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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Tag Archives: Family

Confession

01 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Addiction, Chaos, Confession, Death, Death Poems, Divorce, Dying, Eternity, Family, Forgiveness, Infinite, Loneliness, Loss, Love, mourning, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Survival

I tripped;

it fell,

flew,

from my arms;

then,

there was a funeral.

What Was Lost in the Trade

15 Sunday May 2022

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Children, Division, Divorce, Family, Hate, Healing, Life, Longing, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Marriage, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Self, Souls, Women's Poems, Yearning

The push, and pull, of memory,

When you left me I got sadness, despair,

When I left you, I got amnesia.

Be careful what you forget,

Memories, hostage to one another,

Shoved into the abyss, together they go,

What was beautiful, too,

The joy of holding his babies at my breasts,

The sound of love in first words;

Hope, like a childhood dream,

You’re embarrassed you believed.

And now, no plumbing the hole

With dirty hands, arms not long enough

To reach what was so easily given away;

(The hurt was not traded for living,

As I’d hoped,) no, I want them all back,

Though they bring you, with the sadness, too.

Toward Our Once Bright Existence

03 Thursday Feb 2022

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Afterlife, Aging, Beauty, Belief, Children, Death, Dying, Eternity, Family, Gratitude, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits

In the end, we don’t know

How the end will come,

Peaceful, as we sleep,

Or, under the thumb

Of morphine. Memories,

Like flotsam, from the depths

Of our once bright existence,

Form a tunnel toward our exit,

Each day, one step closer,

Almost touching what was lost:

mother, child, father.

A Broken Thing

26 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Broken, Children, Division, Divorce, Family, Forgiveness, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Snake River

I’d be lying, if I said I didn’t know,

Years of turmoil, like a river,

With a dangerous undertow.

Like swimmers, outside their boat,

Unable to swim, thrown against rocks.

We were young, and bound together

By our children. Then, the talk:

You don’t love me, he said,

And, rather than saying it wasn’t true,

I asked, what does love have to do

With being married? We have kids.

We were pulled over, under a bridge,

Which spans the mighty Snake River.

We were both wrong, but does it matter?

Self-fulling, breakup chatter–

Prelude to the email I would find–

Betrayal, is not a kind way to end.

Twenty years later, still not friends,

Yet, we are friendly in our pain.

The sting of loss, defines a sting,

And taints our world, a broken thing.

The Not So Little Things

29 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Aging, Death, Family, Fathers, Forgiveness, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Memory, My Dad, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Survival, Winter

“Weep for what little things could make them glad. Then for the house that is no more a house. (Directive, Robert Frost)

1.

The frosty backs of horses at the bale,

The red fence, framing the snow,

This is the beauty I found

In the extreme cold

of December.

And I remember

Wishing for it.

2.

Do you want to save this bird,

It was a falcon,

And it ran, with broken wing,

At the edge

Of a barbed wire fence.

He asked me, as he knew

I was a lover of wild things,

And a nurturer of broken wings.

I do, I said, I do.

Then, he was out of the car,

Walking among snow

And wounded bird.

I watched him from the backseat,

The car, I would someday wreck.

But that day, it was whole,

And we were whole,

And he returned, victorious,

Gloved hands,

Cradling broken bird.

3.

I don’t know why he gave it to her,

But she was in possession

Of his cowboy hat,

And she knew

I was the one who wanted it.

I was in possession of money,

And funny prankster that she was,

My sister knocked on my bedroom door.

She was having a yard sale in her room,

And I was invited to shop.

I can’t remember how much I spent,

But the hat became mine,

and I was wearing it.

He laughed when he saw me,

His big hat on my small head,

And heard the story of its quick journey

From her to me–

He’d given it to her for free–

But I didn’t care,

I wore that damn hat everywhere.

4.

Before I wrecked his car,

I slid his truck off an icy road

At two am, in a snowstorm.

I remember hiking to the first house,

And a man answered the door

In his underwear, staring dumbly

At me. I was desperate for a phone

To call my dad, praying he’d pick up,

Otherwise, I’d be stuck

With the undressed stranger.

He did, and soon my dad was sliding

down the dangerous hill,

In the car I’d soon wreck.

