Can I still believe in love, in spite of you?

Was it a Pisces thing, you loving
so much? For nineteen years
I’ve swum slow circles around your death.
I rarely speak or write of it.

People tend to turn away,
afraid to touch my pain, fearing
a touch will make it theirs. Even I
feared to swim this way again.

On jury duty, two years ago, I was
excused because I’d think too much
of you, who shared the barest thread of fate
with a man who’d been shot dead.

You’d be fifty-six and still I swim
against the pain, inching myself
your way again. Did I love too much?
Can one love anyone too much?

The oldest sister, a Pisces like our mom, and
shy yourself, you seemed to understand.
You dished out love, but did you claim
your share? Did we return enough to you?

How can one love so much? I try to think
of love as holy fish and bread, divided, multiplied
’til all are fed. But if that’s true, how is it
one you loved so much could harm you?

Was it a Pisces thing, your love? You were
no cold fish. Sometimes I think you loved too much.
My Pisces Mars dampens me into a steamy
bog for love. Your Pisces Sun was light.

Was it a Pisces thing, you loved so much—
so much, no holding back—so much it melted
ice—a river overflowing so with Pisces
love it made a flood? Even so, was it enough?

I should not think that I can love too much.
A fish lives, once entombing ice melts down,
and you were no fancy goldfish drifting delicate
as feathers in a glass bowl. You would’ve laughed.

When your body fell—then did your love
swim free? A wild salmon, did you bunch red muscle,
at white water, over rocks and logs, leap up falls,
spinning unending love back to its source?

Were you the first to forgive? Before God, even?

I still believe in love because of you.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

With a few clicks I hang words here
faster than ink could dry. Quick speech
cast on the winds may evaporate
to half-forgotten recollection,

but this is more permanent.
Poured in careless streams with little
edit, boldly the slant and kilter
of unfiltered thought sinks deep

into real time. Collective thoughts carve
a virtual Grand Canyon online,
with little grounding or meditation
in the haste for expression.

Elders paused, honed tools, crushed pigment.
No delete key forgave errors in execution.
They chronicled tales pre-told and re-told,
their gradual unfold governed by slow prudence.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

I watched a mourning dove
fly up with such slow beat
of wings, it seemed barely
enough to make it fly.

My heart, a free thing, loose
and at odds with itself,
longed to fly with it, to be
its mate, to nest—to raise young—

to free young things in flight
in time, to stand at the edge
of a nest, full-fledged,
and push lovingly from behind.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

A poem is violin song.
It asks only that you let it play,
even as it sings your life back to you,
and rends your heart to hear it
and do nothing
but listen.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

There’s a quality of light just after a rain, when the sun first shines through gray and turns every green thing several shades brighter. The birds are subdued, but sound hopeful. The light sparkles in drops of water suspended on pine needles. It dims, then grows, in a pulsing kind of dance, from gray to green to gray again. Cars take on a different sound, driving a little faster, tires stirring up the water as it drains away.

It’s a liminal time, like dusk or dawn, or the beginning or end of the world. We stand inside the metamorphosis. Wet to dry, dry to wet. A moment suspended in time. Peace, for just a second, while the future resolves itself and prepares to unfold. More rain? Or not? Then a patch of blue appears.

A crow wakens me
from a dream that you
found words I wrote in private.
Some groundhog far away
didn’t see his shadow, so
now crows pair off, dancing,
cawing, impressing mates for spring.
I sleep and dream
you found my journals.
I wonder if you read my stream
of consciousness, saw the flying
buttresses and spires of my heart,
sketches drawn on paper, then lost.
I don’t remember where I left them
that you found them,
so many words that I forgot I wrote.
I don’t understand
why you waited until
now, as I’m gathering
my things to leave,
to show me this, or
why my scribbled scraps
are mixed with yours
in wooden boxes,
a page of yours, a page of mine
still in your hand.
Do you care, I wonder.
Did you read them?
Were you annoyed
that somehow my words
fell in here with yours?
You don’t say and
I’m afraid to ask.
Are you as hesitant as I
to beg access to the heart
that played those parts
in other dreams,
that drew those things,
that strung those words?
I wonder what it is
you don’t say out loud.
Then I realize I’m awake
because I hear the crow.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

Souls come in splashes of color, intermingling,
from pale spring pastel to chartreuse, opening
a gaudy bloom in a hot summer garden,
or tossing a pigment-saturated leaf in autumn.
One fades, a soft breeze that waved flower tops
departs in murmurs of leaves, a whisper lost.
Another dies. All the flowers droop, leaves fall as one,
surrender to winter’s chill and the death of the sun,
as if each only stood upright or hung on to
witness the flash and brilliance of a single hue.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

Grief lays stones in my heart,
one for each loss,
gemstones all, but
it’s harder to pump
blood around stones.

