Sip the Tea

Cat and Teacup Vintage Victorian Jigsaw Puzzle by antiqueart

Let’s set out our next jigsaw adventure

on the lonely dried-out table that waits

for us to turn on lights and bring our tea.

Just you and me, baby.  Today, it’s just

you and me, so we won’t finish, but

we can start sorting pieces with our hearts.

Dad said Don’t put the cart before the horse,

remember?  But we always did, bustling

like Little Red Hens, doing six jobs each.

Why go it alone when, look: The number 

of pieces shows the possibility

of community!  If we only wait.  

Let’s turn the pieces right side up, then sit.

Let’s stir honey into our tea, let it

cool a bit.  Mint for you, ginger for me.

How jigsaws are like life, like trust among

family.  Two steps forward and one back,

a home emerges—and maturity.

Our towering years raise us up to see

the patterns throughout our story.  Some was

planned, I won’t say it was all hit and miss—

But did we know our jigsaw lives would look

like this?  The box had no cover art, and

which of us would care to paint the end?

So let’s wait awhile.  Let's not make all the cake

and eat it too. Let the horse pull the cart. It will,

you’ll see.  Let’s wait right here and sip our tea.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

In a Poem

Rowing Home by Winslow Homer (1890)

Hunger for poetry is a larger hunger --

not for beauty nor for truth, but

for the alchemy of arriving there

in the caverns of our own bodies.

Poetry is the craft, the boat on the river

of language, the river between

consciousness and sub consciousness

and even unconsciousness

Whether or not that craft arrives,

whether or not you remember boarding  

or disembarking, riding the craft

opens doors of possibility.

And so we take up the oars or

we find a seat.  Whether we indulge

in sweat or stillness or swim off the stern—

we have made the leap, and we eat.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Discovering Our Kind

Source*

We lie on earth and pull blue sky around us as

          instructed at the well of the inner voice.

Here we try to love simply and--if we cannot--

          we let the reigning God(s) pour love through us.

This is the penultimate action before death

          so we pray to do it for years and years.

Letting go is easier than we expected—

          we’ve had practice in walks to sea and lakes.

Whenever wild geese call, our heads float up to fly

          with them, our feet leave paths of should behind.

And the first flowers of spring—snowdrop or daffodil—

          stop us for wonder’s sake, for love and hope.

Wrapped up in sky and earth we learn the truth of life,

        this close relationship, this kindness.  Oh.  

For my prompt "Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Kindness."

*Remix of the traditional, Chinese Yin-Yang symbol,using Earth and Sky

by Donkey Hotey (2011) flickr

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Love Is the Present: Revised

Love Is the Present

They are the chosen ones

who have surrendered.

~Rumi

I forget if I don’t take notes.  

Two thoughts escaped an hour ago, before I found

paper and pen. They’re gone. 

This may be the beginning

of living in the present—of living precisely

now, without drifting into the past.

When my elderly librarian friend

found this present, she beamed in smiles

that embraced me with her inner fire.

I’d bring a chair and the two books she’d kept

to her bedside. After a moment of silence, I'd ask

“What would you like to hear?”  

And she’d laugh, “It doesn’t matter.” She’d say,

“I hear as if for the first time, and fall

in love again.”  In the now.

I can’t imagine not missing the past,

that vast depository of  lessons

I carry.  So much weight.

I spend time writing, sorting and divesting

to free my soul. What books will I—will you—

keep as companions for the road?

💟💟💟💟💟

“But you don’t believe in staying in the present, and you don’t believe in surrender.”

“Believe, know.  What do they mean?  Without resisting, we lose perspective.  Without the past, we cannot learn from our mistakes.  But what if the grass truly is greener on the other side?  Surrendering to the love of God has made my life more tolerable.  What could drifting in the present do?  Could every impression be new?  Could every meeting have unlimited possibility?”  Could love be the present?

source

They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun. 

~Rumi 

I forget if I don’t take notes. Two thoughts escaped
an hour ago, before I found paper and pen. They’re gone.

This may be the beginning of living in the present.
O! To live precisely now, without drifting into the past!

When my elderly librarian friend found this present,
she beamed in smiles that embraced me with her inner fire.

I pulled a chair and a treasured few books over to her.
After our moment of silence, I asked “What should I read?”

And she laughed. “Read anything,” she glowed. “I hear it as if
for the first time, and fall in love over again.” O! Now.

I spend time writing, sorting and divesting to free my soul.
What books will I—will you—keep as companions for the road?

source

For Sumana's prompt

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Love

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Crowds On Call for Really Bad Days

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays

Indulgent, I lean in to every

moment of day’s end—nature’s twilight

and my wee morning hours of darkness.

My spinal column gives up its task of 

uprightness, but though this tree sways, it won't--

it refuses--to lay down into sleep.

As if sleep were oblivion, Hamlet’s

edgy question.  As if insomnia

were certain, stating Macbeth's “Sleep no more.”

And guilt follows with the nastiness of

cover ups.  I accuse everyone of wounds

and error, before hearing new voices

demanding forgiveness, promising to

remember that we humans fail, crying

with Lear, "Howl, Howl, Howl," at last.

I am Hamlet's Ophelia, Macbeth's

Lady and Lear's sweet Cordelia dying

alone in despair, crushed and powerless.  

But surrounding these tragic figures are

siblings and confidants and creator--

evidence that life is more than metaphors 

we use to speak of pain, more than we see 

in the magnifying glass of fiction, 

more than trees and spines and philosophies.

When you hear me whisper and shout these words:
"We are more than . . ." help me fill in the blank.
The important thing is to be alive.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Beyond Shrink-Wrap and Faucets

Source

  

Shrink-wrapped chicken flesh sits on shelves, 

but who remembers how to raise hens for food?

Faucets dispense fresh cold and hot water,

but who knows how to haul buckets full?

And from where?  We close our eyes and reach out,

hoping food and water will tell us how 

and where.  Will they-whom-we-abused help us?

Survival skills are sparse away from farms.

Maybe our parents’ parents’ stories hold clues

for survival, if enough of them gather.  (Now that

we know Flint's story of lasting pollution, now 

that science and government have failed us.)

It's time to praise water without waiting 

for more reasons to weep.  Time we learned 

to save it without looking for whom to blame.  

Time we showed up to save ourselves.

And as we walk toward the fields, let's greet

those who might still welcome us—trees and plants

and folks native here and those who—like us—

are still their guests.  We have only this chance.

For Sumana's

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Water

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2018 Susan L. Chast

When Climate Change Became Real

By the winter of 2020,

swimming was a required subject in

public and private primary schools.

Worldwide flooding was increasing daily,

and concerned parents gave children extra

water time, extra wilderness training.

The goal was survival, with or without

gills, but the more time submerged in water

the more possible was transformation.

The gills came at puberty, along with

an ability (when underwater)

to absorb plant life and small bio forms.

Some say prejudice caused the water’s rise,

and some say climate change acted alone,

but everyone wants their children to thrive.

For my prompt 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Flood

Reposted for For earthweal weekly challenge: EVOLU-SONGS

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast