Breast Cancer Month
Music Perfomance, (all instruments ) Prof. Brian Kip Haaheim
Vocalist, Jon Matteson
Lyrics, Christine McNeill-Matteson
Original Score, Daniel Myer
“Joy’s Song”
A dedication to my friends, Mary Phillips, Susan Caruso, Joy Nowlen, who lost their battle with breast cancer. Honoring all this month “Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”
Last Ride
I pulled aside upon my path
my kickstand now down…
The wheels that turned for so long,
Now stays upon the ground…
The wind has changed and now still,
The grass no longer green
the last ride has been complete
the rider no longer seen…
I have stopped for the last time
and pause to say good-bye
I hope to see you on the trail
somewhere on the other side…
Copyright: CMM 2011
Dedicated to a friend who lost his battle with Mesothelioma
The Recipe Box
The Recipe Box
Opening up the old rubbed wooden box
I smelled time lingering from recipes of the past.
Shoved into in a hurried way of schedules and life
I pulled a hand full of recipes tattered and unorganized.
Sifting through in hopes to find a recipe to add to a menu
for a friend who is sitting in a hospital room with her mate.
A mate of 50 years now succumbed to life and cancer.
I look to see which one will do, and as I do, I see names.
These were the names of friends from a lifetime,
friends who shared a moment and then left a recipe to remember.
Friends much like the ones who are holding the hand of each other
waiting for life to say good-bye until another time.
I look at the names and realize the box has become a eulogy of friends,
the recipes reflecting their personality, their smiles, their life.
I feel as though it brought me to a sacred place, of time, sharing,
a holy place of scents and smells forgotten, but not their presence.
© Copyrighted: CMM 2015
I Do
If I could walk among your shadows,
but I can’t.
If I could but know your footsteps in your trail,
instead I am lost.
I read your final letters to catch insights from you,
I am left with questions.
I look through your archways of cover words,
I no longer feel protected.
I barefoot my thoughts onto the cold marble of time,
and morose sensations are all I feel.
No one asks permission to enter our lives,
or permits death in order to leave.
It just all is, and you are certainly gone,
you said in time no one would remember,
I do.
Dedicated to a friend who lost his battle with cancer.
© CMM 2011
The Last Poem
(written by a friend who lost his battle with cancer)
(RIP Jan. 2011)
I have started to cry
causing tears up over my eyes,
but few come out.
A silence spreads
a bit of waiting for new breath,
my face looks up again.
It passes,
tears wiped away,
it passes.
© July 17, 2009
Lost Letter
Cleaning my desk,
I opened an envelope stuffed
with keepsakes, cards, letters.
Crinkled against time, some tattered
with wear, I saw an old familiar address.
Pulling it from the pile was like pulling
a friend from the reservoirs of memories.
I opened it, the dust had settled on his words
as ashes and sand settled on his grave.
He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed
with cancer …
He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments
of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.
Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken
of a seagull taking flight.
It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for
from the past.
© CMM 2013
Eagle and Child Inkling 