The Blue Lights

A single motorcycle

Led the silent parade

Face serious, determined

Eyes focused ahead

Leaning a little forward

A second motorcycle followed

A copy of the first

Then blue flashing lights

Announcing the long black car

The faces on the other side of the street

Solemn

Some holding small flags

A young man with his hat off

An older woman saluting

The long black car

Passed us by

I didn’t know this hero

Byt I felt a deep sadness

For his wife, his children,

His parents, his friends,

His co-workers

His neighbors

Even the people whom

He probably gave a ticket to

For speeding

Just in front of my church

We all silently stood by

While the blue flashing lights

Slowly passed

A parade of blue from Locust Grove Police.

Henry County Sheriff

Our neighbors from Newton and Butts

One from Eatonton, and Border Patrol

And many, many others

The tears slipped out as the procession continued

No one spoke

We all just stood and felt the wound

When one of us is injured

We are all injured.

If we sit at home

And watch it on TV

We don’t see everyone else’s pain

Close up

As I stood and watched each policeman

Drive by,

Some wiping their tears,

Others holding a strong face

Determined to keep it together

I felt the thread that binds us all together

When one human suffers, and we experience together

It is no less painful, but it connects us

And helps us heal..

Because we were all injured that day

Our brother, neighbor, son, father, fellow citizen took the bullet for us

And I honored him by standing in silence.

Thank you to everyone who showed up today

So we could grieve together.

We are stronger for it.

Love binds us together.

I think I'm in love with Frida Kahlo

I think I’m in love with Frida Kahlo.

Everytime I see her face, whether a photo or a beautiful broken self-portrait,
I feel my heart lunge outwards.

Like it’s trying to reach her.

This woman, so broken physically, yet so immensely spiritually whole.

Colored her pain, her despair

She broke through the brokeness

Like reaching through a solid wall with her bare hand

She danced so close to death, on a daily basis

Yet did not retreat into a shell

Or the depths of depression

Her drive pulls me to her

I want to brush her hair

And weave beautiful ribbons in her braids

I want to walk to the market and find brilliant flowers

To dress up her up-do

I want to iron her dresses

And shine her shoes

Because I find her to be the freeest woman I’ve ever known.

And a free woman is a beauty unlike any other

Response to EB Browning Sonnet XXVI

Fractured family

The empty spot, where the man should be, would be, could be

Is like a home hit by a bolt of lightening

A wall missing leaving the home open

On one side

Vulnerable to wind, rain, sheets of ice

For years, I imagined a new wall, covering the home

The material would be solid and strong

Or would it be pink with flowers and fancy decorations

Or simply a sheer screen, veiling us from the harsh world

But thin enough to see the beauty on the other side

Maybe just a series of windows, from floor to ceiling, no drapes

Just an avenue of sunlight to drape my inner world

Then, a moment came, when I forgot the open wall was there

And walked outside

And stood in the rain, felt the ice on my feet, and the winds rush through my hair

