There are days…

There are days
when sorrow
reaches
into my being,
when heartache
resurfaces
and I’m devoid
of meaning… When the sun
doesn’t notice
and the moon hides,
when tears fill
the emptiness,
and grief collides… and the swirl
of emotions
is hard to bear,
I’m caught
in embers
of a downcast glare… Then I search
as the waters rise up
to greet,
in saffron colors,
awash
in the streets… And my gathering
of tears
visibly wanes,
as the gentleness
of nature
quenches
the pain…

©AllysoAlly2020

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Crying on the inside

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
― Mark Twain

Yesterday I went to report my son’s estate to the Estate Officer,
and she gruffly asked me why I had taken so long?
I gasped,
and choked on my words……

What I should have said to her was….
“I couldn’t get up each morning,
my world was blown apart,
my life completely unraveled,
here’s my shattered heart!”

Instead I said
“I don’t know”
and I tried to explain,
that grief is overwhelming
it debilitates the brain.

My body shook when I wrote down
“estate late beloved son”
she was unsympathetic
and I couldn’t
wait to run,
into streets
of understanding,
to scream out the words
“I’ve lived in hell for seven months
and life has become a blur…”

I really thought
she’d understand
what grief can reduce one to.
In times of outrageous sorrow;
I doubted I’d get through…

Why is kindness deficient
in a world of despair?

All I needed was concern and some tender loving care…….

©AllysoAlly2018

Our Planet weeps..

On Friday this beautiful baby Humpback Whale washed up on our beach.
He had a huge gash in his side, but no one knows yet what happened.

On silken sands he washed up,
from unforgiving seas.
Sea birds lingered impatiently,
on the gentle breeze!

They measured and prodded him,
many shed a tear.
On a bright winter’s morning,
such a sad affair…..

Our planet weeps silently
and all of nature mourns.
A juvenile humpback,
his beauty slumped forlorn….

©AllysoAlly2018

Heartlands

One of the most difficult decisions to make when a loved one transitions is what to do with their ashes?….just saying those words out loud holds intense pain for me, because it is an acknowledgement that my son’s physical form is no longer with me.
My son lived on a beautiful farm for a while, in a caravan that overlooked this spectacular valley. It is a self-sustaining farm and he helped plants vegetables. He sent me a message one night to say that he could see flashing lights in the sky and he asked me if I could see them. The sky was so clear that night, perhaps he was getting a glimpse of glory. The farm is appropriately named “Heartlands”. It is a place where he found peace, joy and love. So it is an option for me to plant a yellow-wood tree there with his beautiful ashes beneath the tree.
This farm was ravaged by a terrible fire a year ago, and they are in the process of rebuilding and replanting.

I can’t speak the words,
they died on my lips.
Their impressions linger
in my sobs.
The image in my mind
burns
in charred embers,
glowing,
searing pain in the intensity of sorrow.

I tried to put the words
down on paper,
but my frozen fingers
would not articulate
the movement of these words.

As I slept they smouldered
and throttled me.
Shrouds of memory erupted
in the stillness,
in dead of night.

Can’t I just pretend that he is still here,
full bodied,
alive.
Do I need to make that journey
with him,
into dust,
where the brown earth
would welcome him,
and a tree would stand proud,
above his Earthly remains?

Should I be glad that what is left
of him
fertilizes the earth?

Oh those words that hurt
and punch
the breath right out of me,
that my bones
could ache with such emptiness,
and soul shattering longing.

In the cold dark embodiment of fear
my hopes and dreams died.

In this pit
of darkness
and dread,
will my pain remain forever,
buried
under soft earth,
writhing,
remembering,
and take up residence in my being?

“No!”
His tenderness speaks to me
in vibrations,
emissions of light,
only known by my soul.

I must make this pilgrimage,
across fields occupied by brightness,
where he watched the stars
on tranquil nights.
He dreamed there,
in a caravan of hope,
and perhaps even glimpsed eternity,
in these Heartlands,
where joy still reigns,
and bristles in the majestic trees,
awakenings,
memoirs in poetry
of being loved.

