Wendy has been a poet her entire life. She has quite a collection of her poetry and has plans to publish an ebook to share some of her favorites. She is active in and stimulated by the local poetry group that meets every month. Here are a couple of poems she has selected to share on this site
Sometimes I am not a good daughter, you know
I know you think that, my friend says, but it isn’t what i know, you know
Well, I say, when he is here maybe I see him every day
or maybe every other day
Or maybe more or less
I see, he says, oh yes
But that is more than most, you know
Oh I say, perhaps, but sometimes I do make him dinner,
You know, and he loves me more and more
The fewer days there are left
He wants to know more, you know
He wants to say more, you know
He knows time is running out
Sometimes I can’t talk to him, you know
Or face what he is facing
I know, he says, you are seeing that you are facing
The same things when you are facing him, you know
I know, I say, he is still here today and today and today
He asks nothing and everything of me. I am busy and he is still here
I see, he says, oh yes
You have many important things to do and I still want many important things to do today, today, today and tomorrow too
(Inspired by Anne Sexton’s poetry and suicide)
You, who wish to enter my World
Walk the paths of my inner garden
As I mark landmarks in my landscape
Leaving crumbs as stepping stones back
In case I ever want to return
Plunge with me into my pool of eerie
Or keep your distance and leave me be
Weeping with rage as I drown in my deterioration
Have I touched you? Were there moments?
Can you feel the strain and pain of me?
The colors I see don’t exist
And cannot be mixed with the blues
I’ve done you all a favor
Illuminating my dark side
To keep your forbidden hidden
In ways only I could have written
My consciousness exposed
For you to remain unconscious
Is that not courage?
Enter my World of Live or Die
As critics claimed, the third act’s much less interesting
So tiresome repeating the same old themes
Interior Voyager
Exterior Voyeur
What’s left to astonish me?
I tried to be good
But not good enough
Yes, I am tough
But not tough enough
You choose to live
I chose to die……
….so….goodbye
“Find me!” I heard the voice say, as I sat on the floor in the morning of my fourth day of silent meditation. I scanned the screen of my mind and allowed my inner GPS to locate its source. Aha! Seemed to be some sort of “light being”. As soon as it knew it got my attention, I heard, “Watch me!” I felt compelled to look up and there on a cliff, in black sillouette against a red-orange sky, was what can only be described as a bucket brigade, made up of only women, bonnets on their heads, with the sound of their skirts rustling as the buckets were passed. Mother to daughter, mother to daughter, mother to daughter….all my female ancestors….one to the other….until the last one in line ….my mother. She poured the bucket’s contents over the cliff….as the voice said, “Follow me!”
The buckets were full of sadness. I found myself standing still in the bottom of a bowl that was spinning around me. “This is your sadness soup”, the voice pronounced. “Only it is not YOUR sadness!”. I started to see images of my childhood….as in the scalloped edged black and white photographs from the 40’s and 50’s. I reached out to touch a scene from one that I wanted to pause and ponder, but the voice scolded me, “No, NO! Forget about it….it doesn’t matter….it’s in the soup now!” But…but…..I just wanted to see that again….oh…and there’s a dress I remember! Oh how I remember the fabric and color….and…”NO! Hear me!” the voice shouted at me. “Forget about it! It doesn’t matter….none of it does…it’s all in the soup now!” and all the colors of my young life combined to turn the spinning soup a chocolate pudding brown.
“See me!” The voice said next. And there I was, out of the bowl and surrounded by a circle of circus mirrors, all distorted instead of being clear images…there I was as a baby! Oh..and there I was in the next mirror, a toddler…and in each mirror was a different me. Adolescent, teenager, young woman, young wife, wife again…..mother….all the me´s. “Love me!” the voice said.
I was overcome with tears….tears of my ancestors, tears of my mother, tears that became mine. I looked up and saw me now. And the voice said, “Be me”. And here I am.