Homesick

Homesick is more than longing for a place or yearning for that in the distance.

Homesick is an aching want: return of self or other, to another time and a now closed door to an unknown future

“May I walk with you?” he asked.

And my heart skipped a beat.

Just simple, warming words. A moment of intense connection across the distance of two bodies forbidden to touch. Oh but how the mind spun out images of what might’ve been but couldn’t, wouldn’t be…

Do you have memories like this? Splinters in time fondly recalled, still powerfully clear?

Why did this come back to me just now-fifty some years later? Do you wonder these things: was this the day way back when? Or is this a day significant to him?

Impossible to know. Unless serendipity delivers an odd “coincidence” I have yet to discover. But maybe it’s just my heart calling out, “I remember previous moments. They meant something to me.”

We parted, never to share another time like that. And now he is long gone from the world. And I go on.

Isn’t it strange the twists life makes in the strands connecting us, sometimes severing the ties? Why must we part?

I miss you.

Maybe that’s all I had to realize, and a door to the past opened.

How I will love seeing you on the other side in the someday…Separation is not real. Every moment still exists in every other and so do we.

My Everything

My everything is you

You who shine

You who send your light afar and warm the dank and dark and dreaded

You who give and give and do not give up, but grow in your giving and have more

My everything is happiness

A nesting

A place of being

Inside, not outside myself

My everything

Is you

You who capture my attention again and again

You who continue to show all that is good

Thank you for being you

When Morning Is Soft

When morning is soft and the mountains look like teeth in the jaw of the land
and gleaming lights
of man and industry in the distance shine
we’re reminded: this day appears independent of us and our efforts
This day goes on regardless of our concerns and interventions
This day is full of chirping and growing and things in nature
We can be with or against but never without the constancy of today
Take this time to return to yourselves
Return to hope
Return to joy
Return to loving minute by minute and the artistry of creativity

I wrote the above poem on seeing the mountains in advancing light. And by this afternoon, I’m editing the poem I thought so acceptably appealing when published this morning on my author page on Facebook @SharonDuerstAuthor

In these times of Covid-19, I dawdle and tinker. Things can wait for tomorrow. Or the next day. I’m in holding pattern. Holding myself steady. Holding safe. Holding still. Held by a state of inertia like experienced as a young adult back in the parents’ home for a holiday or family weekend. Nothing mattered: what we ate, what we did. We were there only to be together, to experience each other. All the energy for life beyond those walls was sucked out and drained away. It was a phenomenon I thought of my mother’s making to keep us close and safe if only for a few hours. Back in her care. Under one roof. All together. Siblings and parents making chatter, eating, laughing, recalling past incidents, acts of love. We were witnesses to the creak of the refinished oak chairs around an oval table also sanded and stained in dark walnut. Our feet bumped around the solid pedestal and legs below a white tablecloth ironed and placed and smoothed while still steaming. A radio played low: country songs for a canary in the cage hanging in the corner.

Time with family precious, in the best of times. Longed for in the worst times, when separated by miles, disease, death.

We have only now. We have only today, as it is. And we can only be thankful, hopeful, and glad for what is dear.

Someday

Someday we will know why. Explanations to every why. Any rumbling, anguished, “Why? Why?!”

Someday we will see answers to all questions. And the hope is, when we finally understand all this, we will feel peace.

I need the peace now. I need to see it there in the sky, feel it in my being, breathe it through my life.

Spreading beauty helps. Sending love helps. Kindness of spirit helps. Generosity of being helps. Let me be of peace.

Let Me

Let air cool my heated emotions
Let quiet soothe noise
Let color fill me with wonder and hope
Let me be lifted in goodness,
guided to action with love
Let it be now
Let it be tomorrow
Let love look back and heal
Let it be for all

#nature #beauty #poetry #prayer #love #calm #goodness #heal #color #wonder #hope