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After

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I have read that your loved ones greet you

at the end-of-life tunnel

You see their silhouettes against a glorious light

They welcome your spirit with love

once it’s shed the body, a discarded husk

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I have wondered how–if I am met

by my mother’s spirit–

how she could also reincarnate again.

Can souls be in a body and the afterlife, too?

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I have felt the rising pulse of awe

at the various and myriad forms of Creation

that burst from a pinpoint of light

and one single thought: to become

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I have been in, and also out

I have risen in the violet flame

I have heard your moon song

I have sung you across the river

Time Bending

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A luna moth emerges

from its rough, camouflaged cocoon

pale green grace, soft night angel

spiral tails, feathered feelers

No mouth.

No

Mouth.

Her cycle: mate, lay eggs, and die

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Damsel flies, shiny blue, scaly

slim window wings

skim a handful of weeks

Gypsy moths cycle through a year

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Boulders birth in earth upheavals

Jagged or rounded by weather

Dense consciousness, witness

to passing millennia

one exhale in one thousand years

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We unshelled humans

spin in between

the slow life of stones

and 24-hour mayflies

We bleed and we heal

scabs and scars mark

skins and hearts

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Our convoluted brains

seek the Presence behind

this strange mosaic of being

always becoming more

expanding to perceive Itself

in every wing, every breath

To Love What is Left

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–Mary McCue

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The stranger who sleeps next to me

looks like an older version

of the man I married 20 years ago

but that person no longer resides in his body. 

Dementia steals him away every morning

when I shake his leg to rouse him

remove his watch and necklace of rudraksha beads.

He lies there like a sack of sand

not raising arm or head to help me.

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He’s a toddler going backward

not intending to provoke or obstruct

forgetting that the pants

go on before the shoes

while I seek a way to forgive

my spouts of anger, bouts of tears

His disease tethers me to home

like a dog on a line

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Bitter words, vinegar sour

dare not look back at years lost

dream of a better time

Then waken next to a stranger

with his face.

Drought

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the love river flows, then

sinks below ground

sludge, slime and mud remain,

mud, rocks, rotten leaves

crayfish or salamander corpse

in a trickle of silty murk

sharp shingle cracked

by ice and sun

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step with steadfast care

do not abandon this place

hold heart-close the river’s fullness

beneath your feet

pray for the rain of grace

Slipping

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Restless in the afternoon

He puts on his coat,

Picks up the flashlight

Where are you going?

It’s daytime

You don’t need a flashlight.

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She gives in, gives up

sewing the quilt pieces

Takes him for a walk

in the bright April wind

he shuffles too slowly for exercise

asks to go back too soon

It’s been barely ten minutes!

Already heading home

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Where do you live? He asks

In Wallkill.  You live with me.

Do you know who I am?

What’s my name?

I don’t know.  I’m sorry.

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Now he is further gone

And she is erased

Dark

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In the hostess’s bedroom

they are too close

in the shadows

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She doesn’t want to

see them too close

then she’ll have to know

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She was looking for the bathroom

They are murmuring

leaning too close

They hold hands

They see her

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She slinks away 

as if she is the guilty one

The Much of It

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Barrels the senses

Bewilders the eyes

Figures of clay, fabric, metal

Blue ceramic dog

Mechanical pecking chicken

Gray mouse in a red jacket

Ugandan woman under an umbrella

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Containers, bags, boxes of

Doll body parts

Cloth from Thailand

Buttons in tins

Beads from ancient Morocco,

Nigeria, India, Mexico

Tinkle and rattle like mini maracas

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Stacks of mysterious papers

Not to be moved

A secret filing system

Shelves packed with books,

Her travel journals

And the walls—a museum

Of prints and paintings

The strawberry picking migrants

In their straw hats

Tree of life tapestry

Embroidered gold birds

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She bought what charmed her,

traded her art for collections of

Intricate buttons, filigree silver

Venetian glass, mother of pearl

She tried to feed

the dark hunger

that vacuum of terror

near her heart

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One more clay rabbit

One more cloisonné pendant

How do you fill a space

the exact shape of God?

She Space

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With her, I don’t have to talk.

She doesn’t mind if I

curl up on her couch

with my notebook and pen

She doesn’t ask what I’ve written

She reads a book about a poet

I’ve never heard of.

She makes her Earl Grey tea in

a green polka dot cup

and rooibos tea for me

in a cup that says

I quilt so I don’t kill someone

Her cat dives into my backpack

We laugh at the same time

I email her the website

of our former lover’s

dance video.

Wow, amazing, she says.

For years

we’ve lifted each other up

through divorces

hot flashes, secret longings

We’ve shared clothes and craziness,

She’s honored my true self,

as I have hers.