Sunrise (Summer Solstice
Sunrise
Morning on the shores brings you back to the place where
you can realize sunrise
in sequential order of
light, flight and the rush of tides…
Copyright: CMM 2014
Bleached white and muted grey wood line
Covered with spots of unthawed snow,
Patches of green grass left from summer.
The smoky grey morning clouds hang heavy
As the morning light breaks into a shadow cast.
Winter has taken hold into arctic temperatures
And still nature stays attentive to coming storms.
Sitting at my desk I am taken aback as one brave
Bird dares to break the silence and sing of spring
Friends For LIfe
I shared with her my plans and schemes,
she shared with me her hopes and dreams.
Together we grew and then apart,
but apart we never forgot the start.
The start of what would one day be
a friendship for life, as we look back to see.
Mistakes we made and mountains we climbed,
didn’t take away the precious times.
We had when we were young and foolish,
dressed in hippie and rock style goolish.
Play house tucked between two trees,
went from ‘make believe’ to club house fees.
Cokes spilt as it fizzed to the top,
not being able to find the mop.
Burning pots in our effort to cook,
parents stood and trembled and shook.
The skating rink, and many a miles
as we skated and danced with youthful smiles.
The teen club, with all its rocking songs,
giving us a sense that we belonged.
Belonged of a generation confused from war,
with racial strife the turmoil we bore.
Our days became families and then children to rear,
the days we lived, the battles we feared.
From growing up in uncertain times,
didn’t seem to change or deter our minds.
From returning to what was always to be
a friend close in time we’d see.
The treasures of childhood, the journey or strife
is always best accompanied by a friend for life.
copyright: CMM 2005
Father’s Day
I sit on the frozen metal chairs, serving to brace my back,
but not my feelings.
Whipping sounds of the cold wind
carries the wet tapping’s on the tent.
Smells of spring are muted by the unearthed hole
covered now with artificial turf
and mounded piles around the edges.
The box, the gray silver box
suspended over the receptor dug for it.
‘Stars and Stripes’ reminiscent of wars
fought in the past, and forgotten not.
Forgotten days of heroic acts
of wars not forgotten and now
remembered; this daughter remembering not.
Six foot and oh so many tall inches
my brother, sitting close by; silent.
He looked past me sometimes and sometimes noticed
with a reassuring nod he was there.
Not saying too much as people approached him,
this the only son and namesake of the departed.
Deep into his blue eyes and the stark black hair
quickly graying prematurely, I saw volumes not being said.
A southern preacher, (friend of the family),
began the eulogy saying blessings over and over.
Dried eyes of the few remaining in black, some standing
some sitting, the wet canvas swayed in the storm.
We all listened, thinking silent thoughts not to be repeated.
Histories of misunderstanding hung in the damp
heavy air, brought by the remnants of winter’s farewell.
The flag now folded is awarded to the oldest
daughter with honors, she trembling in response; cried.
The ” Our Father”, started with the eventual joining of all,
while my earthly Father lay there,
deep within a coffin of ‘no memories.’
I heard this echo, this voice hardly recognizable over the phone,
one of the few times we spoke, “I love you”, he said.
Remembering his words was my eulogy to him
in my unspeakable thoughts.
The blessing, a song, the familiar “Amazing Grace”
a final prayer being said, I never heard.
People stood to speak to the other, and others couldn’t get
through crowded yesterdays; keeping them still.
Stronger spirits pilgrimage with hellos, and talk of the weather,
and “my how you have grown” and “time sure passes.”
Glancing I turn to see the workmen began to drop the coffin
of a man I never knew, they say, “He was my Father.”
© CMM 1994
Yeats
Yeats in his epitah does say,
chiseled in stone of gray
“If there is one left to cry,
horseman pass me by.”
Trojan men, painted clone,
equestrian power, chiseled stone.
Oh, steed the poet’s cry,
witness to the final sigh.
The pen, the ride, united quest,
invites you near, as their guest.
But when the final blow does come,
please leave by in open run.
I will in spirit lope to see,
all the poets following me.
copyright: CMM
Broken
A slip, a footing,
both pent against the wedge of panic’s doom.
A slice of electrical surge
crippling my stance.
Yanking the distorted foot
out of its pitted doom,
it stops me,
I wait.
A balance of consciousness,
a throbbing searing surge,
I step broken
one in front of the other.
Stepping into the climb,
one step, then two; more.
Top of the stairs,
a morose pause, then endurance—
I continue on to class.
© Christine McNeill-Matteson 2000
