Aging Anger

 

I used to love the passion of anger—
the fire that propelled me to create groups
for political action, to create plays,
or to prepare informative workshops
and persuasive speeches.  But now I find
anger has a short-tired life.  I feel it,
but let it go like a stream of thought that
blocks worship and meditation.  As if
calm became more pleasing than passion, as if
anger informs but no longer creates,
as if waterfalls turn raging streams to
calm pools of slow-motion rivers
before the great merger that is ocean.

 

For Mary's prompt "Anger" at What's Going On? 

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2026 Susan L. Chast

Gratitude for Mother Earth in Northeastern USA in Springtime

 

source

Spring is birth time for Earth,
source of all life and fertility.
Partner to God in your wisdom,
you urge your wild life to emerge.
 
Spring is birth time for you, Mother,
with your sky and oceans, your changing
temperatures and atmosphere,
you open up like a flower.
 
Spring is birth time, rebirth time,
What you nurture beneath the soil
Comes up for air like babies from wombs
Remembering their right forms.
 
You paint springtime like an artist
Rendering beauty with all of its scars
Despite your scars from the harms
Of humanity, and with help from humans, too.
 
Humans who see themselves in you
And recognize our relationship
in the something in us that awakens
each spring, despite work and aging.
 
Recognize our relationship, though
we give birth in any season,
We move on you like other wild forms
Renewing our energy with your spring.
 
Spring is birthtime for earth
Bringing forth what has been
Growing in the invisible hearts
Of all its forms, wild and free.

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

If you quote, credit this page.

© 2026 Susan L. Chast

My novel

 

The rough draft of my novel sits on a low
bookcase, open to chapter one of thirty-two,
yearning for attention.  It’s been “finished,”
for many years, waiting only for atmosphere,
inner monologue, and backstory—details.
 
How excited I was ten years ago when the story
came spilling out of me.  In a resident artist
grant, in a setting of forest and good food,
it was a waterfall of memory turned to fiction,
names changed to protect the unaware.
 
Outlined on a wall in the retreat center, scenes
emerged out of order, and fit easily into their
rightful place. Like in a stream, the bedrock
was visible. Like a tree, it grew from bark—
its cambium—to a very strong core.
 
Now this heartwood skeleton is weak.
It’s waited too long, starved for attention
and intention.  The outer bark holds its
shape, but I no longer create the alone
time required for it to flow and grow.
 
Retirement community provides good
company and activities, from a Good
Trouble Group to a Writers Circle. 
The novel sits here and accuses me.
I’ll pack it away until I need it again.

For Sherry's prompt "Ten Years Later" at What's Going On? 

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Imagining the future

 

 
When I feel this powerless
in the face of ICE and war,
I look to the future
 
when today’s angry girls
grow up to complete
what we started, only better. 
 
Empowerment rises
while we elders applaud.
I want to live to see it:
 
Thousands of Amanda Gormans
decrying war and ending racist policies.
Tens of thousands of Greta Thunbergs,
 
Environmental activists save the planet. 
Hundreds of women entering
politics in every state of the union,
 
all supporting each other.
A flood of restoration filling
unpolluted rivers with “Can do” energy.
 
Energy behind new young inventors, too,
and talent scouts re-casting the nation
so every position has knowledgeable
 
leaders and capable workers
so everyone has healthcare
and food to eat.  So women
 
can be president, one after another.
And, as Maya Angelou said, “astonish
the cruel world with acts of kindness.”

 

For my prompt "Women and History" at What's Going On? 

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2026 Susan L. Chast

Unspoken

 

Unspoken
Great love for the world
In the face of devastation, and fear
love be judged merely sentimental
Unspoken
Great grief for humanity
who can treat others cruelly, and fear
grief will be rejected by family
Unspoken
Ministry in meeting for worship
While waiting to feel an extra push
Or to hear another speaking the same
Unspoken
Empathy with others—
Their love and pain and grief—
When silence is easier
Unspoken
Gratitude for love given
When least expected, or love
Expected and received

 

For Mary's prompt "The Unspoken" at What's Going On? 

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Snow storm

 

New snow accumulates over the bones
of the last snow.  The magnolia tree
blossoms in white along every twig and limb.
The breeze cannot undress it
while snow gently layers up, insisting on itself
in every junction.  To break its layering
the temperature would have to rise
and turn the crystal water into rain
leaving every twig black and swollen,
washed and ready for the next wave of change.
How patiently the trees hold the season—hold
each day’s gifts—as if each was necessary to its wellbeing.
How softly they whisper “Here I am”
to each other.  "Here I am," I whisper from inside.

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2026 Susan L. Chast