CHANGE
Just stay? Should she sit here and wait for him?
What else is there for her to choose to do?
As the sun sinks low, the sky grows dim.
The moon rises pale in the fading blue.
I’ll sit in one of these two green chairs.
Two chairs. One me. (Again she’s here alone.)
A plane draws a thin white line in the air.
She drifts and dreams: and wonders who has flown.
The plane, the soaring birds, the clouds? And him?
Her gray brick house: Down here on the crumbling deck
The chairs, the garden weeds. The faded trim.
Now it’s all mine? A small but tactful wreck.
The air grows cool. She’ll stay and wait some more
By his chair, their swing, next to their old front door.
WHAT’S COMFORT
Our world. It’s wounded
Awash in an ocean of pain.
Pain
Roaring down our streets and paths,
Pain bursting. Blazing into fires
Exploding homes,
Sweeping down earth’s ancient slopes
Pouring, heating, searing, wrecking.
Hurting.
So much cruelty received and then passed on.
See the frightened children.
We’re awash on an ocean of pain.
We watch it happen but we don’t know what to do
How to heal
Or even how to find…comfort
Isaiah said in Chapter 40,
“Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people.”
We sing about it all the time.
We want it, but we don’t understand.
Comfort: from con (with) and fortis (strong).
Will it truly “make strong”? Or only console?
Well, even that’s a start. A little sun can’t hurt.
Yes, and when I hold that weeping chubby baby close
So close
Body pressed to my breast, my arms circle tight.
Rocking, walking, singing, chanting
(Can you find her binky? It often helps.)
Her shoulders stop shaking
The sobbing slowly fades.
Stops.
Not-babies ourselves: It’s what we all want.
Make it quiet, make it stop. If only for a moment.
Give us the sunlight
Give us the morning
Like the fresh dew
On the first grass.
The frothy fingers flowing up the beach.
Eleanore Lee’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Carbon Culture Review, Existere Journal, Flumes Literary Journal, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Portland Review, and Tampa Review. She was selected as an International Merit Award Winner in Atlanta Review’s 2008 International Poetry Competition. She has also won first place in the November 2009 California State Poetry Society contest.
