Not getting younger
Just aging
Engaging
Increasingly less
With a rapidly changing
World climate
This virus
Has taken its toll
I can see the night sky
Through the atmosphere hole

As I sit and greet this day,
Warm I am, inside.

As the pink morning sky blazes before me
In its pure, autumn glow.

I let the petals burst from my heart.
I am in love.

I suffered silently
But healed loudly
All alone

If anyone asks you I am old
and out of shape.  My legs
curl under me when I stand.
There is a whoosh in my ear
from the fall the other night.

My face of many colors
goes before me like an
electric light.  

I wobble on shifted
ground.  No longer young
I am a cramp in the leg
of time.  

My children go before me and
I watch and I wait.  They are
middle aged and turn to their
own concerns.  

I remain ununderstood not
that I was, clearly, ever taken
for the woman I was.  

If anyone asks tell them
I understood the song
of madness,

and I wait for
the end
of reason.


Caroline Shank

This afternoon I
didn't
mean to keep
you
waiting by the
phone
for a call
from
me that didn't
arrive,

I just didn't
respect
the time you
allotted.

lights flicker
in the distance
far far below

I’m here
looking down on it all
wrapped in a blanket
a book lies next to me
pages flipping themselves
in the cool summer breeze
inside are the sounds of life
outside are the sounds
of the questioning
the air is filled
with random notes
fluttering around me
like guardian angels
I know why they’re here

darkness
sat down
next to me
to keep me company
we look at the flickering lights
in the distance
he tells me
you’d do fine down there
if you wanted to
be a light
surrounded by light
but then he shifts his gaze
the moonlight
dancing through his being
but you’d do great
up there
be a light
where no one has dared to be
and with that
he left

alone I find my soul alone I find my life
I look but can not find you so here I am alone
look for me. find me I am alone waiting for you
just look up and say hello i am here for you