Wild Apples

Knowing Is Not Perception

Knowing Is Not Perception

I’ve known her - like forever,
But knowing is not perception.
Watching, as in a far-off place,
tears spilling from her eyes,
I wondered if I had ever
even tried to be so close.
I wondered,
Can we stand such familiarity in our
Narrow, self-centered world?

“Mother was alcoholic, and…
and…I didn’t really know what that meant
to me. Until just recently.”
This said at 56 years old.
“It changed us all, my brother, my sister
And me.
And when I saw her, down in Arizona
As she lay dieing – caught in the consequence
of her illness,
I couldn’t believe the pain I felt.”
Years later, here and now,
the tears still flow. Sadly,
A permanent part of her everything.
A permanent unknowing.

She wiped them away and I listened.
Bless my heart, I listened! I didn’t offer solutions,
I didn’t offer advice – for once in my selfish life,
I just listened.
Can we stand familiarity in our
Narrow, self-centered world?
Can we ‘just listen’?
Can we bear to hear the ‘unknowing’ of our friends?

Spring Wonder

Totally amazing!
Unbelivingly awesome!
Almost too small to be called a tree
the April buds winking at me
as childlike eyes,
wrinkling their noses
under the slight skiff
of Spring Snow.

Each pale green bud
covered with cotton white.
Hundreds and hundreds;
touched by some hidden hand
with a brush filled with
snowy flakes.
Viewed by one whose breathe is caught
in a moment of disbelief.

As sand, or seashells, or flakes of white
we inhabit the buds
on which we are placed;
winking and loving and
Emblazing
our corner of this earthly
twig.
Take a deep breath and wrinkle your nose!

Sue

Headwork

Headwork -
Those times
We muse and moan
Sinking into
Another realm of
Apathy or grace.

Headwork -
That place
Dedicated to thought
But lacking such
When the fleet’s in.

Headwork -
Heartwork.
Soulwork
When does it
All come together?

Headwork - When I
Listen to the cello
Playing in my head,
Sending a message,
a surge of inspiration.

Like walking into
A great cathedral,
Or seeing the hand
Of a newborn child.
We take an unexpected breath...

We are the everyday
And we are the eternal.
Take time for each.
Write the truth
As it seems.

- Sue Petrovski

That Breathless Moment

I take a breath
…it is THE moment,
that moment when
unexpectedly,
silently, a tiny brilliance
shines on truth.

Before that moment
Truth is missing the h
It is Trut.
In that moment,
In the blink of an eyelash,
The sense of
Truth
appears.

It
Stays but a flash
Perhaps it was not
At all
Suddenly I know
That that breathless moment
Could have sliced past me
As light chose it’s path,
it’s particle, it’s ray.
But it didn’t.

It is not the beautiful sea,
It is the beautiful
It is not the joy of a child,
It is the joy.
It is not the glory of the sunrise,
It is the glory.

Beautiful, joyful, glorious,
awe-inspiring, unbelievable.
I take a breath. This is the moment.

Magic

Magic; fingers entwined,
Hearts lifted beyond reason.
Magic, the melody of life
Filtered through the strings of
An aged violin.

Magic; a moment of hapless breath
Caught in a spider’s web,
Hidden in the shadow of an eave.
Wispy shapes that
Appear in dreamlike
Trances

At my bedside
On my shoulder
In the crook of
My arm.
A sidelong glance
Intrigues my spirit.

Magic; what may be.
Can be, could be, would be.
Magic; the unthought
That appears in a reasoned mind.

Magic enters my self
And gives access to
Other possibilities
Of Time and Space.
Thank God.

Sue Petrovski

My Autumn Tree

My Autumn Tree

by Sue Petrovski

I looked beneath the bark
And color,
A mockery in beauty
Of my aging life.
Played out in golds and bronze.

This old crone of a tree
With its ugly, bony limbs,
Yet filling my world
With the shimmer of burnished bronze;
Sharing my sunlight toward the end of day.

This tree grown from weed?
That reaches now toward heaven
With limbs that downward
Bend and twist; a crooked wreck
But beautiful in an unseen way.

A gnarled copy of my own
Ripened image.
Sowen, as I
In unremarkable soil
From roots of
Unreknown birthright.

Noble only in its color
And stature and task;
To provide shade and shadow -
Doing only as bidden
By genus and phylum.

But more. I lived that tree.
My heart’s joy is in
It’s yearly blessing
As it aches and stretches toward the sky,
Yet readily performs
Its charge on earth.

Who needed more of
An Aging tree - or man
Than what has been given:
Purely, beautifully,
In a grand and honest style?

What did it owe
Besides the valient fact
That it looked beyond the edge;
Moving and flowing with
The tides of life.

It was there.

Those Who Hide Too Well

Revelation
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

"Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.

- Robert Frost (1913)

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The Loss of Simple Pleasures

This day in my journal is dedicated to thousands of selfless caregivers caught in the storm of Alzheimer’s Care in particular and all caregiving in general. The loss of the ability to enjoy simple things; a sunset, a child's smile, holding hands with a loved one - all these are sometimes lost when the caregiver soul is in stress. Caregivers living with a lost loved one, and those who have already experienced loss need to recognize that the absence of joy is a time to give attention to the self. Nurture, rest, and sometimes the chat of a good friend - feed your soul until the light returns.

I lost the joy
Of simple pleasures.
They left me somewhere
In my daily walk
Between yes and no
And good and bad.

I lost the joy
Of simple pleasures
When mother screamed
And walked the floor,
Between care and not care
Day and night.

I lost the joy
Of simple pleasures.
Unholy decisions
Of what to do
How to do it
Cloud my eyes
And leave me cold.

Simple pleasures
In a lifetime earned
Gone and forgotten
Fists clenched and torn.
Strive to give solace
When the mind is no more.

I lost
The joy
Of simple
Pleasures.
Think of that!
How sad. How sad.

Simple pleasures,
Simple life.
I open my grasp and
Invite you in.
A life without
Is barren and grim.

The First Obscenity

The Primer
by Christina Davis

She said, I love you.

He said, Nothing.

(As if there were just one
of each word and the one
who used it, used it up).

In the history of language
the first obscenity was silence.

Davis' book, Forth the Raven is published by Alice James BooksRead more about this poet at the Alice James site.

China Trip

Short stubby brown chopped hair
Big bow on the side
Makes light of a lonely, curious
Soul.
So sorry.

Lean and tall for her age,
Thought and fear
Waltzing together in the
Hot breath of summer play.
Unseen.

There was a planned trip to China
And Doris Jean’s cellar.
We triked and skipped and
Hopped our sweaty summer away.
Goodbye.

You grew to your way
And I grew to mine –

Young weeds hoping
To become flowers someday.
So sorry.

The stubby brown hair is gray
And the lean has filled sufficient.
Thought and fear still waltz
Together while we wait our trip to China.
Ta ta.

- Sue Petrovski