Kisses For My Children

If tomorrow
were the last day
in this kingdom
of ordinary time
I’d want to know,
want to have the chance
to say goodbye to all my children,
touch them on the soft skin
of their beautiful faces
and kiss them each on the mouth,
release them from the wonder
of not knowing how much
they are loved in this life
by one woman who held their souls
open to the light.

This is the inheritance
I must leave them boldly
before the time when they feel gravity
or the tilting of the earth
away from the sun.

When so many need a yes or no answer,
there will be no question
of yes.

Lord knows I’ve stumbled
on things and into people
I should have known how to avoid—
to pass by without the need to grab a handful
and fill my emptiness with slow poison.
Everyone knows that love and wisdom
are the cures for that addiction.

And it is love and wisdom
I will leave in the awake kisses
on the mouths of my children
and no one will take away from that place
in the bone that remembers truth
like a song or a poem
or the look of loving kindness
in my eyes
as I say goodbye.

Sister Story

You ask me how I do it
The children, the jobs,
the studies, the poetry,
and the garden.

I simply place them neatly in rows,
balance them gently on top
of each other
like stones
on a rocky path
up a mountain
pointing the way
to where the view
might take my breath away.

A Sister once told me
that this journey is about putting one foot
in front of the other
in the fog and blizzard,
in rain and in the threatening anger of lighting
and the sound of thunder.

“All of it” she said
“makes you want to descend—
go back to the place from which you have come
looking in desperation for shelter and comfort.”
The uncertainty of darkness
and the cold of alone
will make you shake and cough
and cry out in a fearful Where am I?
Who am I? but we women know now
that there is no turning back.

“Listen to the birds” she said.
They will lift your heart with their chirps
and the fluttering of their wings in the small branches
nearest the path. These announcements of hope
will be everywhere if
you erase the doors of disbelief
from your ears.

If you step forward with the remainder of your courage
that you carry in your belly like a treasure

One day you will you will bump against
the wall of the fortress of your future.

Sister, you placed your hands on me
embraced that busy place of disappearing
day after day
up the steep path
and I am gone.
Free with my burdens.
Joyful at the load of work
and released to make my way
toward that strong wall
above the tree line,
above the cloud banks.


I don’t need to practice
or have you point to the next path.
You have already shown me the way home
and I am singing my way there.

Jailbreak


It’s time to break out -
Jailbreak time.
Time to punch our way out of
the dark winter prison.
Lilacs are doing it
in sudden explosions of soft purple,
And the jasmine vines, and ranunculus, too.
There is no jailer powerful enough
to hold Spring contained.
Let that be a lesson.
Stop holding back the blossoming!
Quit shutting eyes and gritting teeth,
curling fingers into fists, hunching shoulders.
Lose your determination to remain unchanged.
All the forces of nature
want you to open,
Their gentle nudge carries behind it
the force of a flash flood.
Why make a cell your home
when the door is unlocked
and the garden is waiting for you?

- Maya Spector

Thinking of a Friend at Night
after Hermann Hesse

In this evil year
everything comes early.

Snow and ice cut us off
from civilization for weeks.
We chipped at the heart
trying to keep from slipping,
trying to find any warmth
to keep the pipes from breaking—
bursting open under the pressure
of expanding liquid
like love first noticed
against the sadness of alone.

I think of you tonight
on the Eve of Spring
and wonder where you are sleeping
with your hands tangled
in the lovely cover
of a marriage bed
or in a cot
in some dimly lit
hospital corridor
waiting for the signs
of morning.

Or perhaps you are like the sleeping bear
in the shadows of winter and caves,
damp from your own breath,
you sleep long and steady,
conserving your stores
for better times
and sun.

Then again, maybe you are already silent
as the last cold day
when we walked shoulder to shoulder.
Maybe then I should have told you of my unconditional love
and kissed you on the mouth-- looking at you so wide awake
both eyes locked on that truth between us.

But this clock ticks loudly
and the lines on my face
grow weary of the journey
toward another death.
After all, I know nothing of your will
or the smooth skin of your belly pressed
against the soft comfort
of my middle.

A single smile or word from you
would chase away this fear of heart war
and the flame of human kindness
will surely erupt into a raging wind
of the lightness of just being alive.

Maybe some day you will come back to me,
take a walk with me some evening,
and somebody will talk about the wise ones,
or the ocean, or small stones stacked
balancing themselves on their own gravity
and the grace of attachment to the elements.

No one will speak a word of his worry,
and will only stir with tenderness
under the stars in an open field
where holding the body of the other
will frighten away the worry,
the war of words, the uneasy dreaming
of the summer lightning of absolute souls
flashing on the horizon.

On a night such as this
the sorrow of the past
would not dare to come back--
not even for a moment’s rest.

Just had one of my poems published at a new website dedicated to publishing poetry related to the experiences and loses related to Alzheimer’s. The poem I wrote was for Joni, another writer and friend who was taken by this disease more quickly than I could have imagined possible.

You can find my poem and others at the following website:

http://www.mindsetpoetry.org/

Traveling North

Nobody knows
I’m waiting with a stranger
at the end of love,
holding his hand
just to remember
anything warm.

When the train
to tomorrow arrives
at this station
I will get on,
hand him a note
explaining everything
and the address
to my rented room
at the end of my journey.

It will be enough
to kiss him farewell.

I could die
holding on to the arm
of this belief system
where everyone obeys gravity
and the passing of another season
without noticing
that I have left my body.

At the end of the night
where Jasmine perfumes
my tongue into silence
I will remember the skin
of the stranger’s hand
pressed to my human palm
and know that kindness
is coming to find me
in the new place
where the unlikely landscape
of forgiveness breaks all laws
of my nature.

This pardon won’t last forever
so I’ll not wait
for the signs or stars
to direct me.

I am done arguing
with regret tonight
as I step clear
of the platform
to travel north.

Dropped

At midnight before the next storm
I am blind, my hands frantic
against the walls
of alone again.
There is no language
for the color of this emptiness
that has dropped
from my hands
like the glass shattering
on the cold tile floor
of morning.

The sound of glass
cutting the flesh
of the night walker
is a gasp of disbelief.
I ask myself on the inhale
of this pain
how I could not have known
I would uproot my own betrayal
in the beauty of my spoiled garden.

And yet, another year has passed
just as the clouds will drift
over the green fields of spring.
The shiver of recognition
of all that precipitation gathering
in the corners of my eyes
and falling hopelessly onto
the stone cairns
I planted in hope
is a chill I can’t warm.

My journey is so long
and my burden of love is too great
to be abandoned and left
for the greed of the thieves
who will never pay what is owed
for my trouble.