Where the Monsters Are

 

source

Once upon a time, I knew that monsters
lived under my bed and in my closet,
They came out when we switched off the lights.
Wrapped in blankets and holding all limbs still,
I was safe.  And leaving one light on would
force the grizzly monsters to hide.  There came
a day when I scoffed at my fears, let the
presences go, and slept calmly in
domestic spaces. Still, fear of the dark
remains, and strange sounds quicken my heart.
 
Monster-like reactions rise when film sound plots
“work” on me.  Add melodramatic music
and panic rises.  Horror films like Jaws
bring back the danger of having exposed limbs. 
Add violence and killing, and I have to close
my eyes and cover my ears.  Given the power
of story to raise monsters, imagine the power
of reality.  News brings monsters home through
war, genocide, street fighting, and natural disasters. 
I fear the future if we cannot stop our monsters.

 

For my prompt "what you found 'spooky' or 'eerie'"

 My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

You are my rock

 

source

When does a pebble or a stone become a rock?
When does a rock become a boulder or a mountain?
When did you become a rock in my life? 
Was it a build-up of little things or
a break down of massive things?
If I ever knew, I don’t remember now.
 
There is just the fact of you.
A rock like a tree—solid, reliable,
breathing strength as you have my back.
When I am with you, your hand often guides me,
and more often confirms my direction
as you have your own direction. 
 
I wonder If I am a rock for you? 
I think I am.  I know I can be:
a rock from breaking down massive things like war
and from the accumulation of fleeting things like smiles.
A double rock covered with bright green moss
that purrs when you are near.

 

 

Definition from Miriam Webster on-line:

4a: something like a rock in hardness, firmness, etc.:

(1): foundation, support  The superintendent describes [Michael] Doran as a rock on which the success of the school is and will continue to be built.—Henry County (Kentucky) Local

(2): refuge … a rock of independent thought … in an ocean of parochialism.—Thomas Molnar

 

For Sumana's prompt "Rock."

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Finding the love song

 

🎜🎝🎶🎜🎝🎶🎜🎝🎶🎜🎝🎶 

 

Here I am.
It’s been a while.
That’s why my voice is distorted.
I’m looking for my vocal chords,
the ones that always made me feel (and sound) like song.
Now I’ll settle for poetry—
unrhymed, un-metered free verse—
(though you may discover a rhythm here if you read aloud).
I love because some force loves through me,
not from personal volition, though I hope love grows
the will to love against all odds.
Love as a gift, love as a benevolent weapon
against despair (both yours and mine).
The world has turned red hot,
while the earth still has a lot of green.
The green is the love that may quench the heat and flames
if we—if I—grow with it, go with it more of the time
in words as well as silence.
Once I find my vocal chords
I'll sing with a voice for love and peace--
I think I will, I know I will 
voice the spirit that moves through me
to inspire others as I have been moved.
 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Where the dance lives

 

 

source

When I was young
I used to run
and dance along
a path 
up into the trees,
over the moss,
into the shade,
where the fairy folk lived
under orange pine needles.
 
You could see the openings
to their caves, so
never stepped on them
as you tiptoed through
to the climbing tree
where a new song began
as feet left the land
and moved branch to branch
above the ground.
 
And now the tunes
play in my head
as I remember the path
from where the dance began
to where fairies live.
I can imagine
they live there still
even if tree frogs and red efts
glide through their empty nests.

For Mary's Prompt "Music, Rhythm, Dance, Joy."

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Dark birds

 

 

source

Dark birds capture my attention—especially starlings and crows—

Starlings who flock mightily in breathtaking murmuration,

and crows who seem happy with very few companions.

I feel them each echoing in my chest, far louder

than the more common robins and finches

who stay close by and share their song. 

 

Crows come closest to touching my heart with their caws,

as if they had a message of importance I never quite catch.

I call them stubborn heralds, and move more purposefully

and attentively when they are around. Their presence

makes everything in the wild world seem brighter,

as if I'm called to notice supernatural radiance.

        #

For Sherry's prompt "Birds."

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Reverie

 

When did I stop listening to songs and anthems of survival?
Songs like “A Change is gonna come” and “What’s going on?”
Songs like “I will survive” and “Respect.”  Songs that formed the
musical and rhythmic background of peace work and feminism
of my middle years. Songs I loved from the Civil Rights movement.
 
When I hear them now, tears flow to the surface of inactivity. 
I hum and feel my feet twitching with the memory of active days. 
Where I live, livelier activists than me started the group “Good Trouble”
to raise enthusiasm for projects of resistance that we old folks can
do: Sending postcards, making phone calls, picketing on the corner.
 
Sitting here, I remember how powerful it felt to be part of movements,
to know it was survival of the powerful, and to claim power
in the name of humanity as we wished it could be.  In reverie, then:
I shake out the stiffness and neglect in my legs and elbows, flex my hands,
and then dance in the ancient rhythm I knew before putting my feet up.
 
Instead of frowning at the misuse of the world’s resources, in reverie, I travel uphill and down plains, naming things.  No matter how slowly I move.  I move. 
Touching flowers and trees to left and right,  sharing the force of the dance
with life that also moves slowly.  The wind joins us and clouds appear
just before sunset for the wildest glow.  Reverie.  A kind of prayer.

