He is more than what I made of him
I tried putting him in a box
To define his boundaries.
I put him in a story that
Didn’t end well. I tied a ribbon
Around his heart and it broke free.
Left alone, I completed his details.
I tried making him Satan and savior.
He fell short of both.
I saw him as a tarnished penny then a diamond being shaved.
I tried clothing him in deceit,
But that suit was ill fit.
I tried coloring him with puce and pewter.
He remained radiant.
I then deconstructed his ingredients like a recipe:
Two-cups father, one-cup grandfather,
Dash each of brother, son.
Finally, I understood…
He is more than what I made of him.
I tried to weigh him down, to keep him for myself.
Holding on didn’t work, so I released,
Then learned -- His haiku is a love song
His short story a novella and his narrative contains
Plotlines I couldn’t foresee.
I recognize Namaste in his eyes.
“Time Will Tell”
Sept. 16, 2015
On the eve of my 59th birthday
I find your song. Heard in the background
Of a Subaru commercial. Who knew?
Through a gritty urban
Window, I watch September cry.
Summer and winter jostling again,
In their yearly death-match.
Just like salmon swimming upstream, summer’s death toll is nigh
Still, it struggles against the inevitable.
I feel like that salmon, swimming always swimming
Towards time that shifts its shape
From moments that last eons
To eons seemingly over before they begin.
I battle between youth and years
The place where napping is more fulfilling than fitness,
Where strings are no longer taut.
The precarious place before you crest that hill.
Why, then, do I race through events like gusts slicing grass, when
I want to hold those moments like heirloom seeds?
There is no turning back, no recapturing moments
Now called history. Still,
I steal awkward glances in the rear-view -- at
Memories only as fresh as the last time I uprooted them.
We’re already kicking at our own dust, with a fate
We will never be privy to. Time is a thief,
She will make a host of us all…
Fickle bitch.
Jeri Thompson has returned to writing after a 25 year lack of interest, but to be fair she didn't listen to music either. Life was like that turtle trying to cross the road, slow, barren, uninspired. Since then she has appeared in Cadence Collective online, Carnival Lit Mag, Lummox 4, and RedLite Literature. Soon to appear in Chiron Review.
