ghost

she cries into her hands in the softly lit room...

she is the reason children still tell ghost stories...

i can hear it,

i can see it coming down the hall...

draped in white, she sings through tears,

music coming from her

like the song of a thousand strings...

she cries before the cross,

lays herself down,

a river to make glad the city of the Most High.

sweet lady, what grieves thee?

dear lady, what sorrow...

she must have been real at one time

the way her weeping catches in her throat--

fighting herself, casting off demons that plague her memory long--

sweet lady, who are you?

dear lady, what beauty...

and tragedy makes sweeter still the ashen frame,

a pain that prods the past and future dame,

still very much alive,

so very much alive...

she is graceful but not liquid movement,

not luminous but pure and clean,

and now before my face, her presence

is all grace has ever been.

i am cautious

as though treading on the ice of Spring,

refined, exhausted,

weak to the warmth of April.

this she cannot flee.

i am afraid that much she cannot flee.

sweet lady, where are you?

dear lady, what dream...

12/12/09

He looked at her with the sorrow of a grown man crying. A mysterious sorrow, one that she couldn't help feeling in her hands, her face, her eyes. Every pain of the world was hers in an instant, her burden.

She wanted to touch. She couldn't touch. She wanted to cry out. She made no sound. She wanted to breath. She had no breath. A new part of him was laid bare before her, an answer to the glimmer in his eyes that she had come to know by making him laugh. She regretted asking the question.

If the silence had lasted any longer it would have killed them both.

"We're right here," he said.

scatterbrained

my fingernails are yellow from peeling clementines.

each time i approach the door of my building,

i notice the head of a red carnation

broken from its body,

neglected,

underfoot.

every time...

i may be acclimating to white noise,

but my mind longs for silence,

silence to fill with its own clamor.

forming letters is therapeutic.

forming words provides relief.

words that become solace for you

are my greatest successes.

Time is threatening me with its motion,

right now.

inescapable,

but not all powerful--thank God!--

it leads and follows,

pushes and drags me,

a leash and a weight at once.

but this gift--for that is what Time is--

this precious gift is a most valuable tool.

without it, i am lost.

without it, you may be too.

without Time, we could not be timeless.

our words would have no walls off which to echo.

like a blanket

weariness wraps me in its arms.

they are uncomfortable

and overbearing.

yet i belong here...

i have not done if i cannot be done.

i have no need for rest if i am never weary.

it provides a hope that constant respite could not bring.

focus--

see the letters are all cloudy.

though deep in thought,

i have naught to show,

not yet.

and even this

will slide beneath the cracks in the floor

and find its way into the shadowy recesses of history

never explored...

but it wants so earnestly to become something,

to develop a face,

and to be recognized by that face.

it can see, with one-sided eyes,

that no one is looking back,

not yet.

not yet, it chides.

my sleeves slide down my forearm

to remind me that they are too short

or my arms are too long.

my sweater's faded pattern takes me to my young self

on the carpet with her dolls...

the smell of the basement,

that lingering scent of books,

of learning...

(and i have separated myself from this moment...)

let me not live in memories, however dim or bright,

but in the light given me by hope,

that hope given me by faith,

that faith given me by love.

what Love!

what Love...

away,

i've come a long, long way...

evening poem

the sky is vibrant pink-purple-blue,

a cold color saturating colder air.

the tree branches form intricate patterns of black lace—

all i can see through the window—

alarming, alluring, alive…

sweet chords fill my ears,

and a familiar voice

gently proclaiming love, pain, reality…

it is more potent, more understandable through music…

these words i’ve been thinking,

these notes i’ve been living

without knowing it till now…

the blue seeps into the purple,

more defined, overpowering;

but purple gives way willingly,

and with a placid sigh…

“the evening is yours now,

the evening is yours…”

blue rises and deepens,

like looking back into my own eyes,

in recognition of something more beautiful still

in the dim light that makes me squint

and yet sets everything aglow

as with all the energy stored up from day.

in between.

i want to say it’s soft, comforting,

but this evening is oppressive.

in all its beauty, it is cruel.

i cannot judge it because it is inevitable.

i cannot hold a grudge against what must be.

but this day was ours,

and i do not want to let it go…

you remind me of the light of tomorrow,

and with that thought,

we accept that the black lace has disappeared.

the window has disappeared,

so that all that remains is within.

back from the bookstore

i like to be on the road. by myself, i can sing. with you, i can talk... and sing, but we stick mostly to talking. it becomes a state of being. neither here nor there, but in between, on our way, looking forward...

i've bought some books. some out of necessity, some out of desire... no, all out of necessity i suppose. a woman needs her books. even Emerson, whom i don't particularly enjoy, made his way onto the pile for purchase. whatever my likes and dislikes, it strikes me that had i lived when he lived, we may have had a conversation (however unlikely...) and now that his words have made their way to my eyes yet again, why not converse in the present?

"off to it then," i tell myself. soon enough i'll be back on the road, on my way there...

come by storm, you've come by storm...

words and music for this rainy day...

Come By Storm

by Laura Gibson

when my eyes survey the tree line
i'll recall a voice
and how I took great care with words

all that was a picture

was a poem, was a poem
words were trees of brown, of gold
you were a place i had come to know

if the dark falls early
would you come in the night,
would you come with the morning,
come by fire or come by storm

when my days turn to gold,
turn to gold,
and pull to the sky,
to the sky,
i'll recall the time i was more alive
when i lose myself to words
did i die in your arms
or did i die alone?

when the dark fell on me
did you come in the night,
did you come with the morning,
come by fire or come by storm...

unremarkable

i've sat a long time, staring

at the roots of trees.

for me to see, they must be uprooted,

disturbed.

then i can imagine,

and they need feel no pain.

i smell the dirt

and touch the earth,

call up the mem'ry from every trip home...

the fallen tree that pulled with it an almost perfect circle

of ground,

a halo at its base,

lying by the road, tucked away

by the bushy arms of its brothers till winter comes

i want to stop.

i've wanted to for a long time.

months, years...

each time just a glance,

a glance at my holy tree.

now i need no picture,

just the memory.

and in me, i bear the halo,

i smell the dirt.

in the pavement and the florescent light,

i have the earth,

and shall not be uprooted.