#

For my prompt "survival."

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

The Guidance of Two Crows

 

source

Two crows fly over me while I sit on the 2^nd floor balcony.

One after another they go, cawing, but not in answer to each other.

Instead, they seem to be squawking at me, complaining of my gab and my loitering.

“Get with it,” they seem to be saying, “You haven’t a hermit’s excuse to hold back.”

 

I admit it.  I am one of a class of people who entangle themselves in social emptiness.

We avoid vapor and dark, sleep through sunrise and sunset, and then cry at gaps in our thinking.

If only we followed the call of the wild into forests and grasses and sunsets.

If only [we] bequeathed ourselves to the dirt to grow from the grass [we] love.

 

Wait!  Time enough to die.  For now, let’s love life.  Love trees, lakes, streams, and open waters.

Let’s turn away from time wasted and attend to places and people that use time gratefully.

The words we find there will feed us and will be worthy of passing on.

The words we find there may drip away until only essential ones are left.

 

The crows call us to be hermits if we must, but to get on with it, gracefully or not.

We may think we are untranslatable, but the words will fly to those who need them.

[They] may hardly know who [we] are or what [we] mean, and we might not know either.

But we must hear the universe and trust the call.  Keep encouraged.  And hear the crows caw.

 

💟💟💟

For Sumana's prompt "Taking Lines."  The italicized lines above are from Part 52 of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

At the Living Edge

 

source

When I am not shaking on the edge

but awake and listening beyond

the sunlight on the surface of moons,

I sense the secret of steadiness—

which is this—that creation does not

pause because one of us tires or God

(by any and all names) concentrates

elsewhere. Creation without ceasing

forms its own safety net now that we

are many and are productive as

the trees and mushrooms who teach us.

If I take my eyes off destruction,

it will not cause the earth to expire.

Indeed, the earth is waiting for us

to grow on the living edge of soul.

 

Posted for Susan's prompt "Open link" at What's Going On? 

Originally written for the earthweal weekly challenge on 5 January 2022.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

My parents were happy

 

“My mother and father were happy.”
As a child, I caught rare glimpses.
Photographs help me to remember
their big smiles, their playful tongue faces,
how they hugged, Sunday rides over hills
and to the Hudson River, play days at
the Catskill Game Farm, visits to friends,
holidays. Story time and bedtime.
School days slip from memory.  
Raising children was serious business. 
But in their seventy-three-year marriage,
joy returned again and again.  Dad interacted
in the neighborhood. Mom became an artist. 
The fruits of their happiness surround me still.

 

For Mary's prompt "Let Tove Ditlevsen Inspire you!" at What's Going On?  

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Opening Doors in Retirement Community

  

The Open Door, Peter Ilsted (c.1910)

We hold doors open for each other—
a kindness that promotes peace among
neighbors.  Elevator doors could close too fast
for walkers and rollators and cleaning carts.
Doors to porches are too heavy for one,
so others step up to lighten the load.
 
“Do you want company?” opens doors
to friendship, and “Is this seat taken?”
opens the conversation of mealtime,
a favorite activity.  We linger in the dining
room to finish a line of thought with the
same or changing constellations of people.
 
Listening is a door opening that always opens other doors,
as awareness is key to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Share, invite in, leave space for time alone?
“Do you want help?” is a kind pause before rushing in. 
Believing in the autonomy of each is a kindness
often neglected in the larger world.
 
Or is all this door opening ordinary? I didn’t
have a close-knit family, and sibling rivalry
took center stage.  As a teacher, I tried to invite
it into my classrooms with varying success. But here
in retirement community we open doors with
grace that is constant, relaxing, and welcome.

For Sherry's prompt "Small Kindnesses" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Your Eyes

The wonder in your eyes
is different from wondering.
There is no question, not really,
instead, just awe and delight.
 
We like to let mystery be
rather than pull the petals
off before their time. 
We wait for their opening.
 
I love to see delight in your eyes
—a little smile twinkles
in the iris, with an extra smile
line below the bottom lash.
 
Sometimes delight is silent,
like a bell before it rings,
but your eyes can’t hide delight
and you sparkle, head high.
 
Hurt and anger change your eyes, too.
You broadcast them with pulling in
or glaring out, and your mouth
is set, neither smiling nor frowning.
 
I am happy when your eyes enjoy,
sad when you dull down,
taking time to sort out the hurt
and anger, taking time for calm.
 
But always, I am grateful for your eyes.
I love the way they reveal inner vision
while you are looking out at the world,
Or maybe only when you see me.

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

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

Hope and House Sparrows

 

 

source

I hear you chirping all day, dear sparrows,
as you soar back and forth between castle
turrets and the trees around them. You seem
to have happy hopeful hearts, little ones.
 
I trusted in the blue flag which turned out
to be just a flag.  I lost hope in
government and its concern over
climate change and humanity.
 
Now I look closer to home and farther
away in nature.  What will she bring?
Can prayer and vigilance do the rest?
Sing, sweet house sparrows, center me here.

For Sherry's prompt "Hope--"The Hardest Love We Carry" at What's Going On? 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright

© 2026 Susan L. Chast 

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.

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

          

       

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