Perfecting Good-bye

Ms. Smoke                                     Photo ~ My own                                                                                                                                                                                    

Today I stroked my cat – the one who wears the soft pin-stripe suit.

The one with fathomless eyes, tufts of hair at the tips of her ears, the holy M on her forehead.

My tear dripped on her nose as she contemplated me.

I was perfecting a good-bye that had taken me by surprise.

Why are they all a surprise?

 

Why is this one different?

Why are they all the same?

 

Today I was skimming the New York Times Bestseller book.

The catch-phrase: “Stunning . . . certain to be a book of the year . . . “

The endless words were throwaways.

I set the “unmatched detail and truth” aside,

Distracted.

 

Is there one good-bye to end all good-byes?

Why ever start? Why ever love?

The fix wears off – even when it was lengthy friendship –

Besides the visceral, incendiary chemistry.

Postponing good-bye.

 

Wait. Who is that I see just beyond my vision?

 

Once a month I play cards with a quick, straight-backed prankster in her ninth decade.

She has said good-bye to husband, siblings, two children, three grandchildren.

She refuses to go to funerals anymore.

Some have perfected good-bye.

Photo ~ Robelle Degenaer

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Next full moon will find me in Jaipur.

Photo ~ National Geographic

Photo from Pintrest

Gemini Caregiver’s Debate

Thank you to the unknown artist.

 

I will never come back, once I leave.

That’s selfish. He can’t help it. He didn’t ask to get sick.

I can’t help it either.

It’s the only life he has.

It’s the only life I have.

He needs me. It would kill him.

Maybe. Staying is killing me.

I don’t know the truth of any of these statements.

I am not happy.

Big deal. I am supposed to lose my life to find it.

No idea how to do that. Read a lot of stuff . . . .

I will be out of God’s will.

Which God? I am not trying to run away from “God”.

I will burn in hell.

Not scientific. Knee jerk control tactic. Not rational. Not loving; therefore, not anything to do with “God”.

I’m confused.

I am tired. I don’t want to die, especially of endless servitude.

As if what I want is significant.

It’s all I have. My time is running out.

Do I want to finish my life being a zero instead of a hero?

Who even notices? I am lonely.

Old song, different verse.

It is about where I finish my days being lonely.

Anywhere, I will be alone except for I Am.

I wonder why that supposition no longer functions?

I don’t know what I want.

I want to live until I die.

Whatever that means. Cliché! What about the cats? Yang would miss me. And the plants?

Can I bring the cats with me? I know who will take the plants.

Why am I being so silly?

I will know more in less than a month.

It all depends on what, who, where? That’s stupid.

Is enslavement-subjugation-resentment-starving wise?

I can bloom where I am planted.

Whatever that means. Cliché!

I will be missed.

By ….. many intimate contacts. The ripple will smooth.

All his family would miss my caregiving service.

They would have to give a care.

I am incapable of love.

I have done the action of love for years.

I expect too much of life. Get over myself.

Adventure is a factor. Time is up. Someday has flown away.

I am a selfish old woman …..

Who still has vigor and long ago learned to be my own resource.

I will never come back, once I leave.

 

Sunset Lover

Enough of poets singing

Of spring of youth,

Dawns of new love,

Sun rising over curving hills.

 

This old woman craves

More than silly spring,

Insipid dawn.

Now that morning has passed into evening.

 

Dear sunset lover,

Whirl around my hourglass

To watch with me, laughing

As my soft shore sifts away.

 

Dear rocket man,

Swirl me in your magic

To yet another sunrise,

Day in time.

 

Dear time traveler,

Swivel my illusion of

Sunset to gray

Into gray into rose dawn.

 

I worship you, Sun facing from the East.

I love you, my Sunset lover.

Lover.

 

Words and photo my own.

 

 

 

Song of India

From my mother’s music collection
 

One morning last March I woke up free.

 

I purchased a ticket for myself –

Destination: Jaipur, India – for 10 days.

I will be there during September’s khus pura chand.

 

What will I do?

More, what will I not do?

No chit-chat;

No treading the treadmill;

No thinking.

 

Whom will I see?

Nobody but God in myriad manifestations.

 

What will I ask?

How can I go on when I cannot?

How can I keep loving when I cannot?

How can I stop loving when I cannot?

 

I will expose myself

To how soft

India is.

She’s Got the Moon in Her Eyes ~ Jean Larson

Morning — The Eclectic Eccentric

Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. -Emily Dickinson

via Morning — The Eclectic Eccentric