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 Jun 2018 krm
Annie


I get it. I totally get it. I can finally see who you really are. You've been rejected so many times. You offered love in a tray fabricated with flowers and glitter and somebody threw it away. Yeah —I see it now. I see that look in your eyes. You're screaming inside. You want people to see the real you but at the same time you don't want to explain yourself to them anymore. Because you're tired. You're exhausted from all the mess life has put you through. People judge you for being the way you are but you're so desperate for them to realise it themselves —that the real you –that the real you is still capable of receiving love and giving love in return. But it's not happening. You're cursed by your own deep, dark thoughts and it's a cycle you can't escape from. Unless —unless someone good enough pulls you out of it.
 Jun 2018 krm
John Copley Alter
Forty Days

A Season of Grief, a Season of Rejoicing

November 9-December 20, 2014

For Barbara Beach Alter 
It is Christmas morning in Saco, Maine, where today Bett, Aaron, Emily, Thomasin and our beloved cousin Marie find ourselves gathered to celebrate our first Christmas without dadima (our name for Barbara Beach Alter).  Brother Tom writes that already in India he and Carol with Jamie, Meha and Cayden (the only of her seven greatgrandchildren Barry never held) have celebrated.  Today Marty and Lincoln join us in Maine.

This gathering of documents—notes, drafts of memorial services, poems, homilies—is my christmas present to each of you.  It is a record, certainly subjective, of grief and rejoicing.

John Copley Alter
1:14 a.m.
Saco, Maine 
November 9

Loved ones,
Barbara Beach Alter died peacefully at 2:55 Sunday morning (today).  Bett and I had the good fortune to be there for the final beating of her good strong heart.  She murmured charcoal.  The nurse who was bathing her afterwards noted how few wrinkles there were, and it is true.
For those of you nearby you may if you want visit Mom in her room at hospice this morning (until noon).  Visit? Darshan? Paying respects?
Bett and I plan to be there around 11:00.
Much love to all. A blessed occasion.
John


November 10

Matthew 5:13-19
Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

yesterday in the early hours my mother died her saltiness
restored all that had through the months of her old
age and convalescence obscured the lens of her life cleaned
away so that for us now more and more clearly
as we hear about her through the memory and love
of so many people her good works shine forth in
their glory but it is to the days of her
convalescence the days of her dementia I would turn our
minds those of us who spent time with her at
Wingate long-term care facility remember that Barbara Beach Alter became
at times fierce in her commanding us that ‘not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter’ of the commandments
should be altered do you remember that those of you
and us who were given the work and gift of
spending time with Barry in those days in that condition

remember for instance how fussy she became about the sequence
of food on her tray how impatient with us for
our trespasses and violations how adamant that we look forward
for instance and not back at her how she would
say stop holding my hand and saying you love me
you have work to do o she was almost impossible
and certainly incoherent and demented in her obsession with law
and procedure fussy impatient imperious I do not forget being
scolded reamed out put in my place for having somehow
failed to do what the ‘law and the prophets’ demand

Barbara beach alter in the days before hospice in the
nursing home and hospital and even if we are honest
in the final years of her life found herself caught
up in the rigidity of her anxious desire to be
faithful to the laws and commandments of her life and
that made her at times extremely demanding to be with

amen and the epistemological confusion of course the clash between
her reality and ours it was all an ordeal for
her and for those of us who kept her company

and yet and yet through it all and now as
that ordeal for her is no longer paramount as she
dances in heaven all the wrinkles and discomfort of her
life removed and forgiven Barbara Beach Alter kept the faith
living in the midst such that those who cared for
her most intimately the strangers all professed your mother blessed
us


Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.



So, brother and sister, here are my thoughts about the memorial service(s).
Let’s find a time when we three can be present; that’s the most important thing.  My life is currently the least constrained by agenda and schedule.  And then the grandchildren, recognizing that Jamie may not be able to come.  So, our work is to find our when our kids are able to come. Bett and I are exploring that with our three, each of whom has some constraint: Emily, the cost; Thomasin, the piebaking demands, Aaron school.  But we are flexible.

Much love.

John



Walking in my mother’s wake today some trees
a gentle breeze some dogs a little boy
the neighborhood and I took joy from interaction

we are at best a fraction in love’s
calculation after all heaven I realize is not
above or below cannot be taught comes naturally

as death does walking in my mother’s wake
I found new allies learned yet again not
to take myself too seriously to be caught

off guard as a matter of principle and
not to insist that I understand but live
in the midst of forgiveness


in my mother’s wake I am reading these books for
some way to continue to knock on her door Wendell
Berry he can tell me some things and William Blake
he can take me closer and I remember she described
me once as an unused Jewish liberal so I am
reading about protestant liberalism but ham that I am also
reading Carl Hiassen’s Bad Monkey and Quo Vadimus that my
daughter left behind and mythologically Reflections from yale divinity school
no fooling Denise Levertov David Sobel Galway Kinnell’s translation of
Rilke some wake

November 11

Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

this morning in the wee hours my mother died one
of the wise bridesmaids whose lamp to the end was
full she carried always the flask of oil that is
joy that is the love of the kingdom of heaven
and of the bridegroom a flask always replenished by prayer
by devotion by a humble courageous living in the midst

she expected every day the bridegroom to come in other
words and she was also one who would never refuse
to share even the last drop with somebody in need

and at the end it is so clear the door
into the banquet hall was not closed to her as
it is not closed to any one of us foolishness
is to believe otherwise to believe that the bridegroom will
not come today in the early morning in the wee
hours that is when he comes in the midst of
other plans is when he comes even when we are
doing what we assume to be good work when we
are doing what gives us pleasure our duty joy comes
then unsummoned unpredictable random even according to all our best
laid plans my mother loved so many things her pleasure
included dancing late in her life terminally unsteady she invented
what we loved to urge her to do namely the
sitting jig and we grew up with images of her
Isadora Duncan dancing with white scarves in an enchanted forest

Barbara Beach Alter aka Barry aka dadima bari nani aunt
and daughter wife missionary is now I know dancing a
rollicking boisterous jig on the shores of a lake that
is as her grandson once confided to her god in
liquid form spilly Beach of course also dyslexic executive function
compromised she was but one who loved to be always
in the midst surrounded by loved ones some of them
absolute strangers she shared her oil because for her it
came welling up from an inexhaustible source a deep eternal
well of such illumination and laughter such giddy divine chuckles

for her there was to be no exclusion she would
not find the awful idea of being one of the
foolish applicable to anybody but happily she welcomed into her
midst so many it is hard to imagine how many

so there she is now a bridesmaid dancing for joy
in such elegant clothing with such perpetual brightness

amen hallelujah rejoice


sometimes I think she pulled us all out of the
magic hat sometimes I think she knit us all into
one of her theologically impossible sweaters and then with a
wink she passes through the eye of the needle and
is gone and we are left to play in her
honor endless hands of solitaire sometimes I think we are
no more than the hermeneutics of her life the epistemology
artless she was not her heart like one of those
magical meals for her then a doxology praise then praise
she knows salvation

what is a life’s work it is like a landscape
dotted with oases and gardens for the thirsty and the
lost it is like scraping through dry barren ground and
finding there suddenly not only the theology of paradise but
such seeds your hands ache to begin the planting what
is a life’s work what has been shut for too
long opens what has been shut for too long opens

a life’s work renews itself then with death the kernel
of hope that dies in springtime sprouting is what a
life’s work becomes

November 12

John 21:15-17
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

I know my mother very much enjoyed having breakfast with
god and that the meals of her nursing home drove
her nearly crazy and that when at last she found
hospice o she again could imagine the feast of heaven
at which Jesus breaks bread with us and speaks with
such clarity do you love me more than these I
know it was questions as simple and overwhelming as this
that dominated her final days do you love me love
being  one of the last five words she attempted to
speak do you love me she wrestled in her last
months with epistemology and psychology and theology and all had
to do with whether she could answer unequivocally you know
that I love you and that she could say of
her life that she had broken bread with god we
all remember in her life those moments when there was
a great gladness an innocent acceptance of what lay immediately
in her presence now those months in the nursing home
tormented her in precisely this fashion that it was hard
to accept to be in the midst of such mediocrity
and woe to be innocent and accepting but now praise
god there she is a happy guest at the great
feast and we left behind bereft can acknowledge that she
loved god in her own fashion as best she possibly
could and do you remember being with her there in
hospital or nursing home and she commanding us to move
beyond holding her hand and saying we loved her and
to feed the sheep to do that work which will
make of this earth this here and now an outstation
of heaven Barbara Beach Alter loved god in her own
fashion as best she possibly could we remember that and
that memory is today like a great network a web
of love and inspiration o we would gladly one more
time hold her hand and say I love you but
we know also clearly I think today what the work
is to love our neighbor as ourselves to work for
peace and justice I think of my sister with her
colleagues in WEIGO and how her sisters have understood her
grief  let us break our fast together then glad for
the worldwide web that in these days is reading the
gospel of the life of Barbara Beach Alter praise god


feed
tend
feed
in exchange for his three denials Peter is given three imperative verbs
feed
tend
feed
this is the commission Jesus after breakfast on the shore of the sea of Galilee gives to Peter
twice he says feed
in the commonwealth of Massachusetts 700,000 people are hungry
1 in 6 americans are hungry
living in uncertainty about their daily bread
more than 18,000,000 in Africa
842,000,000 around the world go to bed hungry


Marty and Tom
The thinking about the memorial service is taking this slow and cautious turn, namely that we have three services (at least), one in Sudbury, one in New Haven (allowing Stan and Chuck and others to come) at First Presbyterian (with Blair Moffett we hope), and of course one in India.
The date frame appears to be somewhere between December 17 and 20, unless you have other thoughts.
The actual cremation happens tomorrow.  Lincoln, Bett, Alexis and I will attend, and then of course there is In the Midst on Friday.
Love you more than tongue can tell.
John


the thing with a life well lived is that many
people have partaken the way let’s say a river moves
down through any number of different lives all the time
sedulously seeking the shortest path to the sea to steal
a line from somebody or other meandering a watershed within
which so many of us find a way to live
our own lives nourished and for each of us the
river distinct and different white water the slow fertile meander
the delta and we say to each other this is
the composite river


sometimes I feel like a sleepwalker trying to run a
marathon sometimes I feel like a speedbump in a blizzard

an arrow in a wind tunnel sometimes I feel like

a hazard sign in an old age home sometimes I
feel like a tyrannosaurus rex trying to ride a tricycle

and sometimes those are the good days when identity is
strong like an icicle in a heat wave is strong

I try to read wisdom literature at happy hour scotch
and Solomon can’t go wrong I think and sometimes I

feel like crying

November 13

four days ago we were left alone there with your
body after your breathing ceased and the proud stubborn beating
of your heart and in those four days beloved mother
so much I would love to say to you and
share the antics of the squirrel late leaves on the
neighborhood trees music Orion the network the atlas of love
your life has left behind and all the words we
are the gospel of today and I would sit with
you there then in silence as I sit now four
days later vigilant insomniac aware that the kingdom of heaven
is not more complicated than singing than love than dancing

we are all dancing the dance lord siva teaches and
the s
 Jun 2018 krm
Robin Carretti
Pain_your heels digging
On your marble floor
Pain knock
knocking on_ heavens door

Suffering, tormenting,
             painful pretending
Pain in mating,__  Pain in the A-- 
             Did you ask?
Pain_
Change__ Splendor in my grass

Rearranging, Engaging, Just pass
    Disappearing on me
  Surprising disguising
                    Multitasking
Pain is playing, the change might be Losing
The pain
never asking more howling

Needing, Neverending, Meddling
Lying, Dying, Riding, Hiding, Caring
Daring, Compromising, No denying

You wake up crying no joke
another smoke Cancer, Prancer,
Clover, All over, Lose her, Need her

Pain is comforting how could this be
The world inventing stupid things
The tweet bird has broken her wing

When I sing there is no pain gainful rain
Feeling numb, dumb, succumb, Rub
Dub tub, Snob, Rob, Spongebob, ****

Painful color Monday why do we feel
The pain like spinning wheel power suit
blue
yellow green-pillow red dress
Cant, we wear any color painful confess

Kick in the but mules so torn inside
Nowhere so excruciating and painful
where do we hide pain change guide

Pain to change not jiggling spare change
Pain/Paradise ((United Way)) someone
will always pay what's black and white

Pain over the website like a parasite
old in the ancient times, completely new
Pain? Gain Change/ Plain and simple

Love your Church or Temple
Pray to be loved to join me my poems
like the bird of paradise upon you
Meeting the world it's up to you
Inspirational how we feel pain but that can be changed in different variations a whole entire nation do we feel alike or different type of vibration what really are our colors our moods our pain do you have any clues
 Jun 2018 krm
Doug Dombrowik
I will move away from my comforting structure and rhyme.
Why not take the one shred of comfort I have left?
Do I write for her or me?
I do not know for sure
how to answer.
Shall I begin?


