In the bruised-blue light before dawn,
I run my fingers down the length
Of surgical scars that crisscross
Your solar plexus taking the appearance of
In the blue light
Before dawn,
I run my fingers
Along your surgical scars
Just after sunrise, I trudge over
The firm, New England soil
Of Oak Grove Cemetery
With my fishing gear in hand
I nicknamed the baby “Chief”
A commanding presence that he is
Restraint protested in a playpen
Walking at nine months
I share the image of her face
The arched cheekbones
The sculpted nose
The high forehead
In ancient Eturia, the Etruscans became like the Moon
The shores of Lake Nemi at the Sanctuary of the Goddess of Diana,
The strega called down the full moon
Moonbeams merging into lake waters
My husband needs music to fall asleep
Melodies imparting through the darkness
A violin bowing melancholy Irish Aires
The quaver of breathy pan flutes
June’s approach to fashion was non-chantlant at best. Her appearance was rumbled looking, an after thought, always loose fitting. She predominately wore baggy, faded jeans and Indian style tunics and caftan belts. She looked like a throw back from the 60’s. She reminded Lilly of Janis Joplin. She sported long, straggling, salt and pepper hair, parted in the middle.
A Wandering Pilgrim
In search of holy land
I believe in possibilities unseen
Fairy sprites in elder trees,
You are gone
Silhouetted farmhands glean the haycocks
Over divested fields
Skeletal limbs of craggy fruit trees
On the cave wall, the shaman
Bison-skinned, bear-clawed
A headdress of antlers
In his right arm, a cudgel raised
Falling
From billowed clouds
Pellets of snow
I spent the winter reading verse
Watching the wet snow
Bend fragile boughs
There must be
A reckoning
Vertical Cuts
An offering of blood
Be still
Don't move a muscle
Don't flinch
Just wait
I renewed my library card
When the diagnosis was confirmed
Urgently, I needed books to read
Become lost in words
Broken shells scatter the shore
Remnants of a people lost
Victims of the tides of fate
Ensconced in sandy shoals, once whole,
Sabbath Reynolds was born in the Deep South in 1950’s. As her name suggests, her parents were deeply religious. These days, her family attended a Southern Baptist church. Sabbath’s parents, Ruthann and Caleb, for many years, had been seeking the right spiritual path. They explored many Protestant denominations - Mormon, Pentecostal, and Jehovah Witness. They preferred an evangelical approach to religion.
Our poise serene
Our posture upright
Our feet firmly planted
On the shoreline of Eden Pond
From the day you first came to live with us – your love was so freely given. After a summer of resistance, I persuaded you – though my use of quiet strength and perseverance – that I could be trusted. I would not harm you.
Cassandra, of the royal house of Troy,
Enamored, by Apollo, love and desire,
Overtures, you spurned
The gray cat makes no demands on me
Just a bit of comfort is sought
In the crook of my arm
A nest of repose, in dreams
Pleasure found
In the spirit of the Stevie Nicks’ song, “The Edge of Seventeen”, the age of 17 is a threshold of opportunity on the doors to the adult life that lies ahead; the excitement of finishing high school, making future plans, moving full speed on the road of life. The autumn of 1974, Rick planned to join the Navy after graduation. See the world. Visit exotic and distant lands.
The age of seventeen is a time filled with thoughts of opportunity; the excitement of finishing high school, making future plans, moving full speed on the road of life. The autumn of 1974, Rick planned to join the Navy after graduation. See the world. Visit exotic and distant lands. The focus of his world was also music, especially the music of The Beatles...
Nights of television static
Flickering cobalt blue
Floorboards creak
With the slightest movement
People say we can change evils in the world
With enough legislation, money, awareness
Idealism and hope
Disease, inequality, poverty banished
The stars are fading
Dimmed by the incandescence
Of city lights
I’ve spent my life searching
Daughter of the Moon
Beguiled by the borrowed light
Illuminated by the Sun
Bright gold chastened
Behind cloistered glass
The color palate of
The
Great
Oak
Tree
So much dust in the corners
Where the molding begin to crack
Crevices of broken tiles deepen into lesions
Tumors of Dust, pathogens, grow unabated
The famine’s darkest year, Black ’47,
The last of the seed tubers eaten,
The potato crop, a black, putrid stench,
Bare blackberry brambles
I drive north
From the Shaker village
A spiral road
Towards the foothills of the mountains
Archives of old documents
The scroll of microfilm
Searching for a clue
An inkling of Truth
The shade of the Winter Sky is moonstone
The first snowfall cascades
Sight is softened, sound subdued
Streetlights beacon like silver lodestars
Blueweed, the Gods made you
Configured from flowers
Meadowsweet, oak, and broom,
A consort to the Sun God
It was a family recipe
Passed down through the generations,
Tomato Sauce with Seared Lamb Shanks,
Prepared on a Sunday afternoon in the fall,
Death comes in threes....
My nana’s old world superstition
A person you would never anticipate
To pass away before their time
Trapped
In a house
Of mirrors
Divided selves
Your room, perpetually dark and musty,
Smoke-filled, windows tightly sealed
Against a rusted pane
Thin layers of onion-skinned dust
Light
Steadfast
Centered
Calm
They say I am like you
I would not know
I have photographs, tinged yellow,
Not memories
They say I am like you
I would not know
I have photographs, tinged yellow,
Not memories
It was bound to happen
Geologists predicted it
A symbol of New Hampshire,
Franconia Notch,
Remember me...
Singing through labors
Chores of tedium
Enlivening experience
I Remember...
The time of our love
Together
Luxuriant
The selkie longed for the sea again
There, she knew who she was
Free to slide between the worlds
Of sea and sand, bask on crags, jet-black
Your devotion visible
In simple gestures made
A milk-shake pureed,
Thick, cold and frothing,
Spirit of the Stone
What secrets do you keep?
Remnants of a ravaged
Civilization lost
I am 24 years old
I smoke too many cigarettes
Rasping my voice
Drink too many cups of coffee
At Chichen Itza
At the summit of the Stepped Pyramid
The ancient Mayans looked to the stars
Seeking answers to the Greater Mysteries
In Ancient Gaul,
Before the pillage of Rome
Descrecrated the Sacred Grove
The Druids gathered
Cotton Mather proselytized
Subdue the howling wilderness,
The soul-less Indians
Obliterate by all means necessary
The rock is grounded
In the shifting sea strand
Brave, strong, full of valor
A barrier in the rages of a storm
Mother was an anachronism of another age
Steeped in tradition, more genteel
Honorable men opened doors for ladies
In white gloves and pearls, a wife,
Last summer, a stray tiger kitten
Living in a strand of woods
Behind my home, appeared on my patio
Enticed by offerings
The purple star flower struggles
Against the plucking of my fingers
Late November,
On the stem, all the other blooms
I long to see the great trees of the world
Grand sequoias in northern California
Collasal in stature
Great with longevity, memory and history
I wish I could caper
Through lavender rich fields
Of Provence, fresh, clean scent
Clinging to my skin
The artifact was unearthed,
Carbon tested,
Imagine
Twenty thousand years old,
Virginia Dare
New World firstborn
Of Roanoke Colony
Disappeared
Timber wolves,
My totem animals,
Pack, tribal loyalty
The intense gaze
Chanting syllables foreign to my ear
Accompanied by strange instruments
Feral noises resound
Primal measured beats