On Longing

I miss you.

Up with the dawn to walk the coast -
the sun has reappeared
after many dark days of rain.
The half moon, ghostly,
rides through layers of leftover cloud
in the golden sky.

This makes me think
of loneliness
and longing deeply
and living without you.
The emptiness becomes everyday
and something in me drops off to sleep.

It awakens with a start,
with a stab and a yearning,
at the slightest brush with hope.
And here is the sun again
after all this time, reminding me
how long it has been.

by Lori Martin, 2002 (amazed at how I understood things I still had a lot to learn about - and wonder what I think I understand now that I will grow to know more deeply. Anyway - loss and longing.)

(Photo: 2013 in South Africa, Fish Hoek)

WATER

This six ounce plastic cup of water,
slapped down and spilling a little,
with a menu, fork and paper napkin,
is a new covenant.

I hear it say, "Drink this, you,
in remembrance of this molecular mystery,
that what is in you and you and you
is also in a six ounce plastic cup
and in the deadly truths of thirst, and drought,
and water wars, and tidal waves.
In the ice on Titan and the mud around the blueberry bush.
You baptize and make metaphors
and remember to drink your two liters a day
just so you can say that the great IT IS sent you,
with a promise more precious than blood,
by boat, breaststroke, and drowning,
all the way down through your life."

Water.

I lifted the cup and drank:
let water pass my lips,
surround my tongue,
embrace my teeth,
penetrate my throat,
and rest in the pit of my being.

When she asked, "what will it be?"
I said, "I'm fine with water."

7/24/15

You Left Me Today

(I wrote the first draft in 2003 after my parents visited me in Scotland. Here it is revised.)

Typical weather.
As if to send you off
in true Glasgow style -
there was a brilliant sun
low in the blue winter sky,
patches of dark cloud,
chilly rain and burning light.

As I walked away alone,
I looked back
for one last glimpse of you,
but you were gone.

Instead of you, a rainbow
stretched from my feet in a complete ring,
encompassing the airport, planes, and sky.

Like an omen.

I worried that it meant
that this would have been
our last goodbye.
I am not ready.
I will never be ready.

I would like to believe
that it was a promise...
a comforting sign
from a God who loves love,
and longs for an end to goodbyes.

But all I know for sure is that
you left me today.

RELOCATION COSTS

This relocation (dislocation)
caused me PAIN and
LOSS of function
DISJUNCTION
caused the paths that
came to meet to
MISS, out of
SYNCH, out of
WHACK, beats
UNBLENDED, trains
OFFTRACK
I'm a square peg knocking against round rocks and hard places
I never counted on. Like a fish out of the sea, I'm out of my league.
I can't play this game, finish this swim, or say the name of
this TROUBLE I'm in.
(But I just tried moving to another town...)
an OTHER town
I OTHERED myself,
MOTHERED my own LOSS.
I didn't/couldn't count this cost
of (dislocation) relocation.

(by Lori Martin, poem - 2003; mixed media painting - 2015)

Scaffolds

The beauty shop was covered in scaffolding
for as long as I can remember,
as if keeping up outside appearances
can mask a crumbling center.

Twice I have encountered
women in pain here, but
I walked by and said nothing.

First: she stood on the threshold, prim and freshly coifed,
her curls collected in a style studied to
appear carefree.
Makeup freshly made did not mask the bruise
freshly emblazoned around her eye.
Battered.
She looked at me directly, and she knew
that I saw her. She sent me questions with her look
that I would not answer.
I walked by and said nothing.

Second: she stood in front of the shuttered shop (closed Sunday),
pressing her face against the glass, hair hung
straight like curtains, closed.
Her shoulders trembled, and I heard her crying,
choking out sighs, unable to face the world behind her
with the required smile.
She poured her truth into this private corner like it was sin,
and all the proper confessionals were full of the worthier,
or empty of any priest.
I walked by and said nothing.

Much older now, I wish I had spoken and loved bravely,
I wish I had opened my arms to collect them in
And shore up their crumbling centers.
Instead I added to the plaster behind which they hide.
I am left wishing, and they are left to maintain
their outside appearances for a world that, like me,
largely walks by and says nothing.

Two Odes for Pigeon Feet

ODE TO PIGEON FEET

Oh, Pigeon Feet,
cast in greening bronze,
you stand upon
your proud pedestal,
memorial to a crime.
Lean knuckle and claw
clutch an arrow pointing
West. Perhaps it is a clue
to tell us who stole
the rest of you.
Who can name the thief
Of our Pigeon from
West Princes Street?
Oh, if only you could speak.
If only they had left your beak!
But all that remains,
Tragic and proud,
Are your Pigeon Feet.

ODE TO PIGEON FEET REGAINED AND LOST AGAIN

In a gesture of faith
and hope in the power
of art to transform
the heart of man,
the artist recast
our Pigeon! It stood
resplendent, a testament
to redemption for
the briefest few weeks
before being stolen
again. Now -
I am sure that someone is enjoying
a matched set of footless pigeons.
But I wonder -
will the artist go on, ever hopeful,
supplying the vandal
with an entire footless flock?
Or will measures be taken
by the powers that be
to keep out the thief,
Perhaps encasing the work
in a cage? How ironic
(bronze-ic?) - the statue
of a bird behind bars.
It seems to me that
the best course would be
to cage all of us
and all of the spaces
we have already defaced,
so that we can look
but not touch.
Art and beauty would be
safe from us
and free.

by Lori Martin - I wrote these in 2002 while living in Scotland. Original photos for once!

Sonnet for Friends

Sonnet

Afraid to seem weak, you used to stand
Like a stalwart statue of liberty,
Lifting your torch with a straining hand,
Until life knocked you off your feet.
Unasked by you, we gathered your imperfection
And skin on skin, made you feel what we are made of -
Warm, muscled comfort embodied in affection.
Before you could resent your need, we gave you love.
You would not bend, but being bent, conceded
And discovered wellness and pleasure, not shame
In the revelation of the things that you needed
And our tender meeting of the same.
Able again to stand, still you choose now and then to fall,
Having found our liberty resides in all needing all.