roadside puzzle piece

On my walk, I saw 

a puzzle piece

on the side of the road.

A few days later on another route

I saw dozens.  I wonder

if they are lonely lying there

separated from their whole.

roadside puzzle piece

soon to be buried in leaves

things fall apart

Autumn 2020 Keeping Warm Enough

It's autumn here.  Cold, dark, brittle, rough, sharp, raspy, and dry in every way.  Through my windows, I can't tell if I'm hearing music from forgotten summer wind chimes or bare tree branches.  I am craving tenderness, reading and watching the equivalent of blankets and sweaters, fuzzy socks and warm tea.  I want kindness and gentleness, and I feel repelled by rage and stupidity, sound and fury, and all the vague and unformed fear people are radiating like the coming the winter.  I am reading about/watching people making food for others (What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Sweetness & Lightning), making art (Barakamon), learning to connect and grow despite trauma / mental illness (Natsume's Book of Friends, March Comes in Like a Lion, Fruits Basket, A Man and His Cat, Solutions and Other Problems), and growing up (Honey & Clover, Yotsuba&, Penric, Silver Spoon).  

I'm not looking for escape, I don't think; I'm not craving Aria or Strawberry Marshmallow.  Many of these works I'm currently drawn to are not anything like escapist.  Many of them are hard to watch/read.  There are stakes.  Bad things happen.  Some things cannot be fixed.  Some wounds cannot be healed.  Some hurts are terrible.  There are tears.  (Sometimes even cried by the characters. : ) Despite that, all of these works have something in them (their tone?) that makes them like hugging and being hugged, a feeling of relief and warmth and comfort.

I refuse to completely be directed by my desires.  I am reading hard things, too, like *Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?* and *All American Boys*.  But I am reading them slowly, and I am watching myself and stopping when I start to get overwhelmed.  I refuse to stop learning altogether, but I also refuse to grind myself into the pavement in these Unusual and Hard Times.  It's okay to take a break.  It's okay to get warm if you're cold.

I am tired and thirsty, and we are in a pandemic where I have been prudent and have not hugged anyone in half a year.  If you were around me when my health was at its worst and I was in pain most of the time and had such a wacky immune system and I had stopped hugging, you may not think this is a big deal.  But I had a friend at work, and we hugged all the time, and it was a kind of lifeline.  And at least once I month I would visit with friends, and there would be hugs.  And before all that, before my brain's response to pain signals started to go more haywire, I was a hugger with people I was close to.  So much that it used to annoy some other people I was less close to. : )

I am okay without hugs.  Really.  Even if, as seems likely, it's another year before I get to even cautiously return to them.  Being okay without them is not necessarily a good thing in my case, since it seems to be based in an emotion-dampening trauma response, but right now I think it's quite useful that I don't need hugs because I live alone and work from home and can't have any.  

It's also quite human to want the thing you can't have, so I want to hug people.  But I don't do it because not hugging is a way to be kind right now, to help show my neighbors love and help keep them safe.  Also, I don't have many opportunities, but even when I spent time with folks over the summer outside and at a safe distance, I did not hug even when I wanted to and when I would have Before.

I want to be After, where I am making up for lost hug time, where I feel more like I'm whole instead of holding it together, where I can rest and recover, where the shattering doesn't feel so close to the surface.

Until then, it seems like I'll be drawn to Fafner over Eureka 7 and A Bride's Story over the Way of the Househusband (I'm stretched thin enough that sometimes my laughter has a more disturbingly hysterical edge than my silent tears).  And impulse is just fine.  

I have enough blankets and sweaters and fuzzy socks to wear and read, and I will be okay.  I hope you feel the same.

Shuubun in September

This.  There is a word for this

direction we are sliding toward

this melancholy rage against

the dying weakening waning

of the light this moment when

darkness and light are in balance,

and then the darkness takes over

for a time and we slide into slumber

praying to wake again at some next

balance point when darkness is at

its height and then it turns again

and we see at last what light breaks

falling

this autumn I hurt
in all the broken places
fingers to feet to heart

winds of autumn

maybe the wind
always swirls but
only the leaves
of autumn make
me notice

already

When did this happen?

Trees stripped so bare already

November half gone

Sunday afternoon, autumn

and when the wind is

not blowing I want to

stop and stand in this

sunlight recharging

storing up warmth

until I get too stiff

from cold air and 

have to move again

the shame of late autumn skies

Sky blushes deep pink,

ashamed of bare branches, 

but spring will come again.

November gales

On the sides of homes,

gales of November slap rain: 

last wrath of autumn?

me and the box elder bug swarm (again)

Yay, it's warm again!

says me and the box elder bug swarm 

as we bask in the last (?) breath 

of summer. They must think 

we bonded because later they visit me 

at home, and they are terrible guests 

who won't leave no matter how 

many times I tell them it's 

really time for them to go.

the sound of autumn in November

This is the sound of autumn in November

trees newly bare

leaves piling up on the ground

perfect slolam courses

for gusty winds to play in

before they all get bullied to dust 

by power that doesn't know its own strength

(Last?) warm day in November?

if the weather

gets any more

beautiful I

will have

to weep

to sleep, perchance to dream and stop swarming about half drunk on summer's dregs in autumn

short warm relapses

brief resurgence of insects

autumn cannot last

autumn's pirate bounty

no pirates in sight

gold is scattered everywhere

fall beauty all mine

winter always comes

light, mouse, deer, leaves, friend

too much death in autumn

winter comes too fast

falling faster

Did you see the sky today, Brother Wolf?

Clouds on clouds grey on grey as trees bled out

leaves from fatal wounds of coming winter.

attack of the zombie leaves

autumn crawls deeper 

into buildings leaves 

ghost in on the cold 

breath of the wind seeking

the remembered warmth of 

summer not creepy at all

unseasonable autumn

final tree frogs bask

unseasonable autumn

weather calls us out

before winter comes

October whirls by

adolescent beavers play

before winter comes

the deck dragon sheds its leaves

wind gusts and bellows
bearded beast shivers and roars
soon leaves will be gone