Seasonal Expectations

June 1

SEASONAL EXPECTATIONS

If I am out of sync with the way the world turns, I can be nothing but disappointed.  I arrive with ice skates on the hottest summer day and grieve the loss of spring.  I shiver in my sandals and ponder the need for a windshield scraper, the autumn leaves so long past.  I must orchestrate my moods and movements with the evolution and revolution about me.  I will learn to sing with the doves in the morning and the coyotes, come the moon.  I can spin with the stars.  I can grow with the grass.  I don’t need to counter- balance life.  If I learn to bend with the tides, it all comes around again.

If moles can make hills you can move mountains

*

Soul Chiggers

If you can seed apprehension deeply in a generation,

you can reap disillusionment for a hundred years.

Bent foresight twists hindsight.

Admiring ignorance, signs death’s warrant.

Evil splintered to a thousand slivers

burrows  under the skin without killing their host.

Death delayed spreads destruction along with melancholy;

a septic contagion if ever there was one.

How do we fight this systemic blight?

It is embedded in the water,

the air, the mind, and try what I might;

I can’t seem to live without any of these.

Chiggers of the soul feed and breed

no matter how I scratch and chew.

I am raw, but still infested.

How do I kill what is in me

without killing the me?

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

Face and Ass

March 31

Face and Ass

“It is hard to save your face and save your ass at the same time.”

What I haven’t tried in an attempt to live my life as a showman spotlight front and center.  What I wouldn’t sacrifice to keep peace and image intact, but in the end it was just that, my end, that saved me from a life chasing prevention of defacement.  I can’t live with the posture of an ostrich it leaves so much at risk.  Hiding my face won’t protect it no matter how much I wish it would.  I have to put my butt in a seat, a seat up front where folks get to know my face.  I have to try my best yet still make mistakes and let people know my ass as well.  Being a part of AA saves my behind, once that is cosseted, my face might just get its day in the sun.

Don’t invite ridicule, but deal with it if it comes knocking at your door

*

PADUANS

The pussy willows bloom
Looking much like crested poultry
The coldest part of my heart
Is fighting to thaw in this early spring

Weather is not of the mind to be rushed
My hopes nor the changing calendar
Can persuade the warmth into the May morning
It's May for me too

No longer the early sobriety of  January
The years have marched on
I wait for the delivery of my returning brains
Long-term sobriety has begun

I am still beset with the chill of fragility
I desire dignity but find myself strutting
Like a fowl with blooming plumage
Addled and gawky

Don't worry says my sponsor
The pussy willow is in no way less
For showing itself
In the rawness of growth

My Babies

July 31

MY BABIES

Too often I have abandoned the infants of my creativity to doorways and charities.  Having little patience I did not raise them to their intended station.  Joyful parentage need not stop at the cutting of the cord.  Downplaying the importance of each birth, I would leave beauty and art to be foundlings and the province of others.  I can share the guardianship of these precious gifts and be more than a brood mare for cunning and craft.  I have neglected things apparent for the promise of each new conception.  Overpopulation weakens the body of my work and leaves my portfolio listless and immature.

Touch your finger with your nose.

*

Charmed by Snow

Warm weather snow falls in fat full flakes;

I am living in a world of dreams and sweet peas.

Sudden dustings sparkle and surprise

leaving as quickly as they came;

yet the world is kinder now.

Beauty is an ambush of the heart.

My breath alters, accelerates,

speeding me to a smile, an illustration of joy.

Crows walk the edge of the hedgerow,

prattling on as they do;

snow to their ankles and food on their minds.

I drive over the mountains

discovering myself as the recipient,

the receiver of all this great gift, this life.