Next, he held his metal two-ton jack,

And ratcheted the truck up, and off,

And up and off, back

Onto the road, where the ice melted,

And the snow turned to rain,

And the sky filled with lightning,

But we survived, and now,

We can laugh at this story.

Song of Sorrow and Joy: 5

12 Sunday Dec 2021

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Tags

Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Family, Happiness, Hope, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Souls, Spirits

V.

Joy is found in minor chords,

Singing our truth to the universe.

The story of love is never perfection;

It is always one dropped note,

A half step away from resolution.

Song of Sorrow and Joy: 4

11 Saturday Dec 2021

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Tags

Death, Death Poems, Dying, Family, Forgiveness, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning

IV

Sit, and let me sing you a song,

Of our perfection,

And our imperfections:

No species sucks so bad

At getting what we want—

I’ll title it, Love.

Realization must come

Too late, or it’s not human.

Only in losing do we understand

The full measure of what we had,

Basically, chances, and with chance,

The opportunity to grasp —

It—

And I’m back to the title of the song—

Love,

And how we suck at it.

Song of Sorrow and Joy: 2

11 Saturday Dec 2021

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Tags

Death, Death Poems, Dying, Family, Fathers, Fear of Death, Forgiveness, Happiness, Infinite, Love, Memory, Parents, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit

II.

I’ve seen enough of spirit to know

that you’ll still be here

when I write of letting go.

How love becomes energy,

And energy can’t be destroyed.

The power of memory:

Imperfections, fade away,

Only Love remains,

As a steady anchor,

A steady hand through—

It’s been a while

since I’ve seen you laugh,

(There’s not much joy in dying,)

Yet, I remember your laughter, too,

Your tears wiped away from crying.

And it makes me smile now,

How we watched you break down,

Such a serious father,

Completely undone

By your laughter.

Song of Sorrow and Joy

10 Friday Dec 2021

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Tags

Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Family, Fear of Death, Forgiveness, Life, Loss, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Yearning

“Once I heard a song of sweetness,

As it cleft the morning air,

Sounding in its blest completeness,

Like a tender, pleading prayer;

And I sought to find the singer,

Whence the wondrous song was borne,

And I found a bird, sore wounded,

Pinioned by a thorn.”

I.

The song of joy comes

From the same place as sorrow:

All losses bound together

With all gifts,

Wonder and tragedy,

Sifted, then mixed.

I will hurt no more, I said,

And it was as if my soul

Was dead to happiness, too.

But now I stand,

Ready to let go of you.

The Difficulty Getting Here

24 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Children, Courage, Death, Family, Forgiveness, Generations, Hope, Life, Love, Marriage, Mothers, New Collection, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Strength, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning

It’s a wonder I’m here, progeny of lost souls,

orphans, abandoned wives, poverty & places

so uninhabitable, unsustainable—

Yet, I’m here, and the generations beyond me

refuse to wither, too.

When the earth begins to close,

there’s always just enough left

to sustain us. One small patch of grass,

free of weeds, or drought,

and just enough blue sky and sun.

We find that place, and stay long enough

to drag another survivor on.

A Refuge of Birds

17 Friday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Birch, Birds, Family, floods, Grass, nests, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Refugees, Starting Again, Starting Over, Survival

Flood warnings, became flooded streets,
a gathering of mud, and other debris,
while in our yard, a branch broke,
from the old birch tree,
and in it, the grass nest,
a family of birds, now refugees.

And, I imagine them searching,
for a place to start again,
free of broken, flotsam dreams,
their past life, falling from this tree,
as the birch continued to bud,
and the grass continued to green.



Homes, Like Cathedrals

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

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Tags

Cathedral, Divorce, Family, Homes, Hope, Loss, NotreDame, Poem, Poetry, Survival

Loss, it leaves an open space,      
         a void
that can become a vacuum
         or, it can heal.

Loss, it can create chaos,
        as homes,
like cathedrals,
        burn
and we wonder
        what will be left?
to rebuild from the ashes.

My Dad

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Dad, Family, Fathers, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry

We called him our rock,

but really he was the night star

we oriented our lives around:

spinning, traveling, out-of-control,

lost, we had only to look up,

to find our way again.

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