Finding Balance

 

Is there a formula for how time
passes as we age?  At age five, a year
is a long one-fifth of a lifetime.  At
age seventy-five, a year swiftly passes as 
one-seventy-fifth of a lifetime.  Yet
an hour at either age can be endless
depending on positive or negative
experience and how engaged you are
in the moment.  For me, at seventy-
five, positive and negative events
are like foreground/background phenomena.
Double awareness holds them together
in an ever-changing balancing act.
 
I’m not in a war or immigrant zone,
but I’m aware of both the killing and the
displacing.  I carry that with me into
the serene forests where I once prayed and
danced.  The sacred dance didn’t end when
I stopped dancing.  It continues when I
leave the woods for heavier atmospheres.
Sacredness underscores protest, phone calls,
and letter writing.  At times, protest becomes
sacred dance.  Transformation of foreground
and background is the balance I’m sometimes
blessed to find in my ever decreasing
time on earth and ever deepening hours. 

 

For my prompt "Mathematics!?" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Hearing the Wild near Home

 

House Sparrow

How lucky to have the constant music
of the wild in birdsong.  A bird-sound cell
phone app says today's musical mixture
is robins, house sparrows, mourning doves, and
catbirds—though which sings which song, I don’t know.
 
Ordinary birds seem extraordinary
to me sitting on the porch with closed eyes,
imagining I’m walking in the gentle woods
across the way.  A rollator is a poor vehicle
for woods walking, but the birds come here.
 
They fly from tree branches to roof to ground,
yet too far away to see their markings.
I wonder if they know the kind service
they perform by making this plain porch wild
and spiritual for those who used to roam.

For Sumana's prompt "Wildlife in your Vicinity" at What's Going On?  

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Midsummer

 

I sit on a second-floor-porch
rocking chair with a book open in my lap.
Earlier I saw the dawn break
through a cloudy sky, and watched the sun rise.
Now I pull my consciousness
into the lettered world.
I set this day aside for the luxury of reading.
My awareness telescopes
between small and large plains
of being: words and birds.
My eyes follow the birds
flying back and forth from
the castle turret to the tree top
straight ahead of me. I pick
up their songs, a dialogue
I do not recognize.  Back to the book
where lines of type unroll and English words
lean forward into phrases and discoveries. 
This is a language I know well.
And this is the ideal midsummer,
When protests and letter writing
can be set aside for words and birds,
for flowers and feathered friends.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Midsummer at the Jersey Shore

 

I've been gone so long, I try to rush, but can’t.

My calves play “push and pull” with sand-soft ground

while soles thicken against each grain’s sharp sides.

The ocean wants me, too, enough to salt

my arms before I reach her moistened edge—

I smell and taste her as I lick an itch,

both hands too full of leisure things to scratch.

Already I breathe with the billowing

skirts of ocean twirling along the shore.

And I haven’t yet felt her cold and wet

between my toes, haven’t yet dared her catch

me, suck the ground beneath and swallow me.

At the edge, Ocean’s playing catch with Earth,

tossing both live and dead beings, mixing

them up with plastic and sea glass and foam.

I place my bags above the high tide line

and bow to both Ocean and Earth, then mark space

with blanket and books and water bottle.

Ocean and Earth and Sky intersect where

I stand—between, among, and inside them—

lining up bottle caps and sparkling stones.

This midsummer meeting needs no fire or drums.

Its mystery predates evil: To stay

in relationship no matter what comes.

Posted for the open link today at What's Going On?

          

          Written 7 June 2017 for my prompt (an eon ago) at Poets United.

My blog poems are rough drafts.   

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2017 Susan L. Chast, revised 2026

Honoring chairs

 

The chair I’m sitting on
to reach this keyboard is
tall enough to help me stand and
short enough to take off shoes and socks
and put them on again.
It has wheels to roll into positions
necessary for each task,
and even for sitting at the kitchen table
next to the plain wooden kitchen chair.
It nods to the kitchen chair
and to the shorter armchair
in burgundy upholstery
that sits by the window.
“Ah,” it ruminates, “I’m definitely superior
to stationary chairs who don’t have
my metal infrastructure.”
I laugh at it, and let it think so.
It’s comfortable enough for writing,
but not for reading or for eating.
Each chair carries its own stories.
It takes more than one sitting place
to make a home.

 

For Sherry's prompt "Ordinary Things" at What's Going On?  

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Juggling truths

 

 

 

source

When presidents can
juggle truth with
impunity, we lose
touch with reality.
We hear strategic
lies.  Witness lies
about what happens
in wars we engage.
Witness more lies of
omission, such as
Trump’s decree that
we must remove
displays of slavery
and other shameful
deeds from federal
parks, a decision
the courts now uphold.
History disappears.
 
How can children learn
To evaluate truths?
How can they learn
enough of the past
not to repeat it?
Now they learn that the
measure of genius
is getting away
with illegal things.
Instead, let’s teach them
to listen to elders
as well as classroom
lessons, to question
public displays.  Let’s
teach children radical
juggling of received
words, images, and
story for seeds of
truth they can plant in
future generations.

 

For my prompt "Re-writing History" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast