Daughter of my life you are
still so fragile.  

I wait for the phone call that
will come any minute

Someone come and help me.
I grieve for your childhood. The
weather of our lives before
storms drove me underground.

You did your head to the
storm thing. Face forward to the
landscape of your reality.

I, underground, hid your self
against me.  I rode the waves
of your addictions.

To this Winter day I have only
the remnants left of your
early years. A few pictures,
a stuffed animal named Coffee.

You cannot come back to me.
Gone are your bounce and
the hugs around my waist.
Your tears that filled my brain
with helplessness.

You are all alone in this trap
of my mind.  The madness
slips through me.. Your tears
are but dry sand.

I want no tears to your
intentional desertion.
Silence to your pleas, and
old music before you

were

born.

Caroline Shank
12.18.2022

Help me make it through
Oh God of my unknowing
Brace MY name unto
even the farthest heartbeat.

The clocks dim.
I no longer hear the
movement.
.
Hand of years, the
children and the
getting. Minutes
bend the geography.

Take
me to the
honeyfields.  

I lie
down

to Sleep

I pray.



Caroline Shank
12.16.2022

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