What comes back. What we let back in. The long slow work of re-entering our own lives.

Return

The heavy weeks pass. What's left is the small, the ordinary, the dishes. This week we practice re-entering our own lives, slowly, on purpose.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Journey

there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company

The Morning After

i went back to that room
i always keep going back to it
to that house, that home.
she's still there
they both are
alive 
and well
and no oxygen machines 
and no hesitation to sugars and salts
just yatzee
and sorry!
and pancakes
and sunny d
and late nights laughing
and early mornings giggling and yawning
and love in every bit of the house
and paint covered aprons 
and messes that are laughed over
and stories about family
and lullabies sung 
and pillow forts made
and happiness
before the death.