Since I have no children, I chose to write about the quintessential parental love that I was blessed to receive.
I still see you in the soft corners of my childhood~
your morning humming drifting like a small sunrise,
your hands smoothing the edges of every trembling day,
your presence stitching calm into the rooms we lived in.
The stories you carried shaped the woman I became;
I still see you in the soft corners of my childhood~
your laughter warming the walls like a familiar lantern,
your footsteps teaching me how to walk toward hope.
Time folds softly now, but your tenderness remains;
your wisdom rises like gentle grace when the world grows loud.
I still see you in the soft corners of my childhood~
a quiet compass guiding me back to who I am.
I cherish you still with every grateful breath,
your parental love a quiet light that lingers after loss,
your grace echoing through the rooms of memory
I still see you in the soft corners of my childhood~
Beneath me, the Grand Canyon unfurls
like an ancient manuscript,
one inked in ochre and rose.
Sunlight drifts across it,
the strata revealing
what the earth remembers
Wind rises from the chasm,
carrying the cool scent of juniper
and the far-off murmur of the river.
Light drifts across the strata,
revealing what the earth remembers
long after we have forgotten.
It brushes my skin with a tenderness
I didn’t expect from a place
carved by violence and patience
in equal measure.
The walls descend in vast terraces,
each layer a quiet confession
of oceans vanished, mountains lifted,
worlds undone.
I feel time loosen around me~
not as a threat,
but as an invitation
to stand still enough
to hear the planet breathe.
Far below, the Colorado glints
like a blade softened by use,
cutting and smoothing,
cutting and smoothing,
its persistence a kind of prayer.
I am transfixed
realizing that endurance
can be a form of grace.
Beauty is not always gentle~
sometimes it is the echo
of everything that has broken
and yet remains,
vast, open,
and astonishingly alive.
evening settles soft,
a calm hand
smoothing edges of the day.
I breathe its peace,
every worry
loosening in the light.
in that stillness,
trust grows gently,
resting in God’s steady care.
conscientiousness~
smoothing those ruffled feathers,
small mindful actions,
quiet care unfolding like
light warming a cool morning
The boat is already gone
by the time the water
finishes talking about it,
two long seams
folding back toward each other
like a wound
that has decided,
on its own schedule,
to close.
Nobody teaches the lake
to do this.
It just remembers
displacement
the way a body
remembers a person's weight
on the other side of a mattress,
a dip that holds its shape
long after the sleeper
has become
someone else's weather.
I used to think the wake
was proof of the boat
evidence, a signature.
Now I think it's proof
of the water's patience,
its willingness
to hold a disturbance
just long enough
to be honest about it
before smoothing over,
because permanence
was never
the lake's job.
Somewhere behind every leaving
there's a version of this,
two lines drawn by displacement,
closing slowly,
not because the leaving
didn't matter,
but because the water
has other boats to carry
and only so much memory
it's willing to spend
on the shape
of things
that aren't
coming back.
The porch was warm that summer night,
Fireflies buzzing, swift and bright,
a moment held in memory’s gentle sight~
the day still lives in me.
My granddad’s laugh, a low, sweet roll,
the kind that settled in my soul,
a sound that made my childhood whole~
the day still lives in me.
The scent of cedar in the air,
his calloused hand smoothing my hair,
a tenderness beyond earthly compare~
the day still lives in me.
And though the years have slipped away,
I feel that porch in every day,
its quiet grace still lights my way~
the day still lives in me.
the operating room waits in a pale hush
metal holding its shimmer like a vow
shadows gathering themselves into still corners
the air hums with low mechanical dreaming
soft pulses threading through the silence
as if the room keeps time for the living
gloved hands move with practiced, quiet grace
shaping unseen pathways in the air
preparing the body’s hidden journey
the lights rise into a slow white blossoming
illuminating the table like a threshold
where flesh and hope lean toward each other
anesthesia drifts like a pale unfolding tide
smoothing the edges of awareness
carrying the patient into gentle depth
monitors whisper the first faint awakenings
life stirring back through muted circuits
as the room releases its long-held breath
Twilight leans low
over the lake,
God’s quiet hand smoothing
the day’s last breath.
Water gathers the sky
like a secret it promises
not to spill~
rose fading into lavender,
lavender into blue-gray hush.
A single ripple
wanders toward shore,
carrying this soft reminder~
even endings can glow.
