Autumn and I dance
October’s two step
across earth feeling
the stardust in our limbs
drawing us closer
to the moon.

Impatient bleak holds
its brush to paint
our waning on the
stark canvas
of winter’s landscape.

Even with a calendar
determined to strip
us down to fading,
we are bursts
of burnished gold
encouraging the sky
to dress in its deepest blue.

Grandma’s kitchen didn’t
have room for me.
There were no warm fuzzies,
honeyed memories, or even
a space at the table.

With her smothering, mothering
of my cousins I was an end of the line,
barely know your name, grandchild.

My arms never reached nor did my lips ask
for affection…Grandma didn’t have any urges
to spoil an apple outside the walls of her orchard.

Times were tough…I didn’t get a choice
to be angry or sad…I slipped into the slot
life made for me, and was taught my first
dandelion lesson of how to bloom in drought.

Death owns the mossed headstones
orphaned by time and muted stories
no longer spoken in mortal’s rockery.

Fallen epitaphs .... names surrender
to nature’s bloom and winter frost,
broken granite bouquets tied with wild roses.

Where pain no longer visits, peace speaks
poetry through meadowlark and aspen sigh,
souls long gone now rest as poems cradled
in the arms of Mother Earth.

You weren’t there
when I stood tall
in a scribbled note.

I was sixteen,
blushed naïve
with first love,
yet wise enough
for dignity.

Your “*** I’m
too busy to call”
worked for two
weeks, but intuition
spoke louder,
“He’s lying.”

With every bit of courage
a black Bic held in ink
I wrote…
          Dear Randy,
               If you don’t respond
               to this note, you’ll never
               hear from me again.
                                   Susie
The phone didn’t ring.
A letter never found
my mailbox.

As a heart does at sixteen
mine broke into a thousand tears.

I swam the river of shattering
until my spirit fell on the shore.

After being resuscitated from why,
I rose stronger, proud I trusted
the lighthouse within me and
not the tormentor who didn’t
care if I drowned.

There is not a firm step in Autumn.
The snowfall of bright falling leaves
invites me to dream as I rake
them into blankets for winter’s nursery.

The anger I so often carry in my steps
surrenders to the sleepy hours of shorter days,
the gentle voice of house slippers whispering
across my bedroom floor.

This year of sterile rooms and moans
quietly disappears into the mist
of kinder memories, hot chocolate mornings
that speak you don’t have to hurry now.

So many believe it is a new year that commands
resolutions, new beginnings, but it is when
trees explode into their confetti last hurrah
I begin to feel the first flutter of new wings.

The moon flirts
with me in muted
winks through
a window shade.

Most hunger for
the sun’s heat,
but it’s the frosted
light of midnight
that warms me.

My silhouette dances
on the kitchen wall
to the music of
a distant wind chime.

In the silver blush
of secrets I don’t
face eyes that judge
or words that scar.

Draped in sapphire shadows
I hear words yet written,
feel dream chills on my skin,
and imagine tomorrow
threatening stars with sunrise.

But now that I’m here,
freedom feels fragile,
and the dreams are quieter
than the fear that found me.