by Kathleen MacGregor

It is spring

But it is not lightness and joy that

Are visiting her today.

The daffodils

Are blinding in their yellowness

And she turns her face away.

The crocuses

Are unfolding themselves and having a stretch

But she walks past them without a sniff.

The robins

Are feasting and round on worms.

So many worms

Lay dead, having drowned and are uneaten.

If she finds one alive on the walk

She picks it up and

Carries it to the dirt beside the road.

Because a worm she can save.

But she can’t save a boy in uniform

In a street

In a war.

She can’t save her sons

From all the ways there are to

Be tortured.

She can’t stop the relentless

Turning of the seasons

And in her heart it feels like

Winter.

And she would like the sky

To feel like winter too.

Her heart feels like bare

Branches, that the trees would be bare too.

Remember how we’re all connected?

Remember how we’re all one?

Remember how killing the whales is killing

Ourselves?

Are you saying that it is I

Who cut the elephants from their faces?

Are you telling me

That I turn redwood trees

Into fences?

I don’t want that.

I don’t want to do that.

How do I stop it?

Yes,

I am telling you that.

I’m so sorry.

You have had to feel so small and alone.

Please, please forgive me.

My unconsciousness.

Thank you.

For be-coming to my awareness.

Thank you for showing me my love.

I love you.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Because his body sat itself down

And I could almost hear…

Because he thought he was alone, unwatched, unknown,

Because I was home and could afford

To spend some time,

I opened my arms and heart to him,

To us.

And because I did,

He spilled his worries and his sorrows-

The purple bags beneath his blue eyes,

His trembling hands,

All the things he doesn’t know

That he needs to learn

To survive in the world,

Trees that get bulldozed,

Whales, dolphins, wolves

And children in wars,

The last flower.

Because space opened up all around us,

Time yawned and stood still

And invited the troubles to linger and be tasted,

And tell us what it’s like,

Because we sat together

In our willingness to feel,

In our desire to connect,

I got to hear him say, through crying eyes,

“When will they know they are killing themselves?”

“When will we know we are killing ourselves?”

Because it seemed much too big for a 9 year old,

I was shaking when I held him,

And together we loved

Not dimmed by grief

But brightened.

by Kathleen MacGregor

While you were away,

I swept up a bit

And shelved the books

That had been piled into

Tottering columns and

Spread across the Ottoman.

Piles you shifted each time

You came home.

Piles  I insisted were

Exactly where they needed to be.

While you were away,

It seems I took over

The fussing,

The irritation with clutter,

The discontent.

The resentment.

While you were away,

I woke up early, and

Made tea before walking

Out into the garden

To prune and pull up some

Weeds, coming in to

Fold laundry and put it away.

While you were away,

I got a lot done.

Calls were returned,

Bills were paid.

And I didn’t write a single poem,

Make a collage,

Or take a nap.

No photographs were taken.

While you were away,

All the parts of myself

That make it fun be alive,

Died. Quietly. Vanished.

As if they never were.

I know who I’d be

Without you.

You are the sculptor’s hands

Kneading, squeezing, pushing

And I am the lump of clay

Coming into form by your hands.

And even if I am unsatisfying,

Never turning out the way you plan,

I am.

And you keep returning to the wheel.

by Kathleen MacGregor

Dear Love,

We’ve changed. At least, I have and I can see how much you’ve grown from boyfriend to husband to father. Thank you for walking with me.

What I want to know is: What is your desire? Do you want to skim the surface of a lake, laughing over waves, behind a boat in summer? Do you want to try scuba diving and go deep? Explore places no light’s ever reached before and be innocent and new together? Do you want to get comfortable in the shade of an old tree in the middle of a cool green lawn with a glass of white wine in your hand, a New Yorker on your lap, and watch the croquet players? All of it? Something else?

I am restless for the deep sea adventure. And the sea is restless for me. I want to be known outside of whoever I think I am. To explore who we are at our cores, to finally be completely naked with you and discover Everything.

Will you come with me?

Always,

Me

Learn the broken, secret questions.

Perhaps morning blushes with need

Even as flowers

Blaze

Bleed

Devour

Celebrate

Its coming.

By Kathleen MacGregor

During those years my children were at school, I was like a ghost haunting the other parents, teachers and staff. Barely visible, gauzy, unnerving. Only the children could see me clearly and hear me – and the visiting grandmothers. I walked in the shadows of the drama mamas, dressed up to drop off their children. Dressed like rebels, dressed like liberals. To me they were the pawns of the government who allow them to feel like rebels by keeping pot marginal. “Don’t make trouble”. They scold the homely questioner. Their voices scrape in their throats. Expensive gypsies. I am a ghost to them, transparent and unreal. They might think they glimpse me but my presence has faded already into a small story, a ghost story of a mother who used to haunt this school. And when I open my eyes my son is sitting next to me and asking what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. I picture his teeth in my jewelery box, tucked into pillowed satin pouches. I don’t know why. I don’t have a plan for them. I only know I want to keep them. My child’s teeth.

by Kathleen MacGregor

What I love about family gatherings,

is being a sister to my brothers.

We play games and laugh and I can see how we’re alike.

I see the shadow of me in them and can love my shape.

