Owen

We are all connected, the tenuous gossamer threads

like angels, Owen is there, I am here,

on different planes, I know.

I have been reading, listening, 

and convinced that Owen, my mother, and all

of them who have died are on the other side.

I will join them one day.  

Reading a book by Bruce Greyson, "After"

suggested by Jane Goodall

Life continues, but with Owen always at my side

some believe, or seem to believe,

they seem to say, or imply, that you get over it.

stay busy, they say, it helps to get over it -

I do not plan to get over it, Owen will always -

be beside me as I work and play, he is inside me.

I don't want to get over Owen, to forget his perfect feet,

the look on his face as I sang to him, his huge hands.

what does getting over it mean, anyway, as if you -

could wrench love from your heart and put it aside.

I go to this place, Owen's Pond, and I play his music-

and I lay beautiful things on the ground, cover them-

with fallen leaves, pinecones and rocks.

I'm not getting over this, why would I get over-

all the love I have for my-

precious little boy?

And life continues...gingerbread houses

the living keep living, 

the holidays are coming and gingerbread 

houses need decorating and assembly,

with glue that doesn't hold, and roofs slide 

off.

For a moment everything holds together

and everyone is smiling. 12/20/2021

..@withlovefromowen. Gingerbread House gift to Sarah Smith and her family.

Open to the sky

Owen is not next to me anymore,

whispering assurances in my ear,

it's quiet, he has left now.

the shrine is populated, only for me,

his small fingers do not place a new 

treasure with mine.

I left today, forgetting to cover our

treasures with the big leaf, like I usually do, 

realizing later that I could no longer

hold his spirit here with me, it

is dispersed into the wind.  

Tori and Fauna

sweet as ever.

the same stories, the same smile.

Fauna, your mind is leaving us, but

your spirit is still here,

sweet as ever.

same smile. 

Time to plan

Typhoid, Tdap and MMR

exchanged for $489 cold hard cash

all to go eat a fish on the beach in 

Dakar, Senegal.

It's worth it, as you can see, the sea,

the sand, the sun, the smiles.

I was happy

when I heard the news of her pregnancy,

while watching her belly swell week after week,

I could laugh at the walking watermelon on legs.

I was happy, excited, to hold him shortly

after his arrival and watch him grow.

I was happy then, before we realized

that I would never watch him grow,

that I would never rock him to sleep

in my arms, or watch him suckle at 

his mother's breast, or ...do anything

with us, here on this earth.

I was happy back then, excited.

Now in the shadow of grief, I 

find pockets of happiness, of holding

Mira in my arms, her heaviness

as she sleeps on my chest, of

watching her with her parents.

This makes me happy, now. 

Life goes on

life goes on

the sweetest sweet in my arms, so heavy

but I could carry her forever, as I could let

her sleep sprawled across my chest. 

life goes on, happiness,

and grief walks beside me, I can smile

and love, and cry tears of sorrow at the 

same time.

this is the life that goes on, parallel,

on this side, I smile in deep happiness,

on the other side, my arms are empty

and wanting that small weight of

infant Owen.

love and grief, I love, I grieve. 

I love, so I smile with a toddler

in my arms.

The vast

what is hidden in the vast

expanse of the sea, underneath the sand

we cannot see, our human eyes so limited,

the range of senses so small.

the heart knows what the eyes cannot see,

the nose cannot smell, the ears cannot hear,

the rhythm of life and death, the swell of the sea,

the roar of the waves, the water in our bodies

is linked to the Moon and the tides

of this, we see and hear nothing.

but we know that there is love, always there

in the surf. the sun, the clouds.

Owen is surrounded in love.  12/2/2021

Milkweed

The seeds on the ground, the stones of memory,

the dried shell of the milkweed

having dispersed its seeds into the wind,

the wind that carries Owen, brushing 

against my cheek, he tells me that this shrine

 is no longer needed, that he is within all of us,

no longer contained within the dried seeds

and leaves.

leave this here, grandma, for your memories,

but not for mine as I am here in the wind and

the trees, underneath the ponds reflection,

between the rhizomes of the soils. 

I am eternal. 12/1/2021