Friday, January 30, 2009

My Winter in Rock Canyon

I want to get out of here.....
I want to blow this popsicle stand,
walk out that door and never look back.
I want to feel the sun on my face on a hot day in July.
I want to feel the press of people around me when I shop for Christmas presents in December.
I want to accidently burn the chicken in MY oven, in MY apartment just before my family comes to visit me on a sweet Sunday.

I want to live.....

I am David battling Goliath on a slippery slope.
I am Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz....
"You have always had the power to go home." she said.
Just follow the yellow brick road and........

I'm tired.

Pills fall from the sky like rain.
I fall, and someone offers me a wheelchair and a glass of water.
The road becomes dark and I am wrapped in a blanket of stars
but the voices fill me with sadness....

My strength and my resolve ebbs for a time
but
it never leaves me......

I am in my winter.


I am a tree.
tall and strong...
My limbs are bare but the creatures of the forest take shelter in my branches.
I lift the hands that hang down.
I give the warmth of my smile to those who are cold and barren.

I put on my armor again,
the leaves that I dropped on the floor of the forest.
Voices from the past, present and future come to strengthen me.

I go out and look for Goliath in the hot desert sand.

I slay him with his own sword of doubt, apathy and indifference
and wait..........

Knowing

that spring will come
and I will

leave.....

Written for my friend, KT at Rock Canyon January 2008

2 comments:

redintheheadster said...

I wrote this a year ago after getting to know one of the residents there. She was a lady in her 60's that weighed about 350. She desperately wanted to leave but couldn't get out of bed. The first part is a lot of her feelings. I guess the second part is really about me. Battling Goliath was about the frustration I felt trying to help the people there and getting no where with the administration.

Erin said...

It's beautiful Mom. I didn't know that you are a poet. It makes me happy to see this side of you coming out :).