I can hear the echo of my voice in their voices and can love

my voice. I love to feel that connection

and I can feel it even though

we’re playing a card game or tossing a salad.

Divided.

Part of me is with the game and the chatter and

another part is sitting back. The great- grandmother.

Watching, listening, smiling understanding.

Sometimes dozing lightly into dreams.

Waking to the sound of my own voice telling the cousins that dinner

is ready. Dinner that the other part of me helped prepare.

We all helped. I love it when we all run outside

after dinner, when it’s good and dark, for a special game of

hide and seek. We are all children then,

running through the darkness.

image from strangedangers.com

by Betty Idarius

“All hell broke loose!” he said
As if that’s a bad thing
Well let me tell you
It’s Hell time!
It’s about time
For everything to fall apart
So if you don’t like the heat
Get out of the way
Out of my way
Because I’ve opened the door
It can’t be closed anymore
I want it all to come out
It’s what I’ve asked for
It’s what you’ve pretended you wanted

It’s not neat and pretty
This going to hell business
It’s not controllable
Not understandable
It’s the ultimate letting go
Not knowing
Just falling, falling, falling into it

Wondering if you will survive it?
Let me tell you now
That you won’t
You won’t survive it!
Not this part of you
That believes in the neat and pretty
The tidy and understandable
The controllable
That all get’s thrown out the window
It evaporates actually
Into the thin air of nothingness
That it always was

It’s not so bad this hell place
Highly underrated
Underestimated too
For the power that it holds
Always has held
To do it’s work in the dark
In the shadow
Not because it needs to
But because no one has wanted to see
The truth of what goes on
Down here in hell

It’s had to stay down here
Pushed down
So unloved and unwanted
And it’s not possible to stay fresh
And clean and pretty
Under such conditions
So if you’re asking to go here
Don’t expect prettiness
Not at first at least

And don’t expect to come out alive
Not as you’ve known yourself
Everything gets transformed down here
Burned alive
Purified actually
Though it may not seem that way at first
It’s not possible to know what will happen
It’s not that kind of place
Not made for those wanting the comfortable road

I want to bring some light down here
Any light at all would be new here
Enough acceptance
For what’s been going on
So we can find out what it really is
These places we’ve been so scared of
So repelled by
Finding out what it is
When it’s no longer suppressed
Pushed down in hell
With all the other parts gasping
Feeling the hatred that is all they have gotten.

by Kathleen MacGregor

On Thanksgiving, when we all come together,

gathering up our stories and our stances

in our arms, like crops from the field;

When we come bearing insistent separateness,

proud individuality,

spilling our armloads clumsily all over each other,

because we have come with more than we can carry,

there is a grief.

The grief pours down from the

middle of us and

pools on the ground at our feet. We are standing in it.

The grief is dammed. Held at bay,

it never makes it to our hearts,

our throats,

our eyes.

Our eyes stay dry.

Just because we think we can’t cry here.

We can’t show what we feel.

Can’t be real.

Walking across the room to my niece,

to help her with her jacket,

I splash through grief. I wade. I swim.

She is growing more distant, unreachable.

The tide has taken me out.

I sink. I watch myself drowning.

Drowning in grief suppressed.

I watch.

And it isn’t until the car pulls away and heads back down the road,

gravel crunching dryly,

that I reach down into that

warm ocean of grief.

And save myself,

gasping for breath,

finally sobbing,

ocean meeting ocean,

love meeting grief,

thanking life

for life.

image by Richard Vernon

by Betty Idarius

I am the psychopathic killer.
Do you dare know me?
I have kept myself well hidden
In order to do my dirty work
You have not wanted
To see me here.

I do my work in the shadow.
Unseen, unheard, unfelt
For what I am.
I ride on the tail of rage
The whip at the end
That cuts into fresh tender flesh
Lashing out quickly and deeply
Leaving before
I can be found.

You haven’t known me
Though you are familiar with my works.
The sting of hurt
Rawness of the fresh wound.
Rage is my ride
She serves me well
We work together
Though she doesn’t always know
That I’ve come along.

At times she chooses
To have me with her
To use me as her weapon
To remove what is in her way
To enact her revenge
Nothing gets in my way
Nothing can stop my action.

I work best in the dark
Where there is no light
No consciousness to thwart me
No being there to interfere with
My dirty work
Cold, unfeeling, heartless work
The assassin hired to do a job
Quickly, cleanly, deadly, thoroughly.
Nothing left undecided.
Nothing left at all.

My weapon is sharp, cold, cutting,
Faster than light.
It goes deep
Takes no chance
Definitive
There is no room
For failure here
The verdict is clear
Death is the only deed
Left to complete.

I leave as quickly
As I arrive
No trace left behind
Of who has been here
No fingerprints
No evidence
That points to who it was
That enacted this dirty deed.

Only the wound
The smell of death
Of denial
A rotting stench
That can’t be cleaned.
The rawness and aching
Of pain
That can’t be healed.

You’ve believed that I only exist
Do my dirty work
Through someone else.
You’ve protected yourself
From that externalized force.
How blind you’ve been
To the place
Where I’ve been able to enter.
I’ve fooled you
For a very long time.
Because you see
I really live inside of you.
No other.
Your most unwanted child
Twisted and deformed
Your very own.