I noticed his quiet acceptance
When someone claimed there were hardly any trees planted
At the time he retired as manager

I noticed his quiet smile
When I was still in bed reading when he returned
From walking the grounds with Larry

I noticed his quiet reading
When I made myself breakfast and got ready
As he sat on the sofa with a western and a glass of milk

I noticed his quiet pleasure
When we walked the woodland paths
After we drove to the arboretum

And I heard his quiet spirit
Echoed In his beloved woods

Standing at the kitchen sink
My hands buried in warm, soapy water
I busily wash dirty dishes
While my gaze lingers on the sunflowers
Framed by the window
The sunflowers that are not in the garden
But there, just so, almost in the middle of the grass
Five sunflower plants
Grown tall
Their showy heavy flowers
Bending low now
Preparing to return to earth
As summer gives way to fall.

Five absurdly placed sunflowers
Not planted
But grown tall from seeds in dog droppings
Gifts from our dogs
And from my usually practical husband
Who carefully mows around them
Because they are framed perfectly
By the kitchen window
As I busily wash dishes
Buried in soapy water.

Something not memory
drives me from my book,
eyes wandering from the words on the page,
to stare across the years
at stacks of construction paper,
colored slivers on a shelf,
flimsier than my hands expected,
easily folded, easily torn, easily ruined,
but stacked on a shelf
so yummy, so soothing,
in clean layers of colors:
browns, greens, reds, blues
but the blacks and yellows always looked harsh,
suitable only for Halloween.

Something not memory
drives me to the keyboard,
to type electronic words
on an electronic page,
electronic words of construction paper,
thinner but better than lined writing paper,
easily disturbed, easily scattered,
but still safe, still scrumptious
in something quiet, more than memory.

I have read and read and read
Posts and articles
Prayers and sermons
I have listened
I have thought
I have prayed – or tried to
I have raged
I have wept

I have watched through the night
Wakeful with unrest
Wakeful with anger
Wakeful with sorrow
Wakeful with a thousand memories
Wakeful with a million fears
Wakeful, perhaps, like a victim

And then I read more
Addicted to the words
Seeking refuge in thoughts

Overwhelmed, I read
Of victims and cover-ups
Of sadism and collusion
Sadly, I read of institutional complicity
And knew it to be true
Searching, I read of needed reform
And knew I agreed
Hopeful, I read Francis’ letter
And knew it to be inadequate

I read of everything
But evil
I thought of everything
But evil
Until I read
“The grace to be open to the gift of poetry”
And then I thought
Of evil
I thought
Of
The anti-grace to be open to the seduction of evil
The poetry of evil

Are we distracted
By words
By reform
By the institutional faults
From the essential evil?

The garden is so overgrown
So in need of pruning
So in need of a new landscape vision
That we cannot see the serpent
Whispering in the gardeners’ ears
Seducing them with the forbidden fruit
Though the juices run red down their faces.

The tree fell
Without ax to sever bark
Without storm to quake branches
Without water to weaken roots
The tree fell

Only after it lay down
Wide branches blocking, breaking
The road
Instead of shading
Only after it lay down
Did we see the hollowness
The rotten core
That brought it down

The men worry me
they come in at night to take a shower
in my bathroom
they stand over my bed
but I pray to Jesus to protect me
and they go away
The food worries me
they are putting something in my food
I can see it when I look in the toilet
after I, you know
brown specks, about that big
they look like raisins
sometimes I see them in the cereal
and in the rice
I eat bananas and Activia
I like ice cream and potato chips
but I have to be careful

For her, darkling demons, dementia’s brood
Blacken her mind, shutter memory’s flare
Fearful paranoia her only mood
Terrible conjurings her steady fare.

God promises to take care of me
If I persevere through my trials
It’s here, in the Bible
I have to persevere
The Ensure doesn’t taste right anymore
I think they put something in it
I don’t think they like me
But I never complain
People come to see the apartment
I hear them talking outside
They are going to throw me out
Our Father, whose art is heaven
hallow hollow be be bee in my bon…name, your
kingdom be done with this
on heaven
On TV, those cooking shows
They cook dogs and cats now
I don’t mind the cats so much
Not that I would ever eat that
But I won’t watch them cook dogs
I can’t the words in the prayer books
Right here beside me
I went to Bible Study but they made fun of me
in the dining room they laugh at me
because my feet are funny
and my throat makes a noise when I swallow

Each day her mind flees down steep sickness stairs
Each night’s delusions twist without relief
She wakes to troubled attempted prayers
Jumbles once familiar words of belief.

I have to persevere.
God tells me
Andi has been pregnant a long time
a year or two now I’m
waiting for that baby
My great-grandson Ruth
Woody’s wife that other one
she does my laundry and says
she and Woody are wife but Ruth
is died
Did she
That doctor, she wanted to know when I was born
She my graduation picture
I was quite a looker
I tried to figure it out
but I can’t remember when my parents
we lived in Emmaus
My father grew
strawberries I think he
drank

All meaning lost to Alzheimer’s sly thief
Robbed of truth, mem’ries comfort no more

God does laundry when Woody
comes I’ll tell God to
persevere
The couple comes out of
their hole to watch my TV
they don’t want to pay for their own
my dogs on the                                 chair
protect me                  from that
snake under that what call                           chair
the dogs              follow me
with eyes
that’s    how
I know they’re alive
though Andi Andi Andi said                    stuffed
stuff of alive though
persevere
God Wood y
Andi came with                         ?baby?
picture who        is             that
No
Go way
Ipretty Joe
persevere
Who

When she dies, deep relief buries our grief
We pack her room quickly, a final chore.

Why write, griefless, when death has set her free?
Just this, please God, send swifter death to me.

His hands, tree roughened,
Move up and down my barked skin.

I recoil slightly when my own keyboard hands
Encounter a patch of my washboard skin,
Stuttering over ridges,
Withdrawing into planed places
Unmarred.

But his hands,
His gentle tree trained hands,
Glide over my body without pause
Accepting the damaged and the pristine
As if there is no sin,
No fall from grace,
As if there is only beauty
Created under his hands.