It was a day as any other, I was eating as I do.
The place was empty and desolate.
My eyes must be mistaken.
A cruel trick of the mind.
Crushing the heart
to nothing but
a heavy
hole.


I look again
and I see that my eyes
are not deceiving my heart.
Is this the moment I have prepared for?
I slowly walk by. There she is again, the one who
haunts my dreams and crushes my soul at her very thought.


Coward.
I walked by
only to keep walking.
I will think of the words I must say.
This will give me the courage to face her.
Deep breath, there she is, here I am, what am I doing?


My legs begin to shake and my hands begin to sweat.
I am looking her in the eye and have lost the ability
to speak, to think, to move, to be!
I am as cold as the ice that now
runs through her veins
as a result of me
and what I
did to
her.


There is so much I want to tell her that I can't express.
I still think about you often.
I wish I could change
The past and I
hope that we
can maybe
start over
fresh.
I know that this may be a hard thing to do.
I know that it is something you probably
do not want to attempt with me.
But this whole thing is strange.
I wish I could tell you how
I truly feel about you.
I wish I could say
that I truly care.
I know it is
pointless.


What are the chances of you actually holding back?
How likely is your apathy a mask for your pain?
Blasphemy to think that you are showing
a face that is not truly how you feel.
But what if that was the case?
What if you were holding
back something that
you wished you
could share?
What if there was a secret place where you wrote a poem too?
Could there be a side to this that you are hiding from me?
Are there feelings that you are still hiding from yourself?
These are the things I think of while I am alone.
I cling to the what-ifs, and cherish the past.
But there we were that day, talking.
Trying to find a way to fix
the past the best way.
Does she know
the reason
why?
I do not think that she understands why I did what was done.
I do not think she knows why I could not tell her.
I do not think she is aware that I began to care
for her and I needed more time to think.
Do you remember the night we
became one body, one soul?
That was the very night
I meant to come clean.
This was day three
and was meant
to be the day
I confessed.
But there you were, so beautiful and perfect.
You made the night so amazing I could not
ruin what we had started. I knew at that
point I wanted to continue because
I had feelings for you.
It was not about ***,
it was about you,
and I together
to see what
it could be.


Do you remember the night I came clean to you?
It is a night that haunts all others as I sleep.
I did not tell you because I wanted you
to leave. I told you because I was
finally sure with what I wanted.
I wanted to be with you.
I wanted to see where
this could bring us.
You cannot deny
our chemistry.


Do you want to know another thing I didn't tell you?
I know that you were hiding your feelings.
The apathy card did not fool me at all.
I know that I really hurt you.
I wish I thought you
did not care.
But I know that this is not the case with us.
I feel like I broke your heart.
It may not have been love
but it was something
special that I have
never felt before.
Although you
won't admit
it, I think
that you
felt it
too.
Two people do not get that close that soon.
I wanted to continue with you.
I wish I would have been
able to keep you from
going back into his
arms again.
I mean
who
does he think he is, treating an amazing girl so poorly?
I absolutely despise how he treats you.
But what can I say to you?
I can be better to you?
Be more genuine?
I know I can
but I have
lost your
trust.


I tend to write dramatic, and I often come across as sad,
but I try not to feel these feelings in my everyday life.
I often do not really know how I am feeling until I
begin to write it down in this secret document.
This past Wednesday was the last class of the
semester and it was the only time that you
were able to really get to me, I will admit.
I felt like you were trying to flaunt him
in my face to add misery to our
confused triangle of supposed
friends and unsure lovers.
It may just be all in my
head but I was the
fool who let it
all get to
me.


I was embarrassed and surprised that I felt something like jealousy.
I know that you are now dating again, I have heard it from both
of you, although you told me in very different ways.
I hate how he told me, and I hate how he talks
about you. I think he is okay as a person,
but I do not think he treats you as well
as you deserve to be treated.
However, as long as you
are happy, then I can
tolerate anything
and anyone
else.


There is one thing that I wish I could ask you.
It is going back to the day we last talked.
You said that next semester maybe
things could be different with us.
But how did you mean that?
Did you mean that as
maybe being as
friends once
more?
Clarity in these words I wish I had.
I am torn on what to do next.
I don't think I should send
This one to you.
I think that it may say too much.
It may be too clear, too bold.
Too ordinary too unpoetical.
I wonder what you think
Of these poems. I wish
I could have a real
answer someday.
I wish one time
you would
respond.


