The sunshine melts in from the dark.
The summer sunflowers start their  morning yellow glow.
From the dark of nights despair and suffering.
The light of questioning wakes up,
I begin to ask why the pain?

Did I, or do I have the capacity to be optimistic of my will? Over matters of the past?

Shame, denial, self- soothing, trying to escape emotional pain through all varieties of addictive responses to life.

Understanding this new target for my heart, mind, and body gives me optimism of the will while
knowing
there will always be suffering.

I ask myself, what is my capacity? As the light rises in the morning I feel more air to breathe in.
Aware of the air inside of me whether in dark or light, carries some vessel of hope
to help ward off the strength of suffering.

I am not the wave. I am the ocean. The womb. Conceptualize
the possibilities in this morning dry landscape,
before abandonment. Conceptualize having what you need. Ease and compassion enters. Possibilities move through with ease and healing is within reach.

The capacity to heal needs warmth like the morning globe of light.

Held like this
A cupped hand of water
held still
that not a drop
enters gravity's pull.

Held like this
The hens egg.
Rounded palms together
without allowance of pressure
that would crush the shell.
Frail possessions.

These are days she remembers beyond all vicissitudes she faced.
Not jagged. Not stewing or careless.

This untainted moment
of protection
for something that will give back.

A drop of water
becomes a cup that was
dry as a bone.
The egg becomes
a breakfast feast
weary of starvation.

Hold life like this. Prudent,
tender and earnest.
These times she keeps
for consideration.

He called in for a shower after being alone on the streets for a week.

Is that time enough
to get ***** for a shower
   as a man nearly twenty-six
in years.
She could turn him away
like her father’s sister
might have and did.
From time to time.

It all depended on how many times in a week,
month, or year
he would show up without a call.
Without knowing he still existed.

Somehow, his presence and
absence
were a mixed blessing.
His presence was like a merry-go-round
that goes against the earth’s pull.
Like a brazen thorn
stuck into your shoe.
Unpredictable.
Vacuum-like.
******* all the ***** things in.
Taking everything in its sight
and power and making
everything contort
to his reality.
Where he and only he resided.
Would she open the door for him?

What she does know
is that she might risk speaking
in a bright happy voice
of a mother
so gladsome to see her son.
Welcoming him in.
Rather than turning him away
because of his inconvenience.
Grief is inconvenient.
That is one thing she knows.

The Leftovers  or   (The Ones Who Survive)

Recipe: ****** *** Pie
The dope, the spoon,
In gutter water
Why did he die, not she

When does it end
Those who survive
Left out to cool
With no friend

Fiends and friends of addicts
Mystify us,  who do not understand
What makes them keep shooting
Into veins of foreign land

They join by ignorance or associate
A friendship they say more strong
Then that of a parent or a childs love
This couldn't be more wrong

The twine of codependency
Makes fools of us all
When one of them dies
Pleading for answers while wishing the other would fall

These are the Leftovers, the suffering addict
With their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends
Who may have saved and tried before
Their pain and shame more severe if you pretend
You are not an ingredient
No less a fiend if sober
If you don't show up
To soothe the pain of being a leftover

Recipe: ****** *** Pie
The dope, the spoon,
In gutter water
Replaced by methadone

When does it end
Those who survive
Left out to cool
With no friend

Nothing is familiar
I have no place
A stone in a field of grass
the wind bends the grass
the stone looks around
nothing is familiar only the ground

Nothing is familiar
Where did I go
what is to be done
Lost in the avenues and avenues of my  Mind
There is no strength to pick up the stone and throw it away
It would just be in another field of grass
Estranged

Nothing is familiar
not even who I am
unknown
The painted landscape has no shape, where should I put the tree
no familiarity
Scanning the clothes on the rack
I used to know they were me
I am no one now
Nothing is familiar in this estrangement

Start with self.
The others can wait.

Thoughts are just passing clouds for which to meditate.
Observe the world as the observer, not the taker or receiver.

Judges are for benches. Do not sit alone.
   Stand and walk into the songs of birds.
   Free within your self called home.

The Illness

You spend exponentially
All services of every cell in your body
For years
To keep an ill one alive

Possible prolonged moments of happiness and hope
trickle in
Between the hospitalizations

Your spending is what you find out
He doesn’t trust.

What one finds out
Is ones unprepared-ness
My son wants to claim his life
For himself, to which could be his end or not.

Like the breaking egg, beak first
Or sunlight cracking through trees
Where light comes out and gives birth
With uneven decisions
Will I live?
And what IS living with a chronic diease like?

What he believes is not that he doesn’t trust you,
He just wants to trust himself.
What other choice in the insanity defense is there
That would be as human, then giving freedom of choice to him.