Like the Tide

Posted on January 28, 2014 by melissafed

How can it be that the wave is unexpected by now?
The crush of it.

Just when I think the beach is safe for me to wander, that tide comes in and knocks me over, clears my lungs of breath.

Just when I am certain the levees will hold you back, certain I can control you, or at the very least how I react to you.

Just when it seems that the waves have found a new beach to reduce to rubble, clay in your hands. Just when I am certain another bay makes a better home.

Just when I think I can walk as if you don’t exist, that I can walk my own way.

I guess, the tide is subject to gravity.

There are some things that cannot be stopped.

Wash me away.

Reflect

Posted on January 13, 2014 by melissafed

We had the biggest snow fall of the season on Saturday night. Waking Sunday, with the snow so deep the car had to creep. The plows don’t come on time on a Sunday. The plows keep better sabbath then the lot of us.

The day was all white. White on white. The trees layer over the mountains, the mountains onto the sky, the fog creeping over all of it. The heavy flakes still falling.

Did you know that snow absorbs sound? The deafening stillness is not imagination. The snow, takes the noise and dissipates it. It creeps in your soul too if you let it. Quiet down, listen closely. It is poetry too.

Sometimes praise shouts. Sometimes it just whispers so quiet you can barely breathe for fear of missing it “You are free”.

As quietly as the snow began.

As heavy as it fell.

It will stop again.

And peace will reign.

The Fireball

Posted on February 15, 2013 by melissafed

A meteor fell from the sky yesterday.

Flamed up and burned out with all the power of an atomic bomb.

Crashed into the earth, left destruction in her path.

We had watched you for a long time.

Watched you over and over,

terrifyingly close to plunging into deep waters.

You stayed in the sky while under our watch, despite your best attempts.

Instead you fell, now, a decade later, in the middle of a city.

All the cloud of witnesses are wondering what sort of force field we could have built to protect you from this atmosphere that broke you into fire the moment oxygen struck.

We called the experts when we should have, looked for ways to extinguish the burn.

We did everything the text books say.
But still you burnt.

We prayed until we both shook on your behalf.

And yet still…

The cities are burning. You’ve left a natural disaster in your wake.

Rest In Peace TB.

Prompt…’The Cup’

Posted on September 10, 2012 by melissafed

These cups have stories to tell. We sip them, full of espresso, and we speak of life, love, loss. They have heard us whisper our dreams and scream our disenchantment. We have wrapped our hands around them as we make Christmas mornings memories. We have warmed ourselves with them, after sledding and outdoor fun, full of chocolate warm and sweet. We have tried to revive burned out bodies with caffeine; it never worked but sitting side by side and sipping never hurt any couple I knew. These cups join me on my window seat, rest on my journal, peak over my notes…know more about me than they should.

These cups are part of what home looks like to us. We fill them up, wash them out, repeat. It is part of the rhythm of family. They break sometimes; we knock them asunder. Still, we pick up the pieces, put things back together, try not to slice each other open. We bring each other steaming cups titrated with the right amount of sugar…he knows I don’t like things that are too sweet. We lean into thirteen years of knowledge of each other, we sit long with the little people who join us now, my cup overflows.

A prompt by Amber Haines & linking with LL Barkat