I scream,
“he belonged to me”
and in those ashes are his bright eyes
and curly hair,

But those flames,
could not take his laughter.
I can still hear it,
echoing in the wind,
unforgettable,
kindness,
my child,
now shaped by pure light,
soaring…..

©AllysoAlly2018

Elegy

Day twenty four….http://www.napowrimo.net/

It’s been so dark, the nights,
and so grueling, the days.
Missing you. My salty tears,
plunge my despair.
There’s an ache, so deep,
without your presence,
without your thinking mind.
We shared so much, and explored realms
only some dare go.
Questions filled your soul.

Late night conversations,
messages of light, out of the darkness.
Now an empty space, an abyss!

The desire for answers, pressed in.
Questioning the hard steel rails,
while green fields of promise,
lay before you!

You were loaned to me, I’m thankful,
my shooting star, up close,
you burned with the fire,
of wakeful dreaming, a radiant presence,
that some did not recognize,
in the very cold light of day.

In a sometimes heartless, unconscious Earth,
you knew sorrow. You believed in truth, always,
and you desired to change the world!
But no one was listening, though you
made strides, in secret, where no man saw!

You struggled with hurt, and loss, and rejection!
But now the heavens acknowledge your greatness.
Always written, in the stars,
inscribed on the everlasting firmament!

In death many saw your light, your sacrifice,
of open wounds,
and those who knew you, gasped,
at such a loss, of one so generous, so kind.
Questioning the passing, of one so great?

Here on earth, your work is done,
you have gone back to the source,
to the light, to belonging.
To where there is no shame, no fear!

You forgave, the neglect, the judgement,
because you knew you were far from perfect.
And now that you have crossed,
to where the light is bright, clothed in glory,
every dream fulfilled, every question answered,
and your soul is at rest,
I can hear you say “I’m safe home Mom”!

©AlysoAlly2018

Don’t call me macabre…

“Their absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

don’t call me macabre
while i search for
safe harbour
in graveyards
of doubt
with bloodcurdling
shouts
a life cracked apart
a fragmented
heart
bleeding into
my dreams
i’ve lost what
it means
to have
sanity of being
it’s asylum
i’m seeking
though
death hides
in plain sight
in fears that
may smite
on pebble stone paths
in the
cruel aftermath
your name
is enthroned
with desolate groans
candles glow
at noon
and no soul is
immune
to the brutality
of loss
lines will
be crossed
some morbid
some benign
those
memorial shrines
and flowers in the hall
are a tearful squall
when
i think of your name
overwhelmed by the pain
do they understand
bereft
and unplanned
it’s
untimely grief
demanding relief….

Plunged into darkness, but finding light..

“The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”
― Gerald L. Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

She went to crypts of sorrow,
and when she found him there,
a morass of grief
seized her,
and took her to its lair!

She beheld intense darkness
and encountered merciless tides,
lost in forgotten catacombs,
where
apparitions reside!

When obscurity
threatened,
and beguiled her nightmares,
her prayers had no form
in this limbo
of despair!

The light that she envisaged,
at the end of
unbearable pain,
was more glorious
than she imagined.
and all that love contained!

The epilogue to grief,
and everything in-between
is eclipsed
by signs and wonders,
of mysteries unseen!

©AllysoAlly2018

Harmonies of brightness

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Is happiness elusive
when we’re carved out in grief?
Do portholes open,
so memories can receive
a breakthrough of sunshine
on the gloomiest days
to fill hearts with gladness
and even a little praise!

In between the sorrow
we permit ourselves to smile,
and let miracles hold us
in joy for just a while!

We cannot forget the heartache
raging through our being,
though harmonies of brightness
show signs are still receiving,
each Earthling’s sacred essence
full of hopes and dreams
there’s more to this Universe
than hearts can conceive!

Look at the sparkling wonderment,
faint whisperings in the dark
feeling divine rhapsodies
of souls that left their mark!

Traces in the sunrise
and birds that understand,
the symphony of heaven
glory’s great expanse!

©AllysoAlly2018