SURVEILLING THE SILENCE

 

I sweep            the war-torn

landscape

like a surveillance       camera

scanning

 

the waste and ruin

for signs

 

of survivors.

I see none.

 

Only a terrain

riddled with

the visible scars

of so many

recent skirmishes.

 

And then it hits

me.      A concussion

 

implodes within.

There is more than

the obvious devastation.

 

Silence, I see, is its own

incendiary device. It can trigger

 

a pain and cut deeper

than the shrapnel

from any detonating land mind.

 

The silence after explosions

sometimes       is far more

damaging than

 

the explosions

themselves.

TULIPS AND PAPER TOWELS

 

This was the grocery list I scribbled down

at the end of an unnecessarily

 

busy day. To read those words

on the tiny Post-it Note

 

and then to say them out loud—

which I did many times

 

like a prayer—

 

made me smile. I loved

what my tongue and lips did

 

with the Ts and the Ps.

I needed that smile.

 

I had an ache inside

that I did not want

 

to feel. So I added this errant errand

to my day as another diversion

 

from the bouquet that had just lost

           all its petals, and to avoid the mess

 

I couldn’t clean up,

but desperately wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NO APOLOGY

 

The trunk

sturdy and stoic

holds its pose

yet

 

each of its myriad leaves

thrash on branches

gusted by an implacable wind

 

Clouds overhead

race to cover

the indelible sky

but can’t

 

blue always

bleeds through

 

LIGHTING THE  LOSS

 

stubs    where limbs

once were

 

still the light    

shines

 

bathing the severance

no matter 

 

              the loss