Sometimes a family
of beavers moves in,
fells trees, sets up house.
Minding their business,
they don’t know
they stop the flow.
The pressure builds,
wet, heavy,
nudging rocks,
until the dam bursts,
catching me unaware—
catching us all unaware.

Sometimes the buildup’s
so slow I don’t know I hurt
until the dam bursts.
Sometimes I’m washed away.
But the rocks, they stay.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

From my journal, 1974.

This poem brings back memories. I recall typing it out as a homemade card for my dad for either his birthday or Father’s Day, weeks or months after I wrote it. Today I think a lot differently about perfection. Back then I secretly wanted perfect — perfect roses, perfect looks, perfect prospects, perfect romance. I envisioned a perfect future as an adult. A perfect home, a perfect family.

I’ve come to appreciate flaws, in nature and in people — in all the surprising ways things turn out. A perfect rose doesn’t exist, except in a hothouse, and I don’t want to live in a hothouse. No one has a perfect life. Such a life only exists in that trite phrase, happily ever after. Does anyone know what that means? Beauty? There are lots of unhappy beautiful people. Wealth? There are lots of unhappy wealthy people. A fairytale romance? We’ve seen where that got some real life princesses.

Today I find lopsided roses endearing. They’re more like me. I can identify. They’re more like everyone.

As for perfection in my work, in my actions, I’ve learned there are tradeoffs of time and energy and expected outcomes. I can negotiate with myself and decide when to stop and be content. There are points at which I know certain things are done. Maybe they’re perfect, maybe they’re not — but there’s no more to fix, adjust, edit, or tweak. It’s time to move along to the next thing. At that point the next thing becomes the now thing, and that’s most important.

But the sentiment expressed in the poem still applies, and I think a lot now, as I did when I struggled to decide what to do with my life, about one’s calling. We each have one, some purpose for being here. The thing is, it may remain a mystery all our lives, even as we fulfill it. Sometimes the really important things aren’t what we planned, sometimes we don’t even remember them, they’re just the after effects of our passage through others’ lives. The important things are more likely to happen behind us in positive ways if we’re kind than if we aren’t, if we appreciate others than if we don’t, if we’re forgiving rather than not. But we still may not know in this life what they were, how we made someone feel, or inspired them, or taught them.

I think we’re very lucky if we find a purpose we recognize and can be happy with, even if it doesn’t mean being a star, or rich, or having perfect teeth, or keeping one’s hair free of gray, or one’s hair altogether. I remember my mom once saying it would’ve been nice to have more money, but the most important thing one needed in abundance while raising kids was love. She left a lot of love in her wake.

Today I think that with all our flaws we’re glorious, spectacular. We shine, especially if we can accept our imperfections, even love them, and especially if we can love, forgive, and accept the flaws in others, and go on living each day as thoroughly, vibrantly, and full of wonder as possible.

Considering the peace that time has brought me, I wouldn’t be 18 again for anything.

But . . . if I had the body today that I was so dissatisfied with then, I’d be ecstatic. It’s true youth is wasted on the young. At least youthful bodies are. Damn it. (wink)

Copyright © 1974, 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

We pack things into
this keeper of castoffs,
treasures fallen from favor,
things no one wants
to remember or forget.

Letters and cards,
photos of the loved, departed,
clothes that no longer fit,
traces of money earned,
then lost or spent,
yellowed magazines, books
we’ll surely read again,
and those no one will—
manuscripts that didn’t sell.

Seasons in a box come out
to shine each winter
from the back of the house’s mind,
barely accessible memories
obscured most of the year by dust.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

* * *

In case you aren’t aware, my other blog is Mystery of a Shrinking Violet. Today you’re invited to attend the Dance of the palm fronds.

Dear Mr. Poe,

Thank you for the poetry, the stories, the mystery.

Happy Birthday.

Respectfully,
a fan

* * *

The Raven (excerpt)

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!

* * *

Israfel (excerpt)

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.

