Month: October 2020

Sugar

vabutsy poems

Fall’s beauty mocks
our fragile mortality

Death can be proud
when dying is so colorful

The brilliant day
gold, green and red
leaves
against a cerulean sky
mocks
my clouded countenance

A preschooler’s
scribbled yellow sun
belies
my private rain
watering
my loss

Sugar died last week
Our twelve year old
sugar sweet puppy
Sixty pounds of canine
with lap dog aspirations

We await her ashes

Spice
her cinnamon litter mate
life companion
Died
earlier this terrible year
as an uncertain spring birthed
from a reluctant winter

We dug her ashes
into the succulent garden
that now turns magenta and gray
as fall’s death overtakes summer’s life

And so we will with Sugar
bury her death in sandy soil

Await her rebirth
with Spice
every succulent spring

Prayer for a Friend

vabutsy Biblical Women, poems, prayers

God of Eve,
Who stayed with her in hardship and exile
God of Sarah,
Who stayed with her in barrenness and wandering
God of Miriam,
Who stayed with her in the desert
God of Deborah,
Who stayed with her in battles
God of Ruth,
Who stayed with her in loss
God of Esther,
Who stayed with her in a world strange to her
God of Elizabeth,
Who stayed with her in barrenness and in fullness
God of Mary,
Who came to her
God of Mary Magdalene,
Who stayed with her despite her demons
God of Martha,
Who stayed with her as she worked
God of Lydia,
Who blessed her with faith
God of every hurting woman,
God of my friend,
Let her feel your loving Presence
Sooth her fears
Comfort her tears
Heal what can be healed
Lend her your strength and courage
To face what needs to be faced.
Reveal yourself to her
Every day
In the help and care
Tenderness and prayers
Of those who love her.
Amen, please, amen.

God Chuckled

vabutsy poems

with a smidgen of theology
a smattering of prayer
with concern for the environment
that preferential option for the poor
with a mother’s lap for a weaned child
and borrowed ah, bright wings
i carefully craft my god

on a fall day
Rain
softly kisses
the breasts of trees

windshield wipers
(my oldest
forty and more years ago
called them smicker smackers)
play hide and seek
with the Rain

my vision blurs
/smick/
clears
\smack\

i hear (my husband)
/smick/
talk soft
\smack\

i watch (my husband)
/smick/
listen hard
\smack\

(even we
will little heed
/smick/
nor long remember
\smack\
what we
say
/smick/
see)
\smack\

but ah, bright love
through a gray day
i hear some God
(not of my making)
chuckle