Life, Like this poem, has many ups and downs
like eternal stairs that are left incomplete.
The best thing we can do is to try
not to be one of those people
that sadly gets left at the
shorter end of this
Eternal Circle.
Poem #4 12/8/11
 Jun 2018 krm
Mikaila
My life
Is leaving you behind.
You, in that little town,
Me, being tugged and stretched
To fill an enormous world.
When I am across the ocean
When I live alone and leave everything behind
What then,
For you?
My life is leaving you behind.
But I can't.
I shouldn't still love you.
I shouldn't still wish for you.
And sometimes I don't...
But you have something of me.
I can't explain it.
There are new loves.
There are better loves.
But you are the background.
You are the foundation.
You're in the air,
You're on my skin
And you would never even touch it.
But somehow you still own it,
Every inch,
And I know what grief it will be
To see you grow up and fall in love
With someone else.
I know that to be near you forever
I will have to endure
So much more of that,
And on my weak days I wonder
Why everybody else gets a whole chance.
You, in that little town.
We don't belong to each other anymore.
But I will always belong to you.
I know there will be days
On London's cobblestone streets
That I will be unable to forget your face,
That I will worry and wish for you,
And I wish I didn't know
That I'll love you until the day I die.
I wish I didn't know
I'll be writing you poems when we're old and gray
And married to other people.
But I do.
I know it.
At the end of the day,
When I am stripped of everything
You remain
And that is the most comforting,
Devastating thing
I know about myself.
 Jun 2018 krm
Lexi Cairns
The greatest mistake we make is teaching our children that monsters are not real
They are, but not in the way we imagine them
They do not hide under our beds
Do not even look like what we've been taught was evil, can't even see what is lurking
Inside of their heads
Movie villains are easily spotted in all black, ***** and cackling
The things that hide in the dark are not demons
I know
You're not a monster, you're a human just like me
Easy to pity because we both cry and bleed
You are not a monster
But you have seeped into my veins like poison
It does not matter who I am with
You will rise like the ocean and swallow me until I can't breathe
Wrapped in the arms of a lover
I freeze
His hands are not his hands his teeth are not his teeth
They are the hunters
They are yours
I know you're nothing but a ghost now
It's only the shadows of memory that seize me
But i'm back in that room and the door is locked
And I am locked and I am trapped
by hungry stares and greedy hands
Prowling like a lion and I am the prey tonight
Shouldn't have let the wolf inside
But you were dressed as my friend in an Abercrombie shirt and Hollister jeans offering what I thought was a comforting hand
But I am locked in your claws and they tear through my clothes
So I use the only defense left to me
The last resort mother nature provides
I play dead
Hoping my frozen body will somehow deter you
Turned off every light in myself one by one
The city in a power outage
Stepped out of my body like a ghost
Cold and unknowing
Hide from myself the way you cover a small child's eyes
so they wont see the ******
But pretending not to see it will not save you
Warning signs are there for a reason
Trigger warning trigger warning
I ignored all of the flashing signs
Why would I guard myself against someone I claimed to be like a brother?
Blind-sighted
Thrown off the cliff and your arms drag me down like an anchor
I am already dead
Wishing I could drown not even bothering to hold my breath
Your smile used to be so inviting but now your eyes are loaded guns and your teeth are like knives waiting to tear me to shreds
And I cannot run and I cannot hide
My body is mine my body is mine my body is mine
I know that he is not you
But you could be anyone
And in a way you already are
Because 77% of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows
And in a survey of college men 51% said that they would **** a woman if they knew they would not be caught
All the voices are yours
Telling me that I must have wanted it, because "Look at what i'm wearing."
Every shadow following me
Still hunting me as I walk to my car at night
Always prey as I look behind my shoulder every two seconds like a twitch
And I run so I can get there before you do
Every time
Before you can climb in like you did before
"No" was a word you could not comprehend, could not understand
But if dogs can learn it and listen then so can you
You were not entitled to enter my car, my house, my bed or my body and especially not my soul
I do not desire your attempts at worship
Will not let you take off my pants so you can
"Make me feel like a real woman"
I am fire burning every place your hands have touched
My body is not a piece of meat to be sacrificed on an altar
Not yours for the taking
I am a temple, a sanctuary
And you are not my God.
 Jun 2018 krm
Jason Weihl
I passed by that tree the other day.
The one nestled between two thorn bushes
and just past a ravine
along the upper trail of Old Man’s Cave in Hocking Hills,
surrounded by two thousand acres or so
of dense forest.

