Love, Memories, Poetry

still flying those night flights

This is a poem to remember August evenings, summer, travel, dreams, hope, death, grief, rebirth, longing, flight, sunsets, and my mother’s imagination and spirit which live on in me and which I hope will infect/inspire anyone who reads this and the words that follow.

 

still flying those night flights

copyright @2017 by punkie

three days before

the first anniversary

of my mother’s death,

i still fly the

night flights

to london

at sunset,

they leave

disappearing streaks

across darkening skies

like shooting stars

i watch later

after dusk

is just

a memory

and still i cry

every time

probably

always

will

 

The earlier poem is here.

© 2017 Susan Macaulay. I invite you to share this link widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

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Life & Living, Poetry, Spirituality

7 poems to share because they’re there

women writing treated

 

I write because I must. But not always about my journey as a dementia care partner or to advocated for better care. Sometimes I write about other aspects of my life, and sometimes that writing takes the form of poetry, which I first began experimenting with in late 2012.

Here are links to seven pieces posted on my personal blog amazing susan, which I invite you to follow if you find it of interest.

Enjoy!
Continue reading “7 poems to share because they’re there”

Life & Living, Love, Poetry, Spirituality

some gods write plans

sunset painterly w logo

This poem demanded to be heard after I listened to a long-ago telephone conversation with a familiar refrain:

“When are you coming home? I can’t wait to see you.”

Both dementia and life make us all want to go home in one way or another.

destiny

a poem by punkie

download the past
the die is cast
brave souls get torn apart

i hear your voice
there’s little choice
it echoes in my heart

come home you say
to laugh and play
create a brand new start

walk down the road
where love once flowed
see skies that look like art

we’ll pay the price
and roll the dice
believe in dreams sweet tart

before too long
forget the songs
whose ends aren’t ours to chart

some gods write plans
in shifting sands
and grant us small bit parts

yet still we give
these lives to live
our blood, our tears, our hearts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These pieces explore similar themes:

 

© Susan Macaulay 2013 – 2015. I invite you to share the links widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

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Joy, Life & Living, Love, Memories, Poetry

joys and tears throughout the years

November 16, 2015: Despite the tears and sorrow infused in passing years, I am grateful for the joy and tender moments I found, and continue to find, in the ebb and flow of the days, weeks, and months of our journey. This poem is about the changing seasons of life, experiencing sorrow, and finding joy in unexpected places. Even when the sun sets, beauty lingers in the afterglow.

in the afterglow

by punkie

in the afterglow

countless years
of laughs and tears
say yes or cry oh no!

the shell retained
a pearl remained
tied without a bow

yet joy was hidden
it rose unbidden
in daily ebbs and flows

spring came and went
fine times we spent
walking to and fro

summer bloomed
‘twas none to soon
get ready, set and grow

one season grieves
dead fallen leaves
the geese begin to go

now drink hot tea
‘tween two and three
waiting for the snow

it didn’t seem long
we sang our songs
some god controlled the show

one thing is sure
fate we endured
then cast aside our woes

we loved and shared
reached out to care
and found the afterglow

© Susan Macaulay 2013 – 2015. I invite you to share the links widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

November 16, 2018:

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2018/11/16/a-daughters-rendering-and-remembering/

November 16, 2017:

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2017/11/15/when-youre-put-behind-bars/

November 16, 2016:

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2016/11/16/the-day-our-best-wasnt-good-enough/

November 16, 2015:

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2015/11/16/joys-and-tears-these-last-three-years/

November 16, 2012:

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2012/11/16/moving-day/

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Care Partnering, Death & Dying, Life & Living, Poetry

broken doors and a gun to my head

guns and lace

This is a dark piece of poetry. Like the joyful, tender pieces I write, this poem was born of the powerful emotions and unexpected circumstances in which I found myself involuntarily immersed. I was trapped in a multitude of ways by forces beyond my control. My heart was in a jar; I was bound, gagged and tortured. I gave; but I did not give in. I grieved; but I did not give up. Thank you for reading, listening and watching, and thus validating my experience.

