, 

we go where our feet take us.


Not Thinking of God

FamilyReunion

Courage at eighty is different from at twenty
But both ages carry their future constantly - 
A fearsome thrust into an unmapped wilderness.

To carry your future at twenty is to seek
The wilderness because it must be mapped
And shaped. There are roads to clear and homes
To build, and no one has given you a plan
For your wilderness, (just the one they didn’t use in theirs).
So you thrust forward, knowing too little and enough,
Building blindly wherever you find a clearing, lifting
The log of your childhood so it bridges your fears,
Confident that it might not collapse on you.

A fearsome thrust carrying life forward blindly
At eighty requires enough love to endure
Despite loss, and endure because of loss to come,
And endure because of the sweetness still here, if
Courage persists. And, despite (because?) the compass pointing
Through the wilderness to the edge of the map,
Tells a tale seen over and over about endings, despite this,
To work through today knowing 
too much, and not enough, about tomorrow.

Courage at eighty is different from at twenty
But both ages carry their future constantly - 
A fearsome thrust into an unmapped wilderness.
 

Joan Vinall-Cox, October 25, 2002


Approaching Sixty, I See That ...

Getting Older Poem

Like a spray of hot pebbles – little stings that you feel but shrug off.
Slowly blisters form: fragile skin over tears.

Nodding off during the news,
Getting no questions when I ask for a senior’s discount,
Noticing I think anyone under 50 is young,
Going to retirement parties,
	Little stings.

Learning I’m two inches shorter,
Noticing I can’t run up stairs anymore,
Wobbling if I walk too far,
Hearing that child call me an old lady, 
	Blisters.

Socializing at funerals,
Listening for ages in death announcements
Fretting because I haven’t updated my will,
Wondering who that I love will ‘go’ 
	before I die.


Joan Vinall-Cox 2012


Getting Older Poem

Advent from Mary's Point-of-View: a poem by Joan Vinall-Cox
https://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/advent-from-marys-point-of-view/