I laughed to myself because
The old birch hadn’t changed since I had last seen it.
But it certainly felt different.

The same gray cloak of bark
covered the tender matter inside.
Golden foliage still swayed above me
like it did on that brisk November afternoon.

Today is brutally brisk,
but I have to admit that I did stop for a second to reminisce
under the once comforting blanket of its shadow.
I fixed my now nostalgic, sepia-toned gaze on the bark
and traced my fingers over the scar that we left.

I remembered looking for the perfect one with you.
It was this one, we both thought.
And so were you, at least I thought.

My cold blade carved into the robust fortress of its surface
exposing the birch’s reddish-tan, natural finish underneath.
It then became our tree,
not just any tree, in a forest, on a planet full of them.

I remembered you telling me a couple months back about
how much you admired trees,
and how I should read Trees. Reflections and Poems
by Hermann Hesse, and I did almost immediately.

“Trees are sanctuaries.”
was our favorite quote from the poem, we decided.
And it was the most relevant.
Our tree had become a grand symbol
that would carry in our memory,
what it meant to love and be loved.

But now its just that,
another tree in a forest
that we scarred.
And that, now, scars us.
 Jun 2018 krm
MS Lim
I'm dying
but death I deny-
I'm still living

though hope is not in the offing
yet  with every dawn
there's sweet unfolding meaning

as I've loved living
there's not a stint of sadness
in my soon-to-be departing

I've been listening
to Schubert's Das Tod Und Das Madchen#
death is a friend--a thought so comforting

my poetry is my life entire- -singing
to me is each line drawn from
my body-system which is failing

you my friends who brought me poetry books for reading
late into the night I kept awake
I'd been through Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth and Browning

yet more,  the other poets remaining--
the true poet never gives in to weeping
his poems triumph over everything

you, my dear friends, now I'm biding
you good cheer, do promise you would go away smiling
knowing I've loved every moment of living.
* eminent Scottish poet (born 1898, died 1946 of TB). Also wrote DIARIES OF A DYING MAN (posthumously released in 1954) which inspired this poem of mine.
#  Death And The Maiden, written in 1817 (Schubert died aged 31 in 1828,
a year after Beethoven).  He was buried next to Beethoven at his request.
 Jun 2018 krm
Nat Lipstadt
the thermometer's rising red mercury,
a truest signal-fire of  the
approaching well-fated
army of summer days,
their inevitable return
prophesied and more accurately foretold by heated degree,
than any solitary red X penned,
marked upon an island's
dog-eared firehouse kitchen calendar

the imaginary sounds of their solacement
inside the heart beats louder
than any timekeeper's ticking clocking counts,
mechanical reminders of a return inevitable,
comforting but impoverished upon compare,
to the warming solace of hearty silent sun sounds
far louder in the mind, than that of measuring throbbing metal

for nigh, nigh the hour's of your carriage come hither
does near approach and laden heavy by
the long time distanced poet's exhausted hopes,
a labored long voyage, soon to be ended,
yet worthy-word laden,
promised peace, carried within it,
a steady straight forward rolling gait heard,
that, it's Paul Revered lanterned combined signaling,
one if by land, two, if by sea,
for I will come back, traversing both

"return, return poet
to where thy fellow musketeers,
wind, sun and sea
have impatiently waited,
we, your corporate grayed chair's guardians and protectors,
memorizer's of the poetry of our yellow scented,
electric conspiracy, rusted silent, now too many months,
your voice transmogrified
by sophisticate urban airs,
man's unnatural pollutions,
we woo and will you, make over"


Ah, that Adirondack throne,
my summer body's glove,
magical wooden carpet
flying the mind's eye
to places where unfriendly times,
give way to reworked words
in a refreshed world, that makes sense again,
the joy tears that layup on and in it imbedded,
know only of the comfort of a
nature's shelter never withheld

"the winter's pale thrashing has skinned
and stripped your voice of its true timbre,
you gaze only inward, obstacled your vision,
seeing only whitecap seas of internal distress


come hear the seagrasses waving windy welcome
listening rapt  to your summons of convocation,
and the celebration of your traditioned blessed evocation,
a combine of old poems, old tears, and fine oak memories,
new candles lit, new waves crashing but soul soothing,
let us cleanse the taunting taints that inhabit,
our duty to inhibit the unforgiving stale self-reproach
of winter's ugly poems and slushy fears


we are folk honest, your summer companions,
acknowledging that what haunts your interior,
to the task of cease and desist we are inferior,
but in your chair, by the bay, the old words refreshed,
and the new poems of hope and scents
of yet better days promised


of that, of that
we do not promise,
of that that we bonded guarantee
a pledge of mutual fealty


we smell you and taste you in every old recirculated breeze,
as you inhale us and exhale toiled tribulations,
we will be married-vow renewed,
a new peace of sorts imbued,
far far better, than no peace at all!
"
I write more and will post less,
but this weekend I hope to journey
my own one hundred miles, across three isles,
employing bridges and ferry,
to get back to where I write a different kind of poetry,
and the bad, the surface cracks within welded shut,
the winter's road ruts,
filled and sealed,
melded by nature's lighter than air cement

though the cracks within cannot be
filled or healed
by them alone,
a lush quietude invades
and does the best it can...
the photo my winter's hairy tale,
scissored and dispatched,
and an old memory restored, replaced,
my new island audience and followers,
who disapprove or approve of what I write,
by leaving, or honking OK!

if you care, search my old summer poems,
and discover the story's of the chair, the island, and it's unforgiving
demand to write...
 Jun 2018 krm
Kelly Bitangcol
In every battle, it is impossible to never have a speech. I have noticed that in watching movies. Like in Independence day, the President delivered a speech to the U.S Fighter Pilots before the battle. “ Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world.”, yeah that’s how it goes. Or like King Aragorn’s battle speech at the black gate in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, “Hold your ground! Hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers”, he said. And it can even be a simple “May the force be with us” before battling with the galactic empire. And you cannot only see that in movies, there are speeches in real life which also inspired people to fight, like Patrick Henry’s Give me Liberty or Give me death, Winston Churchill’s We Shall Never Surrender, and our battles in our lives. Everyone will always encounter battles in their lives, and maybe we also had speeches for ourselves, created by us, for us, to continue fighting. And they say having a mental illness also means undergoing a battle. Many battles, and one of them, is a battle against the stigma. A battle to end the stigma of mental health. And now I will deliver my speech, to everyone of you, this is my battle speech, telling you to stop romanticizing them.


Poems **** once said that depression is a strange, yet comforting feeling. Comforting feeling, when you feel absolutely terrible, that even eating ice cream and watching your favourite movie can’t do anything to make you feel better. And when they ask you what’s wrong, the worse part is you don’t know. When you’re all alone, and no one is there for you, so you just feel like your inner demons are hugging you and telling you to just end everything. It’s when people tell you that happiness is a choice, it’s like a multiple choice exam, in which you just choose the best answer, but why does it seem to me that the choices I got were nothing compared to the best, and where is happiness? It’s none of the above. There is nothing comforting, nothing artistic, nothing beautiful about depression. It is not an artsy tumblr poem, it’s not an aesthetic, it’s not something you wish you could have,  depression is a total *******!


A twitter account said that anxiety is just another form of excitement. So does it mean that when I have panic attacks, I am just excited? When I avoid everyday situations, when I can’t get out of my house, when I can’t even get out of my bed, because all of those things cause me anxiety. When I expect the worst in everything that I do and it will ruin the hell out of me. When I’m in a job interview, and I suddenly have my panic attack. When I feel that in every place I will go to, I will experience danger and catastrophe. So you see, that anxiety is not another form of excitement, it is not a trend, it’s a difficult thing to have, it's experiencing chaos everyday in your life and who would want that?


Why do we think that having mental illnesses are wonderful? Why do we wish to have them when there are people suffering? Why are we belittling them, telling them they’re crazy, that it’s all in your mind, but can’t you see, that having chaos inside my mind is the most difficult thing you could ever have. Why do we think they’re weak, when they are fighting battles everyday and they never give up. Why do we think that people with mental illness are just asking for attention when they are asking for help because that’s the thing they need? Imagine that the demons inside of you gave you a gift that you didn’t want, and you can’t seem to destroy it, to leave it, because you think your demons have won. But they didn’t, and they will never. And we are fighting with you, we are with you.


In every battle, there will always be the ones who win. The ones who will achieve the greatest feat, happiness and contentment. But they say, that this battle against the stigma, is a never ending war. However, have you all forgotten who we are? If this is a never ending war, then we are the  fighters.  And we will never ever stop fighting.


*(k.b)
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