She was not a saint, she was not an angel
She was my sister,
She was a mother,
a grandmother,
a cousin and an aunt.
She was loved by us all
and also by others.
She was not a saint, she was not an angel.
God will decide on that,
but she was saintly, and she was angelic
and will always be remembered as that.
Written: September 15, 2026, for week's Poetry Challenge:
Autumn Memory
The leaves came loose like letters from the trees,
and skittered silver-gold along the lane;
the wind went whispering through russet peas,
then curled its cool refrain around the rain.
I still recall the harvest's amber light,
the scent of apples crushed beneath our feet;
your laughter lingered, low, against the night,
while woodsmoke made the dark seem warm and sweet.
The pumpkins burned like lanterns by the door,
and dusk drew lilac veils across the field;
we spoke of things we had not voiced before,
as if the year itself had paused to yield.
Now autumn comes, and all the old winds start—
the leaves fall, but they cannot take your heart.
A pair we were once
but fate went its own way
now we remain in letters
I was at work as a school counselor
in a grade school
in Kirksville, Missouri.....
my boss called me over to whisper about the twin towers
My husband has a badge that shows he was there on 9-11-2000, one year before
I was asked to tell the other teachers to NOT show this on TV to their students
Our school was third, fourth and fifth grade
One teacher got hostile when I asked her to turn the tv off.
She yelled at me that she would not turn it off.
She was from the New York area,
and she was showing this to her second graders
I had to ask my principal to go down there to get her to turn it off
She did more yelling
She was hysterical, I think she got sent home
I had no idea at that time how much worse it was going to get
I remember feeling total sadness and dread for our nation
Wondering if this was just a teensy bit of the terrorism that would be coming
So the world without borders was a foolish idea
Poor authorities suffered from disrespect
Our sovereignty we have violated, my dear
Without taking notice we did that
The military industrial complex
Is being revived to standing ovation
Hard times have come, and it’ll be worse
Good job we’re free from further frustration
What a blessed fate, love, to go in due time
Free from their peasant nationalisms
From inane competitions, controlled decline
From taxation of the air we breathe
Back to the garden, as it has been sung
Back to our room with vase on the table
We’re remembered by trees, as forever young
Resting in peace within our fable.
The amber waves, the long summer days, the end so far away.
But the years go rushing by and in the blinking of an eye,
the sand in the hourglass slips away, and then you wonder...
will I be remembered? I think not, yet forever is a long time,
so let go of sadness, and be comforted in the idea that...
you were simply meant to be...someone happy and free!
It was a bright day—
I was walking down the street
when I saw him.
Headphones on,
a smile resting easy on his face—
as if even the smile
was drawn to him.
He walked past me
like I wasn’t there.
But I froze,
turned back…
and giggled.
The Pleasure Remembered.
I saw her in a cafe yesterday; years had not been kind to her
her hair was matted, her skin was dry, and her lips were a sullen grimace,
not quite hiding her miss- coloured teeth.
Once, we slept entwined. I kissed the body and often burrowed
my head in her honey pot and drank her love juice like divine nectar.
She was sitting there, a lonely woman, thinking of her youth,
lost in thought, and her tea was getting cold.
It made me think of the nature of love; there must be a physical
Attraction first, loving the person comes later.
If I met her for the first time today, there would be no physical
attraction, but perhaps she would have had something interesting
to say. I just heard her cooing and sexual rapture.
The thought of sleeping with now was depressing, and for doing
that...no. But we did fly on wings of passion too high for us, and
we burst into flames, only ashes left.
She looked around but didn´t
Recognize me, why should she
A fat, bald man reading a paper?
**Cover-Ups**
The Cardinals will sing, but let’s confront the truth behind it all. We deceive ourselves, but a higher power knows the reality of these situations: makeup and the cover-ups. The Cardinals' song may be beautiful, yet the raven never returned, while the dove came back, never forgetting what it had seen. It whistles a tune that demands to be heard.
Does it really matter how long it takes or the tone we strike? This involves clergymen, bishops, priests, and deacons. And let’s not forget Rome, where nuns step out of the shadows and proclaim their truth to the world. I will not pretend to be saintly or holier than thou. Remember your vows and acknowledge the challenges that lie within the Roman Catholic Church.
She felt putdown again today
She had forgotten about them
Parents who never liked her
Today she sadly remembered their attitudes well
When I look up to the sky
I do not see the sun,
I do not see the moon,
Their brilliance long since done.
I see a canvas veiled in gray,
Where stars once softly burned,
Now memories of yesterday—
To silence they have turned.
No dawn to break the endless shade,
No dusk to fold the light,
Just echoes where the cosmos played
Before it fled the night.
Yet still I lift my eyes each day,
Though hope may seem undone,
For even in a sky gone dark,
The dreaming has begun.
I remember,
I remember the pain,
I remember the fear.
The loss, the anger, the hurt.
Friendships I thought might last forever,
Torn apart too soon.
People I loved now lost to me.
Years ago, I wrote a letter,
An old song from the depths of my heart.
In this letter, I recall
The crushing, clenching pain.
I thought it was gone, old and fixed,
Oh how wrong I was.
I read these words today and the pain returns,
The wounds not healed but covered,
Ignored and left in the past, I thought they couldn’t hurt me,
But the bandage has been torn, ripped from my skin
Revealing shredded flesh and weeping blood.
My chest is clenching, my heart clutched in yesterday’s bruising grasp.
The memories hurt and my tears fall fresh, leaving red tracks against my cheeks,
The thoughts I had way back when,
The all encompassing ache that filled my heart,
It returns again, though not as sharp as once before.
May we be blessed to understand
the only way to be remembered as a person
who is compassionate, loving and kind…
Is to actually be a person
who is compassionate, loving, and kind.
My memories of you still linger,
Them my heart holds tight.
You simply vanished in the wind,
You and your love lost from sight.
In my dreams I see you smile,
But wake up to your empty place.
From habit I reach out to nothing,
Leaving this hollow and painful space.
Time may heal me if I could let go,
I'm stuck where our love was grown.
My stubborn heart refuses reality,
That you left me and now I'm alone.
I will never convince my heart
To let go of what used to be,
Before you removed me from your life,
Leaving a love only remembered by me.
In silence, I now sit inside your room
as doleful fingers strike piano keys,
and beauty soars like roses, red, in bloom.
The weight of life, your heart and mind, it flees.
A sad, foreboding melody does loom.
I muse as I remember times like these -
just thirty-seven years on earth, not long.
Tonight, I hear your sad piano song.
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