Clock and Calendar Girl

April 2

Clock and Calendar Girl

I depend on the count and measure of time to get me through.  The swing of the pendulum carries me from moment to moment and the divisions between days are like the rungs on a ladder; I climb from month to month and age to age.  When I hold my breath I count the tic, tic, tic till the difficult time passes and I can inhale once more.  Harder things require X’s in their numbered boxes to help me transverse the larger distance and rockier terrain.  Take away my clock and I go deaf, remove my calendar and I go blind.  Tools are tools even if they only aid sight and sound.

Address your future

*

THE SCULPTOR

Stuck in a block, my sponsor chips away at me
I struggle to hold still
With surgical precision she cuts through the debris
With which I have surrounded myself

After my sponsor frees my hand and arm
She places a hammer in my open fingers
When the other arm and hand are rescued
She places a chisel in that hand

This is how before my head showed above the surface
I began to help in my own restoration
I am the sculptor
The program has made me

Recovery has taught me
I can be anything
If I keep chipping away
At the things which hold me hostage

As time travels on I am a new shape
With each turn through the steps
And have an ever lustrous finish
With every application of the traditions

The Landing

June 19

THE LANDING

Risers and runners lift from where I stand.  Here I make my decision.  I climb and face the challenges of my life.  Each new test returns me to this square; the steps ascend in every direction.  No matter how many times I have scaled this set of twelve, I must start anew with even the slightest change of direction.  Like facets on a diamond’s base, the flights emerge from the tiny base and hold the world of possibilities within their meticulous surface.  I look into these precious mirrors to see who I am and where to go, though none of this would be possible without a place to stand.

Chart the constellation of your features.

*

In the Beginning is the End

I wonder if the road would show the reflection

of its end would I walk down it still.

I always decide that I wouldn't want to miss anything,

not even the most painful things,

yet this may simply be a flaw in my upbringing.

An overvaluing of survival.

What of you?

If the knowledge of beginning and end

were within your grasp would you begin?

Would you flee the end?

This end or every end?

Or is it the beginning that you fear?

And why not, for doesn’t every beginning

hold within it every end?