Poetry Page
Hopefest
by Richard Baydin
I am relaxed, warm and still
Nothing I need to do, just be
I am healing — love is inside me
Protects me, surrounds me
Let in life’s goodness, sweetness, possibility
May dear and darling and, even dire acts
of tender loving kindness
given and received, raise our spirit
Let go of yesterday’s shackles, locks
Limitations and old identities:
Fear, hurt, anxiety, anger.
Hope breaks their inner ice
Into whispering springs, flowering flows
All life born and reborn and reborn
Grows and glows
Hope is a yes to life
A yes to a baby step forward
And even the smallest victory
At times hiding its smiling face
Hope is the bold yes that opens gates and doors to yes
Yes I can dream, I can be, I can feel all who I am,
I can become, I can believe, I can do,
I can make my self up.
Make myself new.
Revelation is the creator of love
and love is pregnant with faith
and faith is the mother of hope.
Let us be a hoping and healing community,
Helping one another
Hoping for each other
Hope on the tip of our heart spirit
Hope, hope, hope always
Hope, hope, hope
Nothing but.
This is it, Sugar
by Pamela Bongas McIntyre
“This is it, sugar,”
the doctor said
in that endearing
Southern way,
looking wistfully at me
from across the bed.
Everything was so white,
White walls, white sheets,
White johnny,
Blowing up over her
From the fan in the room.
“This is it, sugar.”
I am 29
And I have never been in the room
with death.
And here it is,
and I am alone
with my mother.
It felt holy and still.
I didn’t know what to do.
I knew I was there,
the only one there,
and there was something to be done.
Semi-comatose as she was,
I knew she could hear me.
And I didn’t want her to feel alone
during this big inevitable thing
she was doing.
This death.
It was as if I was holding her
in my hands
And could carry her only so far
And then would have to
open my hands
and let her go.
Wherever she was going.
Alone.
But I would walk with her
As far as I could.
I combed her hair.
I thanked her.
So lacking
In response to a lifetime
of loving me.
But nothing felt like enough.
I was at a loss.
In loss.
“This is it, sugar.”
Thinking back,
I wish I had done more.
I wish I had crawled into the bed with her
And held her.
Why didn’t I do that?
Why didn’t I give her that?
I was 29.
She was my mother.
And she was dying.
It was so big.
My mother, my greatest and first love.
It took years for me to acknowledge
The irreparable hole in my heart
That was torn open
In that moment,
In that white room,
In the holy stillness.
“This is it, sugar.
See also:
Spring/Summer 2017 Book Reviews
Musings: Meditation On Meditation And Country
