it's getting better

I am thinking of the Beatle's song: "It's getting better every day...." As I write this. It did help me at least (not so sure about you readers out there in the blogosphere), when I wrote last week and as I worked through Wed-Friday, I felt myself slowly turning (although not steadily) toward the Light. One thing I started last week was an almost daily write in response to the "poetic asides" prompts at Writer's Digest's blog. I will share what I wrote here as my weekend blog entry:

11/9 Prompt "slow down"

I wake in the dark,
even the birds are still silent.
But my mind begins to rush--
a torrent of things to do.
I try to breath deeply,
slowing down the speed,
imagining a rhythm of waves
moving me forward
but not toward the rapids.
Instead, the waters carry me
carefully around grey boulders,
gently through barriers of broken logs.
I arrive slowly and safely to the shore,
and I get up for the day.

11/12 prompt "forget what they say":

At twelve years old, they told me to smile more,
not be so serious.
I tried and still do.
Back then, I sang down the locker-lined hallway,
mimicking Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
But later that year,
Kennedy was shot, then Martin, later Bobby.
Not much to smile about for years.

And now,
Mom has died,
Dad stands on his seasoned legs
but bends with his walker.
My young neighbor
passes by my window,
runnning with her jaunty dog.
And I smile without laughter,
waking before dawn,
trying to squeeze as much of life from the day
as I can.

Last night,
after brown rice and egg drop soup,
we came out of the restaurant
and my husband's pointer finger
froze at a ninety-degree angle.

"Look at this," he said,
placing his hand on the steering wheel.
That finger,
rigid as a rock
sent me into a spasm of laughter--
the ludicrous image of a crooked finger
pushing against a wheel.

11/15 prompt: "just when you thought it was safe"

Almost seven months
since the ladder fell,
twisting my ankle and breaking it
into three pieces.

"Lucky it wasn't worse," the EMT guy said,
which my doctor repeated as did
several others.

And I am grateful it wasn't worse.
Because I am almost healed.
"Up to 90% now," my physical therapist coaches.
I can do most of what I want to do--
walk, bake, drive a car.
I can't dance yet, but I can roll on my stomach and do yoga,
both feet flat against the rug.

And yet, my anxiety lingers--
about the missing 10%,
about annual medical tests,
about aging, in general.

I don't want to imagine too much safety--
a little danger, hazard, risk
creates a little drama.
So I make it up.
Like a batch of brownies from a box,
I don't have to start from scratch.

Worry and anxiety is in my DNA,
ingredients amply supplied by Mom and Dad
and generations before.
Worry about his future got my grandfater to take a boat
from Italy to New York.
Anxiety about another year's harvest
got my grandad out to the barn on mornings so cold
ice formed on his eyelashes.

But my life is sheltered from these challenges,
so I make up my own.
Everyday I can read a newstory to feed
my fretting and worry--and I do.
Because just when I think it's safe--
a ladder will fall.

11/16 prompt "stacking"

In the pantry,
instead of organizing the
boxes of cereal and crackers,
the jars of jam,
the bags of nuts and rice--
I stack them on top of each other
so it looks like a skyline
when I open the pantry door,.

Sometimes, like today,
an item
falls.
Today, it was strawberry jam.
And I had "strawberry fields, forever" sticking
to the brown concrete floor.

11/18 prompt "lost and found"

For ten months my son was lost to us,
wandering, somewhere in our desert city,
marching to his own quest.

We got through it, somehow,
past the sleepless nights and long days.
Even when the Twin Towers fell, he was still gone.
And I wondered, "Where are you?
Do you want me to hold your hand
as we sit together and mourn?"

Now, he is halfway home again,
and I weigh what was lost, what was found.
The balance of both is not equal.

11/19 prompt "a poem with a hole in it"

I have to keep my eyes open when I walk,
looking for holes hidden under fallen branches
or in the broken asphalt next to the car,
as I step out.
It's tricky walking with a healed broken ankle.
All those tiny bones taken for granted everyday.
They do work only the mind can imagine
but mostly doesn't.
They pivot and balance in millimeters
keeping me from falling down.