On the locked ward again

Reprising a poem that I wrote during Gabriel's first major psychotic episode...it still rings true today as he once again finds himself wrestling with the demons behind locked doors.

On the locked ward

They walk.
Through pale green halls
They walk.
Perhaps they flee their demons
Or maybe they pursue them.
Pacing, pacing back and forth,
Pacing racing thoughts,
Moving to define
The boundary between themselves
And the world in which they move.

They watch.
With haunted eyes
They watch
A scene unseen by others.
Others can only see the reaction
On their faces:
Bewilderment, horror,
Amusement, interest.
The silent movie plays
For an audience of one.

They listen.
To compelling voices
They listen.
Voices that will not be still
Cajole and threaten,
Command and seduce,
Demanding to be heard
Through their own resounding echoes.

My bodyguards

Grief, despair, and guilt...

They fill me up and surround me,

Like hulking bodyguards,

They keep others at bay.

"Always so serious,"

"Everything's depressing,"

"Just can't take a joke,"

"I want to run away."

Well, this is how I am,

Take it or leave it,

And if you leave, just know

I know how to be alone...

Alone through great sorrow,

Alone in solitary vigil,

Alone in darkest despair

When not a single light shone.

I just wish I could sleep,

But when I lay in bed,

Images of pain and death

Play and repeat in my brain.

If someone would listen

And put an arm of comfort

Around my weighted shoulders,

Perhaps that would ease the pain.

Violets

I brought you two pots of violets

To brighten up your room.

One was laden with pure white flowers,

But the other had yet to bloom.

I put them on the window sill,

Where they caught the winter light.

You smiled and said, "That's good,"

Pleased by the homey sight.

We considered the barren plant:

What color would the violets be?

"I don't know," I told you softly,

"I guess we'll just wait and see."

Simple words, yet carefully chosen,

I wanted us to share expectation,

To look to a future, to hold out hope,

To banish death from consideration.

Now you're gone, the white blooms have withered,

But now pink violets have burst from the other.

Their beauty brings me bittersweet pleasure,

If only you could see them, too, Mother.

My mother's hands

Her hands are gnarled and deeply veined,
Their trembling now is still.
At unaccustomed rest they lie,
From work at last released.

Childish hands in younger days
Knew the toil of country life:
Feeding chickens, toting water,
Planting, picking, shelling, shucking.

Shell shocked soldier and Great Depression
Conspired to send her off to school.
Her hands not only wrote her lessons,
But also worked for room and board.

Independent, self-reliant,
With the inner strength her mother taught her,
With determined hands she pushed
The confining limits placed on women.

A mother's hands worked ceaselessly,
Keeping the house, keeping the books,
Sewing thousands of straight, true stitches,
Guiding her children with a straight, true heart.

In later years, her weary hands
Of necessity took over other tasks,
As touch replaced her fading vision,
And gestures augmented her jumbled speech.

Through her pain and through my sorrow,
Our hearts spoke all they had to say.
Her hands grasped mine with newfound strength,
At once both gaining and giving comfort.

And then those precious hands grow cold,
As we look into each other's eyes.
And yet, even now, I feel their warmth
As Mother's strong hands guide me home.

Autumn Days

The windows facing northward let in only muted light,
As autumn days grow shorter and the sun moves towards the south.
With long-dimmed vision the old woman on the couch
Scarcely observes the subtle changes of the shifting light.
The shortened days pass slowly, monotonously, silently,
Interrupted only by the clock punctually chiming the hour
And by three trips to the dining room, equally punctual.
Between rising and retiring the hours must be filled,
And so she fitfully dozes and dreams, wakes and remembers.
Ninety-one years worth of memories flit erratically
Through her mind, like a rare, delicate butterfly, sometimes
Alighting long enough to be studied, savored, embraced,
Sometimes flitting so quickly that they are only a blur.
A short childhood, a Depression, hard work, World War,
College, a marriage that endured for sixty-nine years,
But most of all she remembers the people in her life:
Dear Mother, steadfast husband, beloved sister---all gone---
And the three children to whom she devoted her life.
So many memories that make up the fabric of her life.
She'd like to wrap her children in the warmth of that fabric,
But now it is too late. A cruel stroke of fate has robbed
Her of her voice; her words are jumbled, twisted, fabricated,
Stubbornly refusing to convey the meaning in her mind.
Now she waits, through ever shortening days, to be wrapped
In the warmth of the memories of her children, as they weave
Her history and strength into the vibrant cloth of their lives.

Her name is Neda

Her name is Neda.
She is daughter, sister, friend,
Loved by many.
She studied, laughed, and walked
Down Tehran's streets.
She dreamed of a future
Full of promise.

