Finding Beauty


in brokenness is a
fine how do you do Ma

You broke me in slivery
pieces when I was a little
girl. I am crackled like
the century in which we
were born.

You died with the tainted
Soil still on your hands.
I outlived the strangled
ivey you plaited me with.

My mends are obvious.
Gold veined patches
wind through my skin.
I am not an art form.

I am good wood burned
dark for your satisfaction.
I peel off the bark.

I found not beauty, but
redemption in the years
beyond your death.  I am
unbounded and only
slightly born.  

Life is an adventure but
to you it was a safari.
Your family was your
prey but it's ok

I have found beauty in
my life anyway.  You almost
killed me.

But...

"That Which Does Not
**** Me Makes Me
Stronger"


Caroline Shank

I hope to see you soon,
in the morning with
rumpled hair and boxer
shorts.

I hope to see you soon,
when the Spring sun
is high and the blue of
your eyes wash the
shadows of separation
away.  

I hope to see you soon,
when stars crinkle the
daylight and the songs
of the night cricket
compline.

Will we walk the
lined path along the
beach of memory?

If there is nothing left
after the lighthouse has
gone dim and illness
separates us forever

know that I will be
there in the interstices
of our heart's last
singing.


Caroline Shank

I'm oh so far away from
where you are.

I have climbed your mountain
and found only scree and granite
at the top.

Others have been here and left
a stone.  I have nothing to leave
you but an empty dish. A cold
meal once eaten is like a frozen
embrace.  Empty is empty.

I am walking away from your
promise like a cat leaves a
deserted dish.

No! Do not touch me.  
Touch only the breeze as
I leave.  Do not speak to me

I lie
in the air,
crying with the
gulls.


I mourne
Kaddish.



Caroline Shank

It's the wartorn pedestrian
whose  tears fall on the
heart's side streets.

Veins of regret that curl
the same pain.  It's not
the sorrow that hurts, it's
the gullibility of time's
unlearn-ed lessons.

The old suffer
most.  The pandemic
of hope again in
the release of
lyrics left long ago.

The letdown lisps
it's own goodbye, prefigured
in the drawl of soft sighs.

Goodbye is muted
and falls to the floor.

It sinks to the power
of your poetry.



Caroline Shank

She could not abide the
accolades.  Every syllable
scratch and poked through
her.  Layer after layer the
thorns of praise tore her

until one day she stowed
stones in her pockets.
She walked along the
side of the water, not
thinking now, not even
the recitation of reasons.

Thousands of words
behind her and she
did not think they
mattered.  She walked
along the bank and
gathered pieces of
granite.  She hoarded
these like treasures

until she had enough.
The first step was
cold but unnoticed.

She walked into her
death like a nun who
no longer feared the
confessional.

Her hair floated around her
like seaweed, fingers
like fish.  She stopped
the flowers of language

until there were no
more petals.  She died
consumed by a
brownness welcomed
after the lighthouse
darkened.

Mrs Dalloway
never gladly held
another day.


Caroline Shank

You are the wind.
You are the words.

Down in the hollows of
my throat you are
the songs I hum.

Your growl sounds
take me out of me.

Lay me down.
Ta dumm

Strum me.

I am the riff from
your guitar..
Play me now.  

Turn up the radio.
"It's been a long long
time."

"Play me."


Caroline Shank


Conway and Neil
and me.

I don't have anything to hold
you to me.  No picture or voice.
Do not go, but turn
if you feel the draft of your
name brush against you.
Know that it is I who sent it.  

I am a listener these days.
Listening for your voice
that called my name.

I do not publish you but
gently unscroll the days,
those summer days, so
short, when you said

forever.


Caroline Shank