I was privileged to have this poem published in a chapbook of poems written by cancer survivors.

Defying Death Gives a Gift
To Celebrate Life

In their puberty, I never
thought of their life sustaining
powers, their syrup for a child.
They were pears beginning to
ripen, buds bursting outward to
bloom, femininity gone wild. I
chose for them garments white,
bedecked with ribbons and lace,
clean, sterile and new. With pride,
in innocence, they were taken
for granted, it being presumed that
all had two. I looked down upon
my cleavage thrilled because
beneath my sweaters of Angora
hair they made pleasant little mounds.
Then the mirror was my friend
inasmuch as both were there.
Until a day when one witnessed
the carnage of its sister. Where poise
and symmetry had been before,
the glorious proclamation of
womanhood, I found instead a
slashing scar, the memory of
war. Yet, another battle has been
fought and the lonely, bereaved,
she is no more. Hellish cancer made
behest. her fate, too, became a
slashing scar, but balance she restored
and marked a badge of courage on my
chest. I survived the betrayal of
that which life can give, through
sustenance of milk, that which
my lover did caress. I celebrate
these wounds. To them I raise
a toast, because to Celebrate Life
is what I wanted most.

Time is Just a Highway Passin' Us By

These are the first song lyrics I've ever written. I'm hoping that some of my followers will leave a comment or two! Yeah or Nay? Am I The Poet, Or Not? LOL

Time is Just a Highway Passin' Us By

Time used to come right up to our doorstep,
but now it's just a highway passin' us by.
Holdin' hands, parkin' in the graveyard,
we were bright with youth and lovin'
wasn't hard. Now I'm fifty-one and
still feelin' twenty, but there ain't
now one here whose feelin' the same.
I'm just watchin' the highway passin'
us by. Passin' us by and feelin' the pain
of drivin' a convertible at ninety in the rain.

Time used to come right up to our
doorstep, but now it's just a
highway passin' us by. Now it's
just a highway passin' us by.

There's a knot in my stomach
anchored to my gut that's killin' the
time that's passin' us by. Like a
noose around my neck is the memory
of you reachin' out to me in something
we called intimacy. But we were like
hungry mongrels knawin' on a bone,
drivin' down the highway headed to
home and all the time feelin' alone.
We were young but never feelin' free.

Time used to come right up
to our doorstep, now it's just a
highway passin' us by, Time
is just a highway passin' us by.

Time is just a highway passin' us by,
sideswiped by life, time is just
a highway passin' us by.

What Makes a Poet Write

When I read a poem, I always wonder what inspired it. Figuring this out in any kind of satisfying manner is often difficult, particularly with those poets who write, dare I use the word that comes to mind, with obscurity. I suppose if I were a painter, abstract art would never appeal to me. I'm not denigrating such; it just wouldn't be my chosen method. It is so with words. I choose mine carefully and reach deep into my heart to put into those words what I feel and the emotions that rule while I write.

The below poem, "Sixty Minutes Away" was written for my husband, Bruce. We have been separated for two years. I guess you could say I've taken a sabbatical from my marriage, for personal reasons I'll not share here - not at this time anyway.

A long time ago Oprah interviewed three people who had also taken sabbaticals from their marriage - two women and one man. The promulgator of this life event is probably Joan Anderson who wrote three books about her own marriage. One of them pertained to the sabbatical she took from her own marriage, entitled: A Year by the Sea.

Sixty Minutes Away

Sixty Minutes Away

On a good day, without
traffic or incident,
you're sixty minutes
away. Yet the moon
is within reach. You
called me, as you sat
by the lake, and invited
me to share this moon,
which you said was a
brilliant globe surrounded
by a rainbow – God's promise
to Noah. Outside my window,
sixty minutes away, the lamp of
night fixed its generous eye
on me too. Its splendid light
seemed to have never shown
brighter than on this night,
when you were sixty
minutes away. High above
my window, just beyond the
glass, the moonbeam united
us; your beloved voice,
sixty minutes away. I could hear
the hymn of night and see,
through your eyes,
sixty minutes away, the lake
like a sheet of glass,
smooth and still, yet not
without life. Through the
wire, I could hear the
chant of crickets scratching
their fiddles of legs.
You told me three bull-frogs
trumped for supremacy.
The greatest miracle
of all was; you were no
longer sixty minutes away.

No Man Left Behind

No Man Left Behind

You told me no stories;
not because you have none,
but because you keep
them close to your heart,
where only you can know
them. Yet, I learned of
them, as you relived many;
I discovered much about
you even though you
have been left behind,
in a hell where no young
should have ever lived.
You are a man left behind,
where you would leave no
others, but spare not yourself.
In Death Valley you are like
the plant, Xanadu, which
grows in both shade and sun,
a tropical botany growing in
darkened arbors and shadowed
entryways, where no man
was left behind. Yet, your
youth has been sequestered
there amid the mountains
and villes, when you should
have come home – no man
left behind. You live in your
private garden attended to
by death, with memories that
rain but never bless, instead
they burn and with sleep come the
dreams – the souvenirs of war.
The leaves of the jungle no
longer remember your footsteps.
The last sound in the fading
wind are the footfalls of Death,
circling for its prey, the man
who remains where no man
was to be left behind.