Love Is 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

Grading the State of the Union

(This is a very rough draft. Most likely I will be cutting this in half as I revise. 

But, O, did you listen to DT 's SOTU?)

From Wikipedia: The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message^[1] delivered by the President of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress at the beginning of each calendar year in office.^[2] The message typically includes a budget message and an economic report of the nation, and also allows the President to propose a legislative agenda and national priorities.^[3]

Watching a president who cannot work

hard except to find loopholes and back door

entries into lands no other countries

enter.  Dear president, one wants to say,

you waste the air around you, boy.  One wants

to strip him of his lies and vagaries.

One wants to dare have zero tolerance

for people like him who would kill any

baby except white American ones

and any almost fully developed

in American women’s wombs.  Watching

this ignorant, arrogant president

stand before a palatial room full of

intelligent men and women.  Watching

women in white struggle to keep their poker

faces, while he traces his great power

on and on, for well over an hour.

When can we dare have zero tolerance

for social illiteracy and more—

a dangerous wielding of non-grace—

an ignorance that has nothing to do

with levels of education and much

to do with foot stamping willfulness and

feelings of entitlement, with dis-grace.

Watching the president, I see what kind

of man could and would withhold money from

socialist endeavors—even healthcare.

I see the kind of man who secretly

enjoys the indignities immigrants

and women must survive, including child

abuse, slavery and circumcision,

withholding of basic human rights to

liberty, sanctuary and safety.

Don’t these crimes deserve zero tolerance?

Watching a president explain the state

of the union, I wonder at those who

won’t listen, I wonder that I don’t take

the same kindness instead of tuning in.

There is nothing I can do but know.  Yet.

Fear and stress battle with the restfulness

of ignorance.  Neither alternative

is the zero tolerance I seek from

voters and investigators alike.

So very tired, I would wander toward

my bed, except what does that privilege

look like to those who have no place to rest?

So very tired, I would forget to watch—

a behavior most favorable for

this president who works between sixteen

and 25 hours a week, who wants

to build a border wall.  Out of sight is

out of mind.  Out of sight is where profit

plays, where prisons pay, where horror stays.

For my prompt 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Zero Tolerance

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Finding the Calm Between

Cows in a Pond at Sunset, Sanford Robinson Gifford (1860)

 “I saw, also, that there was an ocean of darkness

and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love,

which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that

also, I saw the infinite love of God . . . .”

~ George Fox. Chapter One.

In the calm between mood swings,

moments I wish would linger pause,

then scoot.  Often a zephyr blows

so pine branches toss, turn, thrash and

shatter slow-soft swaying poses.

Beyond the moon-fed and scenic pulse,

nature’s human offshoots suffer

from swinging bi-polarities.

Manic and anxious and depressed

by turns, humans become entire

hurricanes, with mad gusts, full eyes

and bitter tears.  Godlike, we then

create—though who’s to say which—storm

or creativity—is cause,

which effect? How much does light need

darkness?  How dangerous the switch?

Do we want to solve these mysteries?

Oblivious to mosquitoes

and ticks, we rush to our mountain-

wild meadow to sit with cows

and their industrious chewing

in their mud and their maple shade.

There we'll wait for the next storm winds,

for the next impulse to create.

When twilight approaches, the cows

amble toward straw and milking stalls.

we watch dark spill in from the west.

Above distant pines, sun’s edge is

caught in dark needles. Dazzled, I

shut eyes, then open to night-rise

with lighter sky flowing above. 

I breathe in love as questions fade.  

For Sumana's 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Darkness Is......

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Five Haiku upon Seeing a Japanese Mended Bowl

Kintsugi, the art of resilience,© Myriam Greff

Since you went away

I’ve repaired my broken heart

with golden sun kisses.

It’s not like before.

Gold fills the scars preciously

and cools in the shade.

I am like an old tree—

knots and growths and parasites

are my adornment.

Each year I am stronger,

my cracks lovingly blended.

Your time was one piece.

The growth around you

is caress-like.  I’ve no regrets

My branches spread wide.

Posted in Poets United 

Poetry Pantry #437

Written in April 2018

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

My Place in the Family of Things*

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Le Petit Prince - p. 26

From my house on its square quarter acre

you can barely see the climate changing.

Like the Little Prince’s glass globe, my house

keeps me from feeling night winds, from feeling

and seeing it’s been much too warm to snow.

Here is a cottage industry of faith

in science that stops me running water

without thinking while brushing my teeth and

washing dishes, that makes me recycle.

I don’t want to see the climate changing.

I read of stranded polar bears and dead

whale babies, of people leaving parched land

to find greener pastures.  I see the grief

and awful risks.  It can happen right here.

Climate change refugees have no more homes.

They are Princes leaving little planets

where they had houses, land and animals.

Still, they have a place in the family

of things, as do I.  Having tamed this place,

I must care for it. To care, I let it tame me.

*The last line of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”

For my prompt 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Climate Change

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast