How your flowers grow.

These flowers you so greatly laid
Upon the dust, you have made
A beautiful garden, a calypso dream
A fairies haven, so it would seem
But I know what lies beneath the soil
your loving hands, art, and toil
For you see, I've held your gentle hand
You watched me flourish, as did your flowered land
Despite snow, rain, drought, and wilt
You never deserted the faith you built
We flowers may rebel from the vine
With guidance and nurture you grew us fine
By smile or touch or stern command
My soul will always hold your gentle hand

©Vartok     Dana McLennan

Never go away...

It has only been mere weeks but it feels like just yesterday and forever in my head. It is like walking through a fog where you know something is not as it seems but you cannot see it clear enough to decipher its meaning, knowing something is out of place but cannot put your finger on it. I get up each day, perform my morning ritual, whether walking the dog, delivering the kids to school, or heading into work, usually all on auto pilot. Those mornings when the last child is packed off and I can head into the yard with a cup of coffee and take the dog for a lazy stroll, I find myself drawn to all that the early hour has to offer. Dragonflies lazing on the porch, birds just waking up, new buds on flowers or the changing of the leaves bringing news of fall.

            I breathe deep the fresh morning air, cleaning out the last remnants of the previous day’s stresses, watching a duck skim through the water in the lake and I want to call you and tell you about this duck. He has a rather unique color and markings that I have not seen before and my curiosity has risen. I realize you cannot answer me.

            The other day at the store I found the neatest thing, a massive calculator the size of a large book. Better than that it was on sale for a great price so I put one in the cart for you because I know how you like to be able to see the screen and how the extra-large buttons make it easier for your arthritic fingers to punch in the numbers. As I am at the check out I suddenly recall you won’t have a need for this.

            I was hoping you’d call the other night on my way home from a late shift because you couldn’t sleep. I would share a story I heard about an Armenian that came into the shop and listen to you tell me about the idiot politician on the television. I can listen to you for hours and hours about gardening and politics and history. It doesn’t matter that I already know something (or that you had told me previously), don’t always agree with you, or have a thousand questions. I love our late night conversations on the phone when everyone else is sleeping. I dial the phone to call you and remember your voice will not be on the other line.

            How selfish of me to assume you would always be there. That is what one does when they love someone so much though. Assume that you will never leave. How very unfair for you I suppose. Now who will tell me all about those damn Republicans? Who will you talk to when you can’t sleep? When would it be a good time to put that seed down? What would make these grapes grow better? Why did you have to go?

            I know it will be ok. I know you were tired. I know that you really aren’t gone. I know when I  listen that you are still talking to me. In every decision you guide the way. In everything you taught us you will remain.

I love you and that will never go away.

©Dana McLennan

To Still The Within

I sit, manuscript almost ready, determination on thunder cat go. It is time. I am going to finally put paper in envelope or in this case, many papers, packaging off my soul to be judged. Submission. Rejection. Depression. Re-submission. The ugly little circle of the publishing world. A world where only the lucky and Stephen King survive. I feel like I am putting a stamp on my child and dropping it off in the night deposit box. So final. No calling it back. Like karma, once out there it will come back, the question is will you want it to? Ugly with red marks, scarring its once pristine white with black Arial symmetry, ripping through me like a knife. Do I submit.....or no?



< --- My most recent muse