he came to me
with a crooked smile
I let him in
and smile with him
now i'm searching
someone who will
smile with me

Like a summer breeze time flew away
Suddenly I'm december
Staying in home felt like a blessing
But now a curse

A pandemic cursed
A panicked earth
Virus unending
Fear is spreading

We face oppression,
Suppression of all side
Surprise that we fight for
basic human right.

A year of of chaos
Unending torment
But the fruit of victory
is born from the ashes of failure

Now its time to charge
Towards the unending darkness
To light up a pathway
Towards 2021.

The way he holds me in his arms
The smile on his handsome face,
The look in his blue eyes
The way in which he smells,
The sound of his  gentle voice.

The sound of his laughter
His sweet kisses
Being wrapped in his love
Feeling the warmth of his skin
The way he always spoils me
he always calls me "Annie"

time is drifting,
days are passing,
souls are dying,

world is ending,
are you preparing
to meet God soon?

I never expected this.  That
in my 70's I would be ink
on a blank page. That my
life's work would be poems
on a shelf, written about
gone people, dead memories.

I never wanted them, the memories, the reflections
stored in old coffee cans.
Waterlogged letters saved
from decay to become themselves decayed.

I will sit forever in my chair,
me and my notebooks fallen
around me, incense laden,
curled around my slippered
feet, hiding the poems pressed
in the pages of my youth.

Caroline Shank