The Great Ferris Wheel in the Sky

[image from etsy.com]

Here's what spoke to me today:

"Guatama said that when the Great Ferris Wheel

Stops turning, you will still be way up

There, swinging in your seat and laughing."

This is from Robrt Bly's poem
Hiding In a Drop of Water,
in the volume of verse titled
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy.


I like to think of us
all up there,
in the stars,
swinging and laughing,
saying "I didn't know Death
could be like this!"

COMPLICATED PLOTS

Complicated plots.......
the one we tended on Mother's Day,
my parents' remains housed
under a plaque reading
'Together Forever",
the love story that pain and grief
just could not sever,
my stepfather
planted alone,
farther away.

Or the plot of their lives,
even more complicated
with joy and tears,
moseying together
through all the shambling years,
("I'll Get By")
like obedient donkeys
who sometimes got
the stubborn urge
to fly.

Complicated plots.....
me and my children
playing out
generations of dysfunction
but surviving,
nay, better than that,
with grins on our faces,
thriving,
midst the formidable, the difficult,
the unrecognized heroic,
with hang-in-there tenacity,
(hey, we're stoic),
much cackling, disbelieving
sudden laughter,
the legacy of humor
that lingers
after.

Complicated plot:
lacking a compass,
I did roam
some highly peculiar
pathways
before finding the
Road Home.

If my life was fiction,
"none of this is believable!"
you would say,
but I'm not allowed a rewrite,
to live it a better way,
so I'll have to let
the whole damn story
stand.
You'll recognize
the thread running through it,
strand by strand,
the way a shadow
plays with light
upon the land.

Next?
Am I "there" yet?
A few peaceful chapters
before I go to sleep?
Or a stopping place
where I rest before
I make
one more
great leap?
Where will this earth-suit
finally come to a
full. stop.
(My spirit cries "Tofino!",
the land where I'm most free,
so I can lie forevermore
beside the pounding sea,
roaring in full fury
upon that wilder shore,
hear the winter wind howl and lash
among the trees,
an eagle circling,
dropping one lone feather
down
to me.)

An even more complicated plot:
who will pay the Final Bill
at my demise?
I, the master bill payer
and helper
all my life,
with money
have been generous, not wise.
Unable to accumulate
the Passage
to my final reward
up in the skies,
I have to ask
whatever listening gods and angels:
can I take the Budget Plan
to Paradise?

I will leave little
in material goods
to say that I was here.
But be of excellent
and unfailing cheer,
for in all that really matters,
I'm living rich:
a wealth of books and music,
a clean, green sweep of lawn,
the gift of Time
more precious now
the limits have been drawn,
(also, the past,
all the more dear
for being
gone.)

When you miss me,
come and find me.
I'll wrap the clues
in all my stories,
all my poems,
all the happiness
I had
that I can never
lose,
in a million photos
of my one great love,
the sea.
In all these things,
you can remember
me.

BOUQUETS TO STRONG WOMEN

My daughter, Lisa, and her brood

Stephanie

Bouquets to strong women:
to single moms with hungry kids,
who say "this is the pits,
but I'll do the best I can",
who work their hearts out
to make sure their kids
have food and shoes,
even if there's never
enough of anything, ever.

To women with bright minds and hearts
trapped inside of bodies that dont work,
who know that sometimes
when we cant choose
the situation we are in,
the only choice we have left
is the attitude
with which we live the life
we have been given,
and who do so with grace
and with a "yes I can!"
because the alternative
is death
and we choose life,
knowing it is a precious gift,
whatever package
it comes wrapped in.

To worn out women,
tired,
at fifty and at sixty,
after a lifetime of struggle
and hard work,
who have not just
survived
but have
transcended,
who face old age alone,
without money,
but with heart
and hope
and humor,
because when the choice is
to either laugh or cry,
we just crack up laughing,
life's so funny;
who gave up waiting for Prince Charming
and are outside chopping our own wood,
because we need the heat,
writing poems about courage
in our heads at the same time.

To all of us
who've come through the fire
and the pain
with whole hearts
still able to see
the beauty of the sky,
I send bouquets!!!
I love the day to day courage,
the smiling eyes,
the wise and worn out faces,
and the "keep on truckin'" attitude
of strong women.