Her name is Neda.
Cut down by a coward's bullet,
She lay on the street.
While her friends begged, "Stay with us,
Don't be afraid,"
Staring into the light of heaven,
She breathed her last.

Her name is Neda.
Her clear voice calls out to all
Who love freedom.
We hold her memory close,
Close in our hearts.
We will stay with you, Neda...
We are not afraid.

Reconciled

She was

Unseen.

She knew that the people she met

Simply looked right through her,

As if she were invisible.

She was

Unheard.

Her humor, ideas, opinions

Were met with blank faces, ignored.

Soon she alone listened to her inner voice.

She was

Unknown.

Her darkest fears, her dearest dreams,

Remained unspoken, held within,

Nourished in her secret garden.

Unseen,

Unheard,

Unknown…

Yet somehow she was reconciled to this existence:

Better to be unseen than to only see outer appearance,

Better to be unheard than to speak nothing of substance,

Better to be unknown than to be an open blank book.

She saw her life like this::
A stone was thrown into a tranquil pond,
And gentle concentric ripples
Spread in ever-widening circles.
Then, reaching the barrier of the shore,
The waves, now weaker, reversed direction,
And the circles began to shrink
Until the crossing waves died completely,
And once again the pond, so still, reflects
The golden light of the setting sun.

The empty page

The empty page stares back at me with silent reproach,
Seeming to whisper:
Say something!
Speak from the heart!

But my mind, my soul seem as blank as the page,
Mumbling in defense:
Nothing to say…
My heart grows tired…

Once I wrote with passion about joy and pain:
Madness and grief,
Children and regret,
Death and sorrow,
Nature and wonder,
Dreams and hope.

But now only muffled echoes linger on,
Fading to silence:
Without emotion…
Waiting for stillness.

Beast

And so the beast returns,
Wrapping sinister tendrils
Around a vulnerable mind,
Whispering insistently,
Mocking, threatening.
Damping down all emotion,
Slowing movement and thought,
Walling off the world outside,
Loosing wolves inside the walls.

Poem for World AIDS Day

The first time I met him, I knew
That I had met AIDS face to face.
His body, gaunt and stooped,
His eyes, like those of a frightened deer,
Silently conveyed the untold secret.
In time, his partner, my son,
Told me what I already knew.
He came to know another world
Of hospitals, drugs, blood tests, and
The constant reminder of mortality.
They managed mostly on their own,
Both accustomed to life on the edge.
I helped when I could, it wasn’t much…
An air-conditioner, some groceries,
Help with the laundry, a bit of cash.
They found a house to renovate,
The work and the dream seemed to challenge
The very thought of mortality.
The house was their hope and their future,
A fortress to guard life itself.
I got the call in the middle of the night,
My son, distraught, said Clay was gone.
A sudden trip to the hospital had been his last.
Fate had broken that heartfelt promise
That he would die at home.
I made the sad journey to help
With packing and moving and saying goodbye.
We drove to the house to gather Clay’s tools,
Still lying where he had left them,
Intending to return to his unfinished work.

On the locked ward

They walk.
Through pale green halls
They walk.
Perhaps they flee their demons
Or maybe they pursue them.
Pacing, pacing back and forth,
Pacing racing thoughts,
Moving to define
The boundary between themselves
And the world in which they move.

They watch.
With haunted eyes
They watch
A scene unseen by others.
Others can only see the reaction
On their faces:
Bewilderment, horror,
Amusement, interest.
The silent movie plays
For an audience of one.

They listen.
To compelling voices
They listen.
Voices that will not be still
Cajole and threaten,
Command and seduce,
Demanding to be heard
Through their own resounding echoes.

Seasons of madness

His reality shattered on a night in July.
From the tenth floor window of the psych ER,
I watched an approaching storm in the distance.
The lightning illuminated his visions,
And the tumbling rumbling of the thunder
Could not drown out the threatening voices.
The heat was as oppressive as my despair.

One day, many weeks later, the wind at last
Turned from the north, bringing a hint of fall,
And I drove against it, through parched prairie,
To what was known in less enlightened days
As the insane asylum. The sun, angled now from the south,
Shone on dark brick buildings and steel bars,
As I waited for the door to be unlocked.

Today I ring the buzzer with his jacket in hand,
A sad symbol of how long he’s been locked away.
Now the sun is setting when I leave the ward,
And I drive the lonely road in utter darkness.
The night is cold, and the earthy smell of fall
Evokes memories of happier times,
Golden days, before the seasons of madness began.