And realized the gift of the open wall took me directly towards my dreams

Little things

Sometimes little things feel big
Like a chair
Ladder back chairs
My mom got a set and you'dve thought she'd won the lottery.
She would walk into her dining room and just stand and admire them.
I didn't understand it.
To me, they seemed old-fashioned, countryish.
And we lived in the city.
But she loved them.
The cherry table and china cabinet were another source of pride for her.
She polished them once a week.
But we never ate on the table without first putting on the pads, and a table cloth.
So we didn't get to see the table when we sat down to eat a meal.
But that was what she wanted.
She made matching cloth napkins and a table-cloth
Along with an apron.
Brown and white checked.
Totally country, yet uptown, because they all matched.
Thanksgiving, or Christmas, we covered her shiny cherry table,
and sat in the uncomfortable ladder back chairs.
And enjoyed tasty food, passed around in serving bowls.
Bowls that she had purchased from mountain folk potters.
Not fancy china.
Just simple earthenware.With earth colored glazes.
She married a city man, with city ways.
And sometime in my early teens, she embraced her country roots
And began putting her touch on her cookware, her dishes, herself.
She used that old iron skillet more and more. She put away the old electric skillet that she'd used for frying chicken, like Betty Crocker told her to do.
And slung the iron skillet on the stove and fried her okra, her squash, and her chicken.
No concern for triglycerides.
"The country folks lived till their nineties, eating fried foods. Fresh, farm raised foods."
She bought organic vegetables and fruits before they were abundant like they are now.
She'd go to the little health food store, Rainbow Grocery, and come home with lovely produce.
And fry it in canola oil. Substituting the lard for canola oil was a move towards the healthy side.
Coming in the door when she was frying okra...oh my goodness.
I'd eat it right off the oil saturated paper towel. One or two at a time. Till it was obvious I'd eaten my share.
She never said, "Wait till dinner." I think it made her happy that I was eating it right as she pulled it out of the pan.
She didn't have the luxury of eating whatever she wanted off the serving plate.
She liked to tell us that she was the youngest, therefore the last in the pecking order of 5 kids. And after her two brothers had served themselves, there wasn't much left.
The joy she must've felt by always having a full fridge and food for her family I don't think I'll ever really appreciate.
Like ladder back chairs.
They can make a grown woman cry,
It's just a chair, or is it?

Frustration

Google seems to con-trol more of me than I am comfortable with.

Tonight I wanted to simply login to my downhomedixy account to write something, anything, just write.....
to touch something bigger than myself.
But a WALL hit my nose, then pressed into me.
I used my fingers to try and separate the bricks, so I could dis-assemble the barrier.
I have DNA under my fingernails.....If you look very closely under the microscope,
the strands spin, multicolored, and carry only a few letters of the alphabet.
ELGOOG...El Goog. El Goop. El Poop. Le Poop.
Plus 13 security codes, First sent to my phone, then the email I'm trying to recover, and then the back-up email. but I don't remember the password to the former email, so I'll have to get another security code sent to my gmail account. And it' just a big google circle.

I didn't give up. 25 minutes later, I arrive.

Yay.

To my space.

Of nothingness.

That I can fill with whatever is on my mind.

And tonight.....I just did.

rambling on about storms

When you are living through a storm
It's better, or easier, if you focus on others who
have lived through worse.

I used to believe that when you are in a mess, you don't really know it until its over.
And maybe that was true then.
At some point, that changed, and I feel the pain when it happens.

Now, when I see a  storm approaching, I try to build a solid wall, to protect myself,
and those I love, from the crashing consequences.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I had a thought last night,
That maybe the storm crashing, is supposed to happen.
Like the floods, to bring up fertile soil.
Not for me, but for someone else.

We learn how to be strong from exercising our muscles, our faith.
And I'm trying to console myself, to ease my own pain.
Because when I am standing with a warm blanket, ready to wrap it around
a shivering soul,
and the wind blows so hard, the soul ends up in Texas,
and my arms don't reach that far.
I'm left holding the blanket.

And I have to watch the soul tumble and spin and get smaller and smaller
and smaller.

I know the soul will be back someday.
And I will still be holding the blanket.
Because that's what mother's do.

To Tim 2015

July 7, 2015

To Tim

From Kathy

God got me ready for you.

He let me choose a stormy sea.

So I would relax in the calming shelter of your arms.

He let me choose a rough and rugged ground.

So I would prop my blistered soles and tired toes on your knees.

He let me choose a broken shack,

So I would feel secure beneath the roof of your love.

He let me choose a bitter drink

So I would enjoy the sweet nectar of your tree-ripened fruit.

He let me walk through the dense, dark forest

So I would bathe in the radiant light of your smile.

He let me climb mountain after mountain,

So my legs would hold your head in my lap.

He let my fingers scrub never-ending grime from my life

So I could trace the soft, feather hairs of your head and appreciate the softness on my finger-tips.

He let me choose bondage, and bitterness

So I would understand freedom and forgiveness.