Have you remembered these before
Begirded, by the yellowy maple
Sweeping them in morning's chore
And the first bites of mellowy apple
And the voice dwindling in icy pallid
The evening thrushes nesting over
Your eyelid mere balmy; thawed my heart of gelid
In my heart of gelid, bloomed the clover
Have i remembered these now-
The joyous rhine smoothing down the vale
And the cockcrow kissing your flawless brow
And to you, I speak those times of tale
Never were the asphodel so cheerly
And too cheerly and too softly wave
To the passionate daisy and too the jovial lilly
'Ah fallible love! truly paramour they are; and brave'
.
Start with the fracture -
the splintered thing lodged in your ribs
that no cough can dislodge.
Call it "inspiration" if you must,
but know it is just hunger
with a prettier name.
Next, the bones:
a rhythm tapped absentmindedly
on a diner table,
the half-heard melody
of a stranger’s laugh,
the way your childhood home
still hums in your teeth
when you say its name.
Now, the bloodwork -
verbs writhing like minnows in your palms,
adjectives that stick like burrs to your sleeves.
(Here is where you’ll bleed.
A poem is not a wound,
but the salt rubbed into one.)
Arrange the fragments on the page.
Watch them refuse to fit.
This is the part where you learn:
a poem is not a puzzle,
but the hand that shakes
as it forces the pieces together.
Finally, the lie -
the smoothing, the sanding,
the pretense that this
was always the shape
you intended.
Sign your name at the bottom.
Walk away before it cracks.
Dear Lord,
I'm ready to sip the trumpet's venom.
I'm ready for the flood, the white fire fingertips.
To rinse the devil's grin into the abyss....
I pray the predators have a slow-motion bleed.
A cut of their chandelier's electricity.
I pray, Lord, you let the children gather wings.
To make their way into eternity.
Dear Lord.
I'm ready for a refurbishing of Eden.
A smoothing of a fractured soul
A refurbishing of our twisted strand.
An immaculate rebirth-a pristine gold.
Dear Lord.
I'm ready-so bring it on.
Lay it on thick and heavenly strong.
Bring the shadow of your blackest song.
Bring on the rapture
Flood their islands, crumble their castles
Cool down their nuclear reactors.
Lay a scythe to proud pyramids and rocket ships.
Treat their cock roach souls
like they've treated our children's dreams and hopes.
I pray you glean the gems from clay.
The lily from the winter pond of Monet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The fluorescent hum doesn’t bother her.
Neither does the line winding past aisle three,
the man who taps his foot like a metronome, nor
the mother bouncing a fussy child.
Her hands move gracefully~
meticulously counting pills into amber vials,
smoothing wrinkled labels,
turning each bottle just so
so the instructions face outward.
She knows Mrs. Putzer forgets her reading glasses.
She remembers Mr. Kim’s allergy to penicillin
even though he hasn’t mentioned it in years.
When the young man with trembling hands
asks, again, about his dosage,
she doesn’t glance at the clock.
She unfolds the leaflet slowly,
points to the bolded text,
says take your time
like she’s handing him a cup of water
after a long walk.
Some days, the world is a rumpled prescription,
filled with smudged ink,
but Mary is the angel in blue scrubs
behind the prescription counter
*You may this poem’s companion story here on Poetry Soup as follows:
poetrysoup.com/short_stories/an_angel_in_blue_scrubs_13589
Is a moment
when nothing inside argues
with the way it is, it's as is.
It opens softly—
a breath easing from a grip,
a hushed gush the mouth trusts.
Pale misty early morning light,
water smoothing over stones,
space wide enough to let in and receive.
It arrives unannounced,
while walking besides trees or shorelines—
and stays, if we stop chasing it.
Luscious laughter peeling out loud,
it’s high pitched timbre fills my ear.
Innocence floods the atmosphere
like syrup dripping through a cloud.
Melody raised feels well endowed
smoothing over all that you hear.
Luscious laughter,
runs through an agitated crowd.
Suddenly the solution’s near,
set on fire and never more clear.
Light drizzle on every head bowed,
luscious laughter.
In a world fraught with hatred, war and bloodshed
Mankind thirsts for abiding peace and calm
In love and harmony when we live, it’s heaven on earth.
Life may be harsh, yet be merciful, it acts as a balm.
Understand others especially the ones neglected.
Let love sedately flow like a gentle river,
Smoothing the sharp pebbles of hatred lying below.
Show mercy to fellowmen, holding them in prayer.
Let peace, love, understanding and mercy fill hearts with delight.
And bask in God’s infinite love’s cascading rays of light.
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