Morning drips in like coffee.
I think of you. It is the
hardest time.  I begin the
day in sips. My tongue
burns with greed.

You seep in through the
slats of my sleepy windows.
The day starts with memory.
Your red hair curls
around the sun.  I reach out to
touch you.  I want to kiss
the blue of your eyes across
the table.

I, sadly, drink the dregs of
my morning, wash the azure
off my face and dry my tears
to carry me through to
tomorrow.

Mornings drip in like coffee.
I think of you.

Caroline Shank

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

My work
written December 16th, 2020

When I was young
I thought I would have children
work I dutifully showed up for
and a home
maybe not with a white picket fence
but you get the idea.

The children - the home - the work
did not come
I thought I had failed
not tried hard enough
fallen off track.

I did not realize
that life had diverted me
put me on a different path
which I am still discovering.

My children are different from yours
my home and my work
things that only I would recognize
as home and work.

Do you see them?
I will teach them to you
with my words
in these poems.

When heaven turns from light to dark
the substance remains the same
but the sense of it changes.

What was just clearly seen
now shadows only hint at
ghostly outlines of mouse giants.

Now the moon with her varied phases
rules the shaded depths
in this time of her dominion.

The petals of the moss rose
curl up in close surrender
bereft of the sun's bright light.

That which was bold
curls up under evergreens
to sleep on a bed of pine needles.

Owls pierce the night sky
derisive of the night-blind masses
as they dive for their just rewards.

All waits for the heavens
to turn back once again
from dark to light.

sometimes
i wish you were the poet
because sometimes
i just want to be the poem