I watch the pendulum swing on my Grandmother’s old clock.
It’s three hours and twenty minutes off, and she can never fix it.
She keeps it anyways.

When I was little I used to sit in front of it
And sing along when each hour hit
Three hours and twenty minutes off.

The old clock used to wake me up at night
And I’d climb down off the top bunk
To check that it was three hours and twenty minutes off.

Now the clock is shoved in a corner,
Old and forgotten,
But still three hours and twenty minutes off.

My Grandmother’s new husband fixed the old clock.
He did what my Grandmother could never do.
The old clock is no longer three hours and twenty minutes off.
It will never be again.

I cannot take this scorching heat,
I need to rest my burning feet,
I do not submit,
I can't say defeat,
nor will I run back in retreat,
please I beg a needed seat,
I hear ahead a native beat,

I move my hands in the softest wheat,
awaiting me my native greet me
lovely familiar & very sweetly,

They clear for me some lovely aisles,
I've walked a hundred thousand miles,
I've smiled a hundred million smiles,
endured a hundred billion trails,
as they took my blood in greedy vials,

I held hands steady all the while,

My lips are parched,
my body blistered,
my ink is dark no longer glistered,
there's a sturdy board to which I've sistered,

Teardrops fall like steady pounding rain,
she looks high above in light to strain,
she knows it could not possibly be in vain,
she believes inside she can take the pain,

To see a lovely glimmer of hope
on the distant horizon blue,
violet pink and tangerine are her favorite shaded hues,
she sees a favorite angel who's giving her a little cue,
come to my my darling here's the needed clue,
everything at once will eventually be clear to you,

You are blessed,
kissed by luck and fate,
and today just wasn't quite the date,
now you know why we never hate,
you glimpsed a moment inside the pearly gates,

I release you back to those you eternally, love,
I gift you back there,
with fervent praying hands from all above.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

She was dying
I was sent away
She died
I returned

I am my flower's little one
The petals of she float
Reflect the silver lining
Of a lonely moon.

I am this flower's soft breeze
The petals of she shiver and shrink
Fly in the air
And go back to God

She goes back to God
And never to me.


-- Eleanor Rigby

You.
You who taught me love and kindness and hope
and knitting and optimism and forgiveness and baking.

Yet you were also my first loss.
You taught me grief and how nothing stays the same.
Even a mind can deteriorate so much I wonder it makes me wonder if
you ever were so good.
Maybe I just exaggerate. Because you aren't  here to prove me wrong or disappoint me.
But how could anyone have been so good?

But even if I was looking at you through the rose tinted glasses of youth
I refuse to tarnish my opinion of you
I will keep these glasses forever
I insist.You taught me all this and more.

Because of you I visit grandad more  
to remind me of what
I lost
and a reminder to appreciate what I still have.
That house will always remind me of you
I hope that is ok.

Her fingers cracked and bleeding,
Lead glued under brow, under hum,
And below the sweet Tian He smog,
So rests my grandmother.
She’s gently handing out hope,
Even more, stale and day old bread,

Hidden ‘neath twitch, ‘twixt grief;
Abandoned were the meals, the bed,
And bath, so that the others may eat.
It’s in the shadows I shuffle, dependent,
With a paper-bag to my left and
Other, my better, to the right,

Whilst we wish the silent skeleton,
Pale and fervent, my grandmother,
Some peace, some bread, two smiles,
And but one star, if only one
For her to wish upon, and one more,
If only to grant her ample and every desire.

We've  been anticipating this moment for the last nine months,
I feel our spirit force watching over this child that's about to take a bow.

Our eyes wide open as we see him for the very first time,
And Family spirits past fill the room to honor this special moment.

Thoughts of family ****** features start to become visible,
Pepaw's ears, Memaw's nose, Dads Chin, Moms cheeks and an exceptional heart.

Memaw and Pepaw love you Hunter!
Born: 11/4/ 2016
8.2 Lbs
20" tall

When I was young
We left our Granny
Back in County Cavan.
She surely thought
We'd meet no more
On this side of heaven.
I was but a lad of three,
One of six... no, seven;
For many years
She wrote to me,
Far from the Irish sea.
Inside her air-mail envelope,
She told how much we're missed,
She'd enclose a hand-stitched handkerchief,
Edged with her Irish kiss.

Tus patas tamalonas, your fat feet
Fat feet
That makes the ground tremble as I take a step
My feet are flat
To be closer to the earth
God wanted me to remain grounded
To grow roots before I yearned for the sky
My grandma's feet:
Callous, hard, dry
Her feet were old books filled with handwritten poems
Romantic love journals
Her callous feet had to get like that
So that thorns and nails could no longer hurt
My grandmothers' travesia was grand
Her feet were so eager to move on
That they walked on their own
Patas! Patas tamalonas!
Grandmother would tickle my feet
And I'd laugh
Grandma, why do we get feet?
Because God wants us to walk mijo
Even when your feet are flat
Fat, uneven, or they hurt you must always walk
Stand up when they try to force you to sit down
Because those feet are yours
Today I walk, following your footprints
My fat feet being embraced by the hot sand
As I follow the sound of the waves
There you are
Waiting for me at the edge...

It was a song of sorrow and pain that
was heard miles away from the hospital room.
It wasn’t fine that the world kept moving
when an angel had only just met her doom.

What once was dust will leave as dust
The bones of a fallen warrior, the bravest of all
Lies upon the table, so fragile and small

The world kept spinning and all I knew was
the words echoing inside of my head,
she's gone she's gone she's gone she's gone
The battle finally ended, the reaper has come,
I knew with each step taken I was a step closer
to the truth that she who loved me was gone forever.
My feet got heavier as I heard the saddest melody
in sync to sing a perfect harmony
of weeps and prayers of the brokenhearted,
a sad truth that she was gone indeed.
The whole world fell apart when i heard
the last beep of a dying heartbeat,
the cold touch of what used to be warm.

Oh, my mouth danced the prayer
but my heart still grieved,
for her eyes were as blank
as her soul was gone.