I cried because I'm old.
You said age is just a number.
I cried because I'm ugly,
Age has collapsed me, taken
     from me the looks of
     interest.
I cried because the end is near.

You have given me the looks
my soul seeks.

I cry now because you are
     far away.

“You Raise Me Up” plays
     on my heart.

There are tears of longing’s
     frustration
now until you happily walk
     off the plane
  
  toward our life.

when we will sing
     together happily

in
  
   God's Grace.


Caroline Shank
11.3.2024

Reflections
Those whose singular licks
of love grow aged and
Holy in the light of old
memories,


whose hands trace
lines on her body
in the grooves and
branches of the


forgotten, laden
with the names of
the unborn possibilities
call me in the night.


I am the listener who
Never sleeps.
I have my own stories
which trouble my pen
to widen the nights


of loss, you, and the
dreams of my


Old


Age






Caroline Shank
11.1.2024

Raw is when I scrape my
bare knee.  While the curl of a
bleeding bone can be seen
in bas relief beneath the
red blanket of the aid
worker.

Will a bandaid help?

I think about the war, well
any war.  The rude smears
of blood, the silence that
carries voices across
continents.  Television
surpasses even what

my imagination imagines.
I think about you in the
doorway to the aid station.

The world according to
CNN.  Children's screams
form a sound blanket
over which you must
scream just to hear

your many secret sounds.

Secret for the breadth it
takes

to reach your caring
embrace.

I want to die in your arms.
If I have to fight for the

Singular look of a love

No one can

damage

I Will.



Caroline Shank
10.30.2024


.

When the Universe lies
once

the vellum
of the Book of Life

fades.

The ink (always there is
Ink)

Sours.

You are my Page ;
play me.

You are the

Voice in my sleep.

Crying.


Caroline Shank
10.26.2024













⁹)

I am an American woman.
Rough and oddly strange.
I rebel against Dandelions,
I celebrate the omnipresent
Ladybug assault every year.

My age is irrelevant.  The
patterns in the gardens
of thought are my friends.

Some of the night’s whinning
winds wake me before
I remember you.

Time slaughters thought.
No syllables amount to
clarity of forgiveness.

I am an American woman.
I cry in private places you
know nothing about.

My God is still overseas.
In time the laws of
Harmony

will send you

also

Home.

And what will you do
with me then?

I am an American woman.
Here are my credentials…

Don't just walk on the
pages where it talks
about me.

Briefly.


Caroline Shank
Was here.
October 25, 2024

!.

At a desk, coffee sachets rest.
Long-life milk harbours
white dreams of expiry.
Shuffling in his forgetful nest
a grey man blinks
at the intruding light.

Americo, do you remember
your antique power,
that opened like a rose
on the walls of Hiroshima?