Showing all posts by Delores Friedman

Time stretches and shrinks, and would be a mere child’s plaything,

A Slinky pulled apart, poised to spring back, defying our best intentions,

To lengthen our stay, and give us more time to shape and mold in our own way.

Instead, it becomes only the wish of a long life, recoiling in our hand,

Because the days we have rewound so tightly, and close together that

Like our memories are, they seemed but one day.

So you dance in the moonlight, and sing to the sun, because while you dally with the metal at play,

To understand its ways,

It plays tricks on your mind, and you pay no notice to all the warnings ,

That time is fleeting, and coils are shifty changing things, and are poised to spring away.

And as with other toys made to will things to be, like the so called magic wand,

Often lengthening and shortening, mesmerizing , misdirecting us with sleight of hand

Away from from the truth we know, that Time is not a stretchy toy, but

What leads us where it must,

Never thinking that there is an end,

Until we ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’, and finally rest our heads.

We will have seen time for what it is, the thief of our imaginings.

Surrender. Time is a sorcerer.

Because at once it is a lifetime stretched it seems to eternity, then it is but a blink of an eye, and brief glimpse of what could be.

By Delores Lowe Friedman

Mutability, sweet lady

Were it not for you

The butterfly would remain always a landbound worm

Never tasting the sweet spring air,

Nor dream of lighting on a cloud.

The bud would not unfold, grow velvet

Drinking in the summer sun.

The youthful yellow-green leaf might miss

the crimson blaze of passion,

The fall and peaceful rest.

You bring the delight of newness

the celebrity of awakening,

the ecstasy of renaissance.

Photo by Ilo Frey

Grief has a way of tapping you on the shoulder

When you are looking the other way.

Doing the things that people say, the busy stuff, the reflective and mindful  stuff,

the writing, the reading, seeking out the stuff that makes the days just drift away.

Then the vagaries of life move things about , rearranging all that you knew,

They take your knee, for your health and future

stability and mobility,

And then all the rest falls apart.

The one, one you always called on for peace and loving comfort,

He’s so far away, he can’t hear you it seems, that it rips away at your heart.

You  accept the surrogates, who try so hard to help you mend the pieces as best you can,

But it all feels so temporary, the quick fixes end before they even start,

And you find the strength to do what they say,

but setbacks sap your courage as you realize you are not quite able.

So, you talk to him the one who is lost, and tell him how he’s missed

 And you read his love tomes to remind you of the sensation of his kiss.

‘And you “keep on keepin’ on” as people say you should.

Because if you stop, it ends and they remind you that is never  good

But your heart isn’t in it as it once was.

The aloneness is chilling and the winter lingers though they say it is ended

The cherry blossoms have awakened an’ their branches bended,

The cold rain weighs down their petals

Leaving pink tear stained drops every which way.

I shore up my courage, to begin a new day.

And search for remnants of happiness, a baby’s laugh here, a bud unfolding there,

 Or create something from the nothingness, from snatches of thought something here and there.

And then someone else leaves, euphemisms don’t say it , she dies.

My friend of almost a lifetime gives up the fight, and leaves.

And there it is, the tap on the shoulder. Remember me the spectre calls!

I am always with you now. Time is short, gather the pink tears that fall

On your doorstep, they remind you that I am here.

Go and do the things you know will soothe and ease your sadness a bit.

Because I am not far, just over your shoulder, anywhere you sit.

You know me now. You’ve studied me for the lessons you can glean

But you do not know the fullness, the stretch , and the rich rawness of the new pain, yet unseen.

The weak salves you apply whether flights of fancy, or writings of poesy realizing all you feel,

But in the quiet morning hours, when time is yours alone

Only thinking and being in the blue blur dawn stands you in your stead,

Cause grief is not going anywhere that you  can find escape,

Unwanted partner, no you will never find your way without it,

Your new partner now  every step along the way.

For the love you knew could not go without leaving the gaping space behind.

Leaving its inverse, its shadow, its empty space, Grief behind us, and up ahead,

Now the constant lover to keep us company instead.

by Delores Lowe Friedman

For the Friends Who Left Too Soon

The Fast Friends

The Ties That Were Made in an Instant

And Have Lasted a Lifetime

Fast friends, float away like the leaves on a fall tree,

Lined, and windblown, you lie at our feet,

Bearing the reds, and the golds, the passion of a life fully lived,

A testament to the true treasures, to us, you have given. 

And we gather them up, lest they are blown away, 

Keeping them alive in our minds till spring’s bright sun’s ray.

So, all that is left now, are our tearful good byes,

Our love expressed in gentle soft sighs.

Wishing for more than the whispers those tender sounds say,

For in our hearts, our love is loud, and lingering, and for all of our days.

