Resurrection Clothes

The Visit Beached in his lean-back chair   He sits reclin ed and staring into what   I cannot reach .   An introvert at soul , h e comes alive    W hen younger spirits enter , sit   A ttendant after banter in the circle   Discovering their own lives inside   His gift of weaving wings from spiderwebs     Memories of dialogs gone by   Characters like sibling stars   Intermingling until   A laugh erupts and bubbles from the belly up   U ntil it catches fire a round the circle   Fills and lifts o ff high    Into eternal elements.         Inspired by Mary Lou Kowalski's little book of poems and commentary entitled Old Monk, this is the first (and only, so far) in my hoped-for collection: Old Married.    

Lesser Gifts I.    This Little Light of Mine Oh come now! It’s so tiny, so unshiny how can it give light enough to make a cricket dance? Puny little thing! It flickers now and then, but when it’s held up to the light of day it fades and squirms away. Just hold it up, you say and say and say. Oh, all right then, here you go, I sputter, eyes a-roll. You shake your lion head and smile and I see stars, so small, fly off your mane but all together dancing,  whitening the air.  Is mine like that? A little star among the billions trillions sesquatillions? Yeah, I guess—what if we all said Not enough of this big bright is mine? Is that your point? Should I just stop my whining, just  let my microscopic flicker shine? II.    Coins of the Realm Walk up timidly and put them in my little coins, the last I have of this world’s goods. One, two…. So small, so insignificant,  but all I...

Quirky, funny girl—at 60 still so open to the world! (Too open, you might say— it’s often filled with so much pain.) But you have eyes that see, have hands that make of things already beautiful more beauty still. Your bunnies and your baubles and your people met at random brighten in your camera and then fly through cyberspace like stars, Instagramming to our hearts. Follow Vickie on Instagram: bollingvickie

for Anna You said that reading my poems was like watching them unfold through lace. What a vision! You’re the one who has the poet’s sight! Deep calls to deep, it’s said. But I’m just reaching for a thing that wants expressing in whatever words I get—plainspoken. I’m peering through the lace myself. It’s why I write. July 28, 2018, on retreat at Ignatius House ~~ ignatiushouse.org

How did it happen? This hiding of my gift to concentrate on his? I’d trained myself by not pursuing math because I saw (or thought I saw) so much more talent in the boys, for whom it seemed to come so naturally. I let it go, the math, and even more, the poetry, the writing—hid it underground. But like anything with half a will to live,  it will emerge again. Am I to judge it? Would I judge  my human child unworthy  of the trouble and the heartache of her raising,  of providing what she needs, of letting her emerge into the world to rise—or seem to fail, then rise at last?                                        …But then, what if she fails at last? What if this gift long hidden has not grown but rotted underground? What if the flighty muse has taken all her offerings to someone else? Well, come on back, I’ll try...