Reflections on a Wednesday
              Afternoon
  
While waiting for an appointment,
I am **** bench numb uncomfortable.
I glimpse the yellow corn fields
out of the window…

I am sixteen.  The Autumn
of my last New York year.

Oh no, I am not dead like
the girl in the book I read.

I'm old and my youth
touches me.  I no longer
jump like a girl, but i
observe.

The traps and snares of
memory, alive among the
detritus of those years
dump into my basket
like fishy Fridays.  

We had a cat as
white and feral as
lightning. She would
lick the Friday platter.
We worried about the
bones.

But I digress.

The corn leans in, a
deliberate stretch
to hear the sounds I
left

I was a child of the 50s.
So long ago.  

The memories
are squashed

by the army
of commuters

who always
smote my

songs.


Caroline Shank

Your early inborn magic did not
fortell the whirls and winds
of the future.  The shine of
youth ended in turbulence.

Dismania, like fingers, touched,
you.  Ivy on brick, the tendrils
pierced.  Walls of
uncertainty nourished
and you, welcomed the

future.



There were no tomorrows.

Pulling you through the
mirror of myself you tore

into
uncertainty.

No Magi, not even
with gifts of surcease
brought by the force

of love
released you.


Still the running child
you crash into a future
whose spiders claw at you.

Tomorrow waits
protected
by your addiction.

Reach into the future
all you want,

you cannot tear the
crawl of your destiny

away.


Caroline Shank
10.13.2022

Morning has broken 🎶.  The song
of a single bird brings down night's
shadows, chimes the diurnal
trill of a new day.

The same shiny blue glare
everlasting.  

Gathered moments.

Groceries for the soul.


Caroline Shank

I. The wind blew.

The journey was rough.
They bent to avoid the
amber sand.

Joseph was fierce in his
Orthodoxy

Mary encircled the
Child. Tonight
would change
The World.


II. Bethlehem

Jesus CRIED, the
wind  stopped,
         the

Light of the World

        Arrived.



III.  Christmas.

   The
journey of the Magi.

The storm burned in
the night  A voice
In the wilderness
shouted.

Peace came briefly.
Midnight

slouched

toward Bethlehem


Caroline Shank
12.10.2022

He caught her thinking.  The
crossed legs signed
resignation.

She'd bloomed and thought
that tonight was lost

to expectation.

He rested his memory
of her smoke filled
denial.

Nothing left emptied
emotion.


Caroline Shank
12.9.2022

They're all dead, the men who
loved me in the backseat or
on the water bed.  Or not.
Or mostly.

Bless please the memory
of warm nights and street
lights.  The rock and
roll of hips blinded by
loves.  The music

of traffic going by.


The voices of love in
the night.  Rhythm
me now.


I loved the rhyme of hips,
the Song of
Throats rolling and
sibilant.  

Ghosts who haunt me.
Let us pray.

Come to me tonight.
Rescue me from

long nights with the

Lamp's signal's

Flash incessant.


Caroline Shank
12.6.2022

You were young, on the
cliff of summer. Amazing stirring
possibilities.  Running in
the rain.  Stars hid.
Crepuscular love on
the brink of light.

Wet and loud you toked
a joint without me.  You
footed the soil.  Your
name became reckless.

Young is not the only way
your wet strings tore at
you. Screams from the
doorway dove into the
beds of dead flowers.

Many years spinning and
the muddy leftovers of
yesterday toe the mind,
eclipsing memory.

It is waiting that brought
you to this place.  Your
red hair under the
Summer sky shone.

The years after the caul
lie on your thoughts, reluctant
to uncover nascent
feelings.

You inhale.

I write to bring home the
surreal sun on the skin
of time. Before

you left
me.

Caroline Shank
12.5.22