When We Were a Couple of Kids
This should be a blank page,
but it is not…
Because now we have little ones
massacred in playful steps
while celebrating their last
Days of school.
Receiving honors for hard work,
looking forward to hazy days
and ice cream reasons.
Instead it is replaced
with Gurneys carrying out limp
souls of young bodies
dangling from under discrete sheets.
Screams are heard in meeting
places as families receive the news.
Darkness takes place,
” when we were A couple of kids”
CMM 2022
2020
A chilly blustery day as I warm myself
in front of early morning fire.
The dark mornings and quiet house
lends me to reflect.
We are in tumult times of discord,
turmoil and a horrible virus.
My prayer is somehow this changes
and we wake in early morning healed.
©. CMM 2020
Green Socks and Pink Sparkles
Her faithful wish each day
her green socks and pink sparkle shoes
Would always stay
On her feet looking down
She would see magic in her green socks
And sparkles all around
Her Mom would ask
Let’s take the shoes off for a while
It will help them last
The Princess looked away
Very surprised and shook her head
” no, thank you , not today”
CMM. © 2020
Morning
I woke
A morning pulls me to go out of doors
And stand among the cosmos
To allow the lights to christen
Into promise, will I be witness?
God is listening,
The universe displays his breath.
Shhh, it says,
Pray.
© CMM. 2020
Stephanie
My Gaelic daughter,
A child of grace.
A spirited heart,
An angelic face.
Fears of a mother
Go ahead of her steps.
No greater joy,
Her pain is kept.
Walk among the clover,
Feed under the thatch.
Angels go as you rover .
A lassie of no match.
Copyrighted © 2018 CMM
Paradox
I enter into today with the celebration of loss and love —
I cherish your bedside as we said good bye and
All I could do is cry
It has been five years and your sweet desperation breathed between two places
Your eyes closed as some said the “Our Father” and others’ dark faces
Posturing, some told lies and some truths; you listened.
Reaching into the depths of the last moments, you closed your eyes
For the last time you pulled from a place we all know only once in time
You called out ” I love you.” The room quieted
copyrighted: CMM 2016
October Remembrance (Breast Cancer Month)
I watched a friend take her last breath today.
We prayed, ‘Hail Mary’ and the “Our Father’
Then she passed…
I miss her terribly.
Unfair, at least to my understanding now.
Unfair to me.
She was fried chicken,
Hometown laughter,
Short streets.
She was “riding around”,
Coca cola,
Music on the radio.
We talked of ‘new loves’,
With new hopes,
As we shared our dreams.
She was simpler times,
Long phone calls,
Sharing all…
She was late night rescue,
Stranded from dates
Gone bad.
She was laughter at oddity
Of pregnant bodies
And invisible feet…
She was death,
The painful recognition of
The ugliness of disease…
She was the beauty
Of the spirit, shinning past
All the let-downs of cancer…
She was a lifetime friend
You never ask for,
Only recognize a lifetime late…
As I sit by her bed,
Watching her breath,
And my tears are for me.