Author: Kay Foley

The dream was awful
full of old anger ancient grudges
new slights tangled twisted together
into one dark violent morass.
Waking I shake my head free
of it wondering why now why
these old angry hurts why now in
this beautiful place my sister here
with me my ever loyal kind
champion why here and now?
What odd beings we are after 
all with our strange emotions our
intricate confusing brains our frailties the 
bizarre theaters of our dreamworlds our 
overburdened hearts our peculiar 
infinitesimal idiosyncrasies!
It is a miracle we manage as well
as we do, we crazy humans.

Crows and ravens cry in this tiny coastal town.
I wonder how my life might be here by the ocean
with the salt air the constant rush and pull of the sea
over and in and back again across sand and rocks
the ceaseless crash the ennervating murmur the 
romance of it the constancy the surety.  
Would I be rendered immobile lost 
to reverie doomed to an unnatural lassitude
living here by the sea?  Is that the reason  
I never managed to settle here?

Here in my sister’s California home 
where my mother felt most loved
I do at last feel her calm presence.
My mother felt most at ease, loved, protected 
with Mary.  This I know.
While I could always make her laugh
Mary was her heart’s dear companion.
I do feel her comfortably here 
No longer anxious fretful confused
But free, plump, calm
Seeing and hearing the world around her
Loosed from infirmity and worry.
Being.
Simply being.

Mesmerized once again by 
sun through the morning clouds
a silent fall of rain
the twirling dance of walnut leaves past my window
this cool breeze on my skin
the tiny sounds of a nearby squirrel
my windchimes on the porch
the rustle of the cottonwood tree
I feel all will to go and do other than this
this listening seeing writing
slipping away.  More and more I want
to have no obligation but this:  to 
observe and reflect our world.

Already flutter down the yellow leaves
of my walnut trees in mid-August an
event reserved for fall.  I find their 
innocent turning twirling drift completely 
charming.  My neighbor fearful of falling 
walnuts had hers cut down in the prime of 
its large life.  I find this unfathomable.
I love the sound of the big green nuts
plunking on the roof of my house or dropping
on the soft earth, oh not as much as I love the 
leaf fall but still, that too has taken up lodging 
in the ramshackle boarding house of my heart.

Fan pulls cool air from the window.
My dog rearranges the oval of himself
so he can take full advantage of it.
I brush my toes back and forth across his
velvet curliness, taking in this moment fully.
Day after day I want to stay right where
I am, with these dogs, in the cool of morning.

I want to be here for the next thing
she said, the friend I ran into yesterday.
Her life became a life of cancer five years
ago, when her boys were still boys.  
Now, her son says, she lives life raw.
It seems improbable that she will ever think
Their lives are settled now, now I can go.
Sons are sons forever.  So she shoves
herself, raw, through the tunnels of 
chemo and pain, for the privilege
of being here for whatever the next 
thing may be.

I do love my bones
and my muscles
and the tiny hairs 
of my eyelashes
my heart and lungs
eyes and ears and mouth
and all the parts of me
that keep me alive and
moving, coming, going,
seeing, doing and being.
All those parts that were
put together 60 years ago
in the dark depths of my
mother’s body that once
was put together in my 
grandmother’s body and
so on and so forth back
and back and back and 
here again I can only 
think that I have been
remarkably lucky.

The luxury of the open window.
Cool air drawn across my shoulders.
Katydids chattering in the yard.
A sweet sugar love of a brown black
dog lying imperturbable at my feet.
I love I love I love all of this
that I have and love and will love again
tomorrow and the day after that
I will love again and again I 
will love from inside my bones
these small perfect things.

A pair of hummingbirds exploring 
the red-capped birdfeeder in my 
mimosa tree. My brother
and I sitting just there.  Now zipping
here now there now hovering
a small foot from our faces.  Looking
as if they had a very important matter
to discuss.  I was wearing that flowered 
robe of mine, I realized later and I bet 
they liked the look of it.  You never know.  
I rather like the idea of being looked upon
favorably by two elegant hummingbirds.