Blue

 I don't remember what I wore that day but 

I still see the way he plopped down on the bed

beside me just before he left to run an errand 

on his way to work- his weight, his hair and freckles,

how tall he'd grown in sixteen summers on the earth. 

He took the script I held and tested me to see if

I had learned my lines, such silly lines, a comedy

that opened within weeks. By then I'd come home, after the

applause and bows, the glass of champagne sipped, and sit 

inside the car all by myself to contemplate 

the ins and outs of joining him in heaven even though I knew 

it wasn't yet my time to go. It hurt ... so much ... that it was his.

Twenty years plus four have passed since then. Today the sky

is blue, the air both hot and heavy when it hits my thickened skin,

an accessory, don't you agree? that every grieving parent needs to own.

There was no script for this, no cues or blocking, and the others

in the cast were just as lost as I on where to stand or what to do. 

But. 

Even though the play has lasted twenty years plus four, today ... 

today the sky is blue.

(c) 2024, Ellen Gillette

Adam Gillette was in an accident during the early hours of August 20, 2000 and hospitalized for two days. Declared dead on August 22, Adam was an organ donor, saving the lives of five people and giving sight to two others.

Thoughts on a Plane

Sitting on this chilly plane I pray the babies will stop crying

and I wish I had the energy to make up stories for the strangers all around.

A June flight got changed to
include a SEVEN hour layover
in Las Vegas. Ugh.

They chuckle at the videos they’re watching on their phones

or talk or doze. The engine drones,

my eyelids shut but not before a sudden thought astounds.

Is someone watching me instead

and making up a story that explains why I have left the ground?

Would I be the star, the heroine, the damsel in distress?

Whatever their imaginations be, I’ll bet they’d never guess

that I am sitting here wrapped up inside

the clothing of the dead,

which sounds a bit dramatic but is true.

Leaving Vegas, I am wrapped in Mama’s sweater

warm inside the heaviness that hung on cancer-ravaged

bony arms there at the end.

We’d never seen her thin although she said she was, in school.

The sweater isn’t stylish,

not my color, doesn’t match with what I am wearing but I thrill

to think that Mama,

like she did when I was young and sitting on her lap, still

wraps her arms around me now and then.

When my husband’s sister died,

the clothes she’d bought to keep up with whatever size

she was that month hung, waiting, in the closet

until Mom said take whatever. I’ll just give away the rest.

Her jeans caress me now,

a pair I never saw her wear or don’t remember

but they’re soft and stretch enough to cover my vacation sins.

In life, though family, we were never best of friends

but in her jeans now

I am grateful for the grace that taught us to at least pretend.

Leaving Vegas and the desert far behind

no money lost, no money won,

and if again I travel there it will be much too soon

which sounds a bit dramatic but is true.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2023

Note: Riding on the airplane I jotted down a few notes, that turned eventually into a poem for my writing group, then changed a little more as I read it to them.

Enough

I wouldn't say the month passed quickly.   

.

I only know that when I take a breath 

it's not the ICU I smell. (That took a while.)

We said goodbye and touched the blanket

one more time and that was that.

They called Code Hero for a donor

while inwardly we wished that he would save 

not all those others, but ... well ... us. 

The hugs made damp by falling tears.

The drugs we used to try and medicate

away the pain or catch up on our sleep.

Fragrant flowers that could not outlast our grief.

The phone calls and texts that must be made

while knowing that each bit of information 

would elicit sobs. Unanswered questions 

rise within my throat that taste of bile and dust. 

 "How are you?" people ask, although this time

I'm not the one who suffers most. But still.

The phrase I use is that I feel a little wobbly. 

What I leave unsaid is that I'm standing 

on a precipice and I know that I could sit.

I know I could avoid the wind that's picking up,

that threatens