A Snippet of Fluff Comes to Mind

Birthdays are stopping places

The clearings in our lives that give us pause,

To think about the folks

Who we met along the way who give us cause

To smile and remember them

In times that now are gone by,

Memories of the moments that for us shine like gems

And light up the velvet night skies.

To My Dear Friends,

Thanks for all the Happy Birthdays

These last few months I have been recovering from surgery, learning to walk again, and regaining my self-confidence. If you have never done this, watch a young child learn to walk. I love watching the development of infants and toddlers. Watch them as they learn, you’ll see the absolute joy in discovering their sense of balance, and control and even the occasional fall, the pushing themselves up to standing triumphantly unscathed, reminding me of the lotus.

For adults it is difficult, challenging, and frightening. A fall at this stage can mean injury, and beginning the journey to learn all over again. But, with all that is happening in the world, I relearn to walk, and regain my sense of myself. I am finally back again trying to remember the lessons I learn along the way, and here are some of my thoughts.

Yesterday,  Today, Tomorrow

by

Delores Lowe Friedman

Fraught with frenzied thoughts

Time runs away from me,

Cloaking  my moments in his pockets, shading them from my eyes, secreting them , perhaps forever.

Through the wide-angle, death, the unspeakable crowds every image, the pictures that we cannot unsee, unhear, linger in our hearts.

So, we take them with us and paint them into the composition of our days.

Through the telescopic end, a brief moment of beauty and peace with beloved friends, subsumed.

How can it be at this same time, when so much hurt crowds ’round, squeezing it away? Yet here they sit, side by side., brushing up against each other.

Dichotomies, always the constant truth of life. We must know both, each informing the other, giving it color and texture, and the sweet salty tastes, like the flavors of love.

Sublime sidled up with  the profane, curled up together like lovers. Engaged in the illicit.

So, the friend who depicts her cancer treatment, sharing its beginning, publicly sharing a photo of the moment it begins, and we have so many words and none come together, the moment too sweepingly sorrowful.

And yet another friend, screams softly for surcease as he contemplates loneliness, a wife gone, a home brimming with memories  imagined in only two suitcases too small to  stuff them all, and pushed into the two tiny closets in assisted living? Is that what they call it?

My gaze turned inward, my heart, scarred tissue, years of loving and then losing,

No wisdom Just whimsy waiting to wonder.

Is there a lens that erases pain, whisks it away, transforms years into wisps of time, filaments of  fluff of a dandelion? Can we just blow?

Yesterday I had brunch with a new friend. We connected over my writing and her knowledge and skill was appreciated as I finished my novel. Her view of my writing revealed understandings of embedded themes she saw, and her insights brought a heft to the book that I had not seen before. I had been more involved in the people and places that I had created.

We chatted and chatted catching up on so many things and when it was time to part, my car did not show. So we stood in the sun, me wilting from the heat and aches unattended, my head swimming a bit, and she lent me an arm, as we navigated Broadway crowds, traffic and calling for a ride to replace my no-show car service.

We vented and bellyached a bit about my circumstance, but there was always the offered arm. Just the occasional, “if they had called and said they would be late, we could have lingered over our meal and be chatting “, time flying, laughing or lamenting the times in which we live.

So when I was finally at home , reflections on friendship filled my mind. There are times when I have felt, my friends who have passed on are with me still. Their thoughts, images of them seared in my mind. And their losses are with me long after they went away.

Interestingly, my melancholy is always mingled with peace of mind.There is a contentment that comes from having had good friends. So here were some thoughts from last year that came to me as one friend left.

Fast Friends

Fast friends, float away like the leaves on a fall tree,

Lined, and windblown, you lie at our feet,

Bearing the reds, and the golds, the passion of a life fully lived and wizened,

A testament to the true treasures, to us, you have given. 

And we gather them up, lest they are blown away, 

Keeping them alive in our minds till spring’s bright sun’s rays.

So all that is left now, are our sad good byes,

Our love expressed in gentle soft sighs.

Wishing for more than the whispers those loving sounds say,

For in our hearts, our love is loud, and lingering, and for all of our days.

Now new friends , those people who enter our lives and we find that they are immediate touchstones for those feelings and states of mind that are our essences. This had not happened in a while, focussed as I was on the loss of my best friend and love. Let this thought steep. And maybe ideas of new friends will waft up, fill the air, and speak to my senses.

Last year in April, I posted a jotting on Face Book that had been living and growing in my mind the entire year since my husband, best friend, and my muse passed away. It was titled Grief is Layered. Some asked for a copy it, and I shared it. One friend and reader told me it made her smile. I will post it here (below), and then the thoughts mulling in my mind these last few weeks.

