softening to hardening...

when flowers their bright petals lose

in sadness please do not confuse

dying with ripening to seed

as ovules serve the blossom's need

and we too that now here must age

whilst bypassing sadness and rage

with kernels of wisdom enthrone

the passage of time do condone

and daring to age with aplomb

over hills and valleys we roam

'tis loving that helps life to last

as future we pluck from the past...

ant overview....

When you are as small as me,
the sky is where you find it,
and large things present little danger
such as the feet of people who,
walking without looking,
tromp, cannot touch me.
I am that little
indeed diminutive enough
to thrill to persevere
in tiny heady pockets
of inevitably redemptive air.
Those shallow, heavenly
vaulted voids etched
haphazardly by wear,
that pockmarking the soles
of the shoes of the large
and oh so consequential,
offer the subtlest kind of
salvation, that of being
simply overlooked...

Lucy Meskill



photo credit: Judith Meskill

caritas...

watching
birds
saves lives
as sure
as water     in ponds
saves fish
to embrace
with eyes
the vital force
that fuels
the beating heart
of creatures
so vulnerable
at every turn
the person
who wrote:     "look
at the birds
of the air: they
do not sow
or reap
or stow away
in barns"     never
watched a bird
closely at all
ever not even
once      birds
sow more
seeds in a short
and perilous
lifetime
than most
farmers do
in a year
and they     reap
and plan
and stow away
in barns
                          and rise
no matter
the wind
or the weather
or the wound
if they are not dead  
they rise
till their last day
as they did
on their first
day with hope
and song
and a deep
and righteous
longing for more...


Lucy Meskill

oracle...

I consulted the nothing
that is my everything
and a Catbird on the wire
just outside my window
who reminds me of just
what a human is supposed
to move and sound like
that bird who rings in the daylight
so fantastic--bobbling in the wind
over and over again resounding:
"You are here, you are here,
you are most indubitably,
undoubtedly and certainly here,
and so why in this world filled
with the rampant music of all
you have forgotten on your way to
remembering, aren't you dancing,
you mobile and reflexive, tenacious,
and reflective, wind-filled human being..."


Lucy Meskill

eclipse...

the expiration date

on this small truth

that I wanted to share

elapsed a long time ago

tucked like a moonbeam 

in a purgatory of caution
it patiently waited 

and shone its shifting 

honest little twinkle 

on the dark things near it
that vining from its glimmer 

wound ever so tenderly 

their way around its glow

to form a compact more fertile

perfect and complex oblivion

that at this particular point in time 

has become impossible to decipher

lucy meskill