A morning poem
Posted on | October 24, 2006 |
Like a cold draft from the crack in the lintel
the day of the killing keeps creeping back in;
making my heart beat faster, unbidden.
All the things I tried to avoid by covering my eyes
at the movie theater again and again
rush up now, in the quiet moments
when I’m there in the dark
rocking my son to sleep.
Or in those other moments of ordinary things
wiping a dish dry, or standing
dripping wet after a shower.
There is nothing left for me to do
but dance off kilter to this new song
until I turn the floor boards to tinder
and the room becomes suddenly warm with compassion.
Category: Poems
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12 Responses to “A morning poem”
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October 25th, 2006 @ 1:48 am
and the dance I witness here, in these words, in all your entries, will take you where you need to go.
October 25th, 2006 @ 5:20 am
ah the poetry. thank god for poets.
October 25th, 2006 @ 6:21 am
“And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old” - Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies)
October 25th, 2006 @ 7:57 am
those last four lines
are gold.
October 25th, 2006 @ 8:38 am
I love “All the things I tried to avoid by covering my eyes at the movie theater again and again rush up now…” oh, Christina, what a writer, a whole, blooming woman you are. And I love Wendy’s Anne Lamott quote - it made me shiver all over. As did your poem.
October 25th, 2006 @ 9:35 am
‘I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S.Eliot:’East Coker’,Four Quartets.
I so love reading your writing.. it comes from a warm heart! Thank you for being so brilliant! Hugs from England.
October 25th, 2006 @ 2:19 pm
i’ve missed your morning poems!
October 25th, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
beauty.
xo
October 26th, 2006 @ 10:56 am
you gave me shivers, head to toe. you write beautifully, & make me incredibly jealous of your talent.
October 27th, 2006 @ 12:29 am
“There is nothing left for me to do
but dance off kilter to this new song”
This one really touched me. There’s such power in the unbidden…and in the realization of an altered reality. So sorry (once again) that you’ve had to experience that.
October 27th, 2006 @ 2:17 am
so lovely, my friend. xo
October 29th, 2006 @ 8:53 am
tears over here