* * *

Alone

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov’d, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

(The above three poems were written by Edgar Allan Poe.)

Truth doesn’t come in a pretty package
tied up in wrapper and ribbon.
Truth comes in a flash of insight,
in words left unspoken.
One might pray for truth yet never find it
until ready, stretching, in a desperate,
humble moment of surrender.
Truth doesn’t enter the writer’s mind
while she waits, pen poised to capture it.
Truth comes in the dark of night, in a dream,
or from the mouth of a child. It comes
in a glancing ray of sunlight breaking
like a fountain through clouds,
barely glimpsed while fighting morning traffic.
It comes in the patter of rain,
after the lightning flash, after the thunder.
Truth is corruption still in the making,
unseen by the faithful,
veiled in lies, covered
layer on careful layer.
The scandal is never as naked as the truth.

Copyright © 1990, 2007 Barbara W. Klaser

When I’m invisible,
I watch people go on
living all around,
unaware that I watch.

Dropping their guard,
they dance and flow and sing,
full streams of clear
water, bubbling.

Only as long
as I’m silent, apart,
not a part of their lives,
never entering their hearts.

For when I begin to interact with people,
and my cloak of invisibility falls away,
I am revealed; and all that was real in them departs.

People drift away and fall apart from me,
withered rose petals loosened on a winter wind.
How I long to catch their warm, soft scent again.

Copyright © 1990 Barbara W. Klaser

Written in my journal in 1990, from feelings of shyness and otherness. I started to edit this for the blog, but I’ve decided to just post the original because it captures who I was then and the feeling at the time. If I edit it now it will be another poem.

Turtleheart asked in “Journaling Stuff” (link no longer active):

“Do you regularly keep any kind of personal journal, online or off? What works best for you?”

I started out journaling on looseleaf notebook paper, as a girl. Sometimes I bought colored paper or a spiral notebook for a change. Later I collected bound blank books to journal in, but I feel freer handwriting on plain lined yellow pads, because I don’t care if I scratch out or mess them up. (more…)

I’ve been keeping an eye on my greed recently, my attachment to the material world that pulls me in and makes me desire something.

We live in a world where one is considered just a little insane if one doesn’t value the material, the necessity for money that we call practicality. There are degrees of practicality, though. There’s survival. We do need to ensure we have what we need, and if we love our family and friends, we want to see their needs met as well. We value responsibility, honesty, the abililty to take on debt responsibly and pay what we owe.

But there’s a point beyond survival, making ends meet, and responsibility — even beyond having a pleasant, reasonably comfortable existence. There’s a point at which what one person desires and thinks he’s entitled to is more important to him than what others need. That’s the greed zone. It’s alarmingly easy to slide into.

I’ve always been one of those impractical types, an artsy, dreamy, non-money-oriented kind of person. Adult necessity forced me to seek money. It was simply a gross requirement forced on me by growing up. I never saw myself as greedy. Thrifty, perhaps, because my mom tended to consider waste of food or things or money a near-capital offense.

But I have other forms of greed besides a desire for money. I still want the things money can buy. A larger house, nicer clothes, a new car, a vacation, a new sofa, and so on and so forth. It’s just that the business world never appealed to me that much, even when I was part of it, so I tended to reject the notion of money. But things, oh how I love my things, and those things I don’t have that I’d like to have. This easily becomes an obsession, wanting things I don’t have and, once I have them, a kind of ennui or boredom sets in that leads to wanting the next things on my list. It’s a kind of hunger, never satisfied, and the more I feed it the more it grows.

But I’ve been recently working on distancing myself a little so I can look at this more objectively. I’m attempting to be more aware of my greed quotient these days, to find a balance between need and greed, and to turn those more lustful greedy desires into self-love, compassion, and creative action.

In this I feel like an infant. I have a long ways to go.

But think about it. Where do you draw the line between your need and your greed? And when you think you must have some thing, what is it you really long for? Will that thing really provide it? Do you need it, or do you want it, or is your desire for it a sign of a deeper hunger, maybe even a deeper boredom? Once you have it, will you grow tired of it and set it aside, or wish you hadn’t wasted hard-earned money or effort on obtaining it? Will it disappoint you with its unfulfilled promise? This applies to food, too, I’ve found. Will I wish I hadn’t eaten it?

My new, yet ancient, watch words: Be careful what you wish for.