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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Tag Archives: Loss

Listening to Bernie’s Chimes

02 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Bernie, Chimes, Death, Hope, Loss, Love, micropoetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirit, Wind

He’s been dead for four years,

but I have his chimes,

and time, like wind, passes

over their wrought iron curves,

nudging the striker,

and making its voice to sing,

ring and rise up

like message from a grave,

or another sphere,

or a person I loved,

sitting next to me, speaking.

#micropoetry

Flowers for the Dead

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Begonias, Childhood, Death, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Magnolias, Memorial Day, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry

I said magnolias,

you said, peonies,

how you remember her hands

tending them, day after day.

I imagine a grandmother’s hands

reaching into a profusion of blooms,

wrinkled and wise and tender;

it’s a good place

for the mind to wander.

Memorial Day.

You were so young,

and your brothers, one older,

one younger, even than you,

would cut the luscious stems,

and place them in a wagon

alongside empty pickle jars,

mayonnaise and jelly jars.

The cemetery.

You’d sell your bouquets

for fifty cents,

three big blooms to a jar.

What a memory,

and I imagined families

pulling up in lonely cars.

It’s the sixties,

and there are waves of Chevy sedans

with heavy doors,

hoods, stretched out in lines,

like plots.

We sold them all, you said.

And I’m not surprised:

regret in empty hands,

is no small thing,

as they walk toward their loss,

tombstones, which remind them

of loss,

of lack.

And then, the relief

when they can fill those hands

with the heft and smooth skin

of a glass jar filled with water,

and a few fleshy blooms.

Sometimes, You Just Need a Happy Ending

08 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Children, Happiness, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Struggles, Yearning

Forgive me for wishing
life was more like a fairytale,
a place where once upon a time
we all struggled, our hearts
torn apart, put together again,
as we desperately journeyed
toward our happiest moments.
When we finally reached them,
and got a taste of what we knew
was out there for a few rare lucky souls,
some benevolent hand would write,

they lived happily ever after:

On my son’s twenty-ninth birthday,
He spun the big wheel at Fast Eddies,
it tink-tink-tinked past the free beer,
five dollars, and hamburgers,
to stop at the fifty dollar jackpot.
He danced with his hands in the air,
he smiled, that rare smile,
his lover kissed his cheek.

The Secret Song of the Dead

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, aspen, Aspen Trees, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Maggie, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Winter, Winter poem

Looking back, I see you

looking back, smiling,

I say your name,

as if to summon

the dead to life,

and it works,

for a moment.

It’s winter,

and the earth feels

like your absence,

the once living things,

here, but not here.

How many times

did you sit

next to me looking

out at the aspen?

And now, here it is

bare again, waving

its naked branches again.

Today, it looks like

it’s doing The Twist,

and, I think, it hears

a song I don’t, no,

a song I can’t, hear.

Looking back, I see you

looking back, smiling,

your secrets, a dance,

a song that plays

while the world listens,

and twists to a secret melody,

it cannot hear.

How Far It Reaches

10 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Hope, Infinite, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Yearning

Sometimes, missing feels like stone,

a fear that what seems over,

really is over. To be alone,

is no small thing, even though,

it seems, we always are.

Between us, an invisible thread

throws itself out, and stretches—

have you seen a silk thread

blowing itself out with the wind,

reaching, reaching—how far it reaches,

attached to nothing, but air.

Conversations With Maggie 4

25 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Afterlife, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Life, life after death, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Togetherness

Remember the years we couldn’t see

the mountains, obscured with smoke?

That’s what it will feel like,

when I’m no longer here, she said.

The mountains were still there, I said.

Conversations With Maggie 2

21 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Conversations With Maggie, Freedom, Happiness, Loss, Maggie, Poem, Poems, Poetry, The Universe, Unknown

2.

Wander the roads of your happiness,

She said, With no purpose,

Except to wander the roads.

In silence, I watched her walk away,

Wondering where she would go.

Conversations With Maggie 1

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Conversations With Maggie, Death, Loss, Love, Maggie, Poem, Poems, Poetry

1.

She said, Your heart is like the wind;

never feel it’s being used up by love.

There is always more, and more, 

And, at the end of it all, there is more.

Maybe, it’s like the stars, I said.

 

 

Flying Things

26 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Canada Geese, Divorce, Loss, Marriage, Poem, Poems, Poetry

1.

Under the wings of Canada Geese,

Rushed time:

 

Moments we wept

In our loss,

Wept in our fear,

Abandoned each other.

 

I stood alone,

Amid an ocean of dry leaves,

As the sky flew by in freedom,

And helplessness.

 

2.

How can I forget

That great yellow butterfly,

As big as a barn swallow?

 

It hovered around you,

Like a message

You wouldn’t hear.

 

Finally, it landed on your bare shoulder,

As you stopped work,

Leaned against your shovel,

 

Encircled of frail spirit,

And our children,

Chasing, laughing around you.

 

While I, woman in flight,

Watched silently from the back door,

Knowing I was letting you go.

The Way

28 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Aspen Trees, Hope, Lilacs, Loss, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ponderosa Pine, Yearning

The way the sun lit the branches of the aspen,

Traced the snow-lined needles of the Ponderosa,

Shone off each blade of grass in the dry circle

underneath that great pine, surrounded by snow.

 

I said, the way, as if it would lead to a thought,

But, in fact, it leads to fog, or the lifting of it,

Near the tiny Lilac bushes,

And, further still, across the blanket of snow–

A blanket that someone lay upon,

But not under, leaving an impression of a body,

The soft parts, blown away

From the crisp, frozen parts.

Look further still, through the lifting,

You’ll see the great Spokane Mountain,

And all the trees and houses

Which lead from here to there.

 

For a moment, you may think you can touch it,

Stretch, reach out your hand,

Trace your fingertips along its lonely edges,

And lift it into your arms.

My Mother’s Breast with Cancer

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Breast Cancer, Cancer, Death, Dying, Hallmark, Loss, Love, Moms, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry

Think of yourself motherless
In this false, frail world.
This world where you don’t touch blood,
Or suffering, or death, but hope
Someone will be there to touch yours.

She pulled my hand to her bare breast,
Cupped it underneath,
Rested the heft of it,
In my palm:

Do you feel it, she asked.
I feel it, I said.

I feel it.

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