Those who know grief intimately will tell you that the stages, they speak of in articles and books, don’t go to the soul of it. Those writings speak of psychology and describe grief’s surface. But when you know it bone deep, it is something complex in its design, a silken tissue thin, and heavy drape of pain, both at once. The gauze, you see through each day, as you are trying to catch up with life moving in all its myriad directions. Glad for it because it takes you where you might not have been and wouldn’t have thought to go. Rediscovering the sound of a baby’s laugh, a door held open, a welcomed smile from a stranger, the voice of a friend. The weighted drape separates you from the world, shielding you from those who cannot and should not know. That weighted curtain can cloak you from their eyes, muffle your cries, and sop your tears, permitting a growing peace to soothe your soul.

So here is Grief is Layered and then the aftermath, Love’s Tears, the thoughts I am having today. You can feel free to share. Perhaps it will speak to the heart of someone who knows this, or remind that somehow they can find the essence of the ones they loved and lost, renewed and reborn in their memories. And maybe, just maybe, allow themselves the gifts of friends who tug them along, and take them out to play some days when their souls can, and who leave them to grieve when they must.

Grief is Layered

Poesy

by

Delores Lowe Friedman

Grief is layered.

It is cluttered with memories that transport you places, years away.

Feeling the flush of new love, a renaissance of warm wonder,

Followed by the first fear, the raw chill of loss.

Fall has always felt full of endings, pregnant with golden teardrops of falling leaves, dying and collecting at our feet.

So, it is the passing of time, we accept because we must,

But passing love, we press on our breasts, holding fast to pieces that ease the pain, bits so bittersweet, linger like languid licks or lashes lining our backs, reminding us of what, at once, was and is no more. Can you imagine a joy so intense that its blade sears as it is pulled from your soul?

 Like handfuls of seawater, escaping our fingers, flowing away from us through our clenched fists, holding fast to  the ways love felt.

Full as a pounding wave  breaking into bits, and gentle as a pulse of your love’s sleeping heartbeat.

Profound  paradoxes crashing about in my mind, trying to piece together the sad happiness of loving you a half a century.

My lonely tears collect themselves in my chest until they break free and squirt from my eyes  leaving behind the salty symbol that sadness etches my soul.

Now they secrete themselves again, as I stumble along with the rest of the world, trying to keep up as they merrily roll along.

Until it comes again, that pathetic spark which reminds us of a better time.

Buried there in my mind, a playful time presents. A touch, a taste, an instant revisits, and you are there again.

Grief is layered with these full, rich times of joyous love, that picks you up and spins you about and dizzies you, till like the golden leaf dancing in in the wind, l am lost in you.

Here is the Aftermath, Love’s Tears. A peek into the lives of two writers.

Weeks of death and destruction of human life were all that my soul could take. I went back to the times in my life that held promise, not pain. Memories came flooding in for me. The kinds of things I recalled were those junctures in my life when I learned something novel. I think of beginnings often.

The beginnings, the setting out in a new place in time and space, can make one tremble at its offering. Sometimes what is offered to us seems too huge in scope, or too complex to conceptualize. Or sometimes, just sometimes, you find a path into it and discover it inside the beauty of its complexity. Newness has that capacity to shake us and make us take notice.

Years ago, my husband and I moved to a new place in upstate New York. He was a professor, so he professed (smile), and I wrote. We had been there for about nine months when one day he came home from campus and said to me, “Come out with me, you’ve got to see this!” It was misty out, from a spring rain. “Where are we going ?” “You’ll see,” he answered. Then he drove down one road to another, and another and finally said, “Look at this!” It was an area near the Erie Canal, we were on one side of the narrow ribbon of water.

A scene out of a painting. Pastel pinks and lavenders, pale greens and yellows draping the space before me. Springtime had always been the season of wonder for me. Here it was presented to me, as my very own living painting.

So that is what I am thinking today as spring is almost ending. I must take these ideations and begin something anew. My posts in this space, will reflect thoughts about writing, and where they are taking me.

Reaching back can propel you forward. It can revive your strength and focus your intention. Recollections of your beginnings, your setting out, hold your hopes and your dreams. And as you linger there, like a long walk on a quiet beach, you may find sea glass, pounded smooth by the salt and water, holding the reflections of a lifetime. Renew your soul, and it can become reborn in the promise that you discover. Memories, the windows into your tomorrows.

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in months. I have been hard at work editing my second novel. I had to stop to get ready for this event. I am happy to announce that the Brooklyn Book Festival will be holding a Virtual Fest with a Virtual Market Place. It is an unfortunate consequence of COVID is that we cannot congregate in large gatherings. A great consequence is that, by virtue of technology, the Brooklyn Book Festival will go on. We can present our our books in a Virtual Market Place.

I would like to WELCOME Brooklyn Book Festival Attendees and offer them an Autographed Copy of Wildflowers at a discounted price.

Click here:

And watch this space. I will post a link to the Book Festival soon!