Tag Archives: Photo Challenge

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crossing

For the weekly Photo Challenge: pedestrian.

The deer teach their young to cross in our small town. I visited the DC/Baltimore corridor earlier this year and saw rows of vultures waiting on the light poles at overpasses: because these are 14 or 16 lane highways. How can a deer cross? And I saw vultures around a dead deer along 495.

Here is the photo just before, mom leading.

first nikon p150 006.JPG

And mom considering my appearance, also a pedestrian.

first nikon p150 005.JPG

And the youngster hesitating and then crossing.

first nikon p150 010.JPG

Twilight used to be the risk time for deer when I was a child in upstate New York. In town here, the deer congregate and cross at any time of day. Where there is one there may be three or more.

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release

For the Photo Challenge: layered. And today’s poem.

 

release

I can’t do it, Beloved

or no
I don’t know how, Beloved

release old grief, I am told

I am to have the intention daily
to release old grief

it sits in my throat
aching lump, knot, old
I don’t know how old
is it from before birth
I haven’t looked up whether antibodies
to tuberculosis
cross the placenta
attacking

Kell kills
that is one of the antibodies
that can kill a fetus

I have the grief
a tiger by the tail

at first I was afraid
that releasing it would lose
some core part of myself
that the me I have built
is the nacre, a pearl
wrapped around a core of grief

but Beloved
I try to listen
I try so hard to listen
to have faith
why pay for help
without attempting to follow
the ideas
unless they are so clearly wrong

conversation
with myself
the past the woman the girl the child the fetus
let the grief go
gently

Beloved
maybe I am not gentle enough
full speed ahead
maybe I need to cradle the grief more
rock it, comfort it, thank it
grief, you protected me so much
from the patterns in the family

Beloved
maybe I need to thank the grief
before I let it go