broken doors and a gun to my head

a poem by punkie

 

today like every other warm summer dementia day

i liberate my jailed heart and free it and me

because we love to be out where

life lives but where no one

else cares to take us

besides ourselves

and few can

go now

so

i push the escape button on the white wall

and the door opens half of halfway

because it’s still cracked and

broken like this place is

and no one wants to

hear me or my

core self no

way no

how

i gag on words and spit through bars and

leave abusive sins unspoken for the

sake of sharing this space for a

pair of daily hours even

if love sleeps and so

won’t know i am

here with old

hands in

mine

wicked ugly wounds weep bloody yellow pus

that collects in clear pools then runs

down to feet that can’t anymore

and screams why we must

start from a scratch

and create better

because to fix

this is too

hard

yet see how the boat rocks and pitches as

pl/r/ayers cling to gunwales for fear

they’ll drown in waves of their

own lies and i watch and

wait for the day a gun

is held to my head

cocked, pulled

then shot:

bang!

and if i’m not back again this time

tomorrow carry on with one

foot in front of the other

because it may be the

bitter dead end

of me or not

we’ll all

see

 

© 2015/2017 Susan Macaulay  I invite you to share the links widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2015/04/16/10-poems-i-didnt-want-to-write/

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2017/06/21/5-more-poems-i-didnt-want-to-write/

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Love, Memories, Poetry

night flights to london

On an August night in 2015, as I ate supper on the porch of the house I rented at the time, I glimpsed a white line above the sunset horizon. A tsunami of emotion swept through me and I began to cry. It was one of those chest-heaving, choking kinds of cries, the ones accompanied by lots of fat rolling tears.

I was reminded of the many summer evenings Mom and I had sat on the deck at the back of her big red brick house on the hill eating salad made with greens fresh from her garden. A steady stream of night flights to Europe invariably flew overhead as we dined. She always remarked on the planes, and when the dementia began to take hold each one of the dozen or so that crossed the twilight sky became the one to London, the one I would take when I left to go back to Dubai.

In the years before my 2011 return to Canada, I spoke with Mom almost daily on the phone. At the end of every call she would ask me when I was coming “home.”  If my visit was imminent, she would be ecstatic: “I can’t wait to see you!” Otherwise she would rue: “Oh. Not before then? I’d hoped it would be sooner…

When I saw the stream of vapour on that August night in 2015, I was flooded with sadness for all the times she must have looked to the sky when I wasn’t there, thought of me and prayed for my safe return. I imagined all the times, as the dementia progressed, that she was terrified to be alone in the big house by herself.

Eventually she got her wish, but not in the way she would have wanted or expected. After the tears abated, I wrote this poem:

night flights to london

by punkie

tonight as i ate
shrimp salad on rye
i noticed the streak
of a jet in the sky

i choked on a thought
and started to cry:
“life! leave me alone,
let sleeping dogs lie.”

i remembered the days
when we supped in the back
with the sun sinking low
until all had turned black

we drank and we laughed
and we had a good crack
“look punkie,” you’d say
as you gave me some flack:

“there’s the night flight
to london up in the sky
i wonder who’s on it
for what, whom and why?

i wish we could go there,
do you think we might try
to travel afar one day
you and i?”

“that would be fun mom”
i agreed in reply
while i sipped on fine wine
with a tear in my eye

“we’ll go in september,”
i told a white lie,
“your birthday is then
and a ticket i’ll buy.”

a moment passed close
then a lifetime, then two
as we sat in the dusk
with the deer and the dew

we pretended in silence
our dreams might come true
how else could we manage
to make our way through?

“look punk, it’s there!
look up in the sky —
the night flight to london
that goes on to dubai

i can’t help but miss you
when i see it on high,
why can’t you just stay
right here by my side?”

god granted your wish
though not how you thought
dementia delivered it
then left us to rot

but we turned the tables
and twisted the plot
to find healing and joy
in the battles we fought

now it’s just me
with chablis and blue sky
my appetite lost for
shrimp salad on rye

i weep at white tails
of night flights that fly
all headed for london
then on to dubai

 

August, 2015

 

© Susan Macaulay 2015. I invite you to share this link widely, but please do not reprint or reblog or copy and paste my poems into other social media without my permission. Thank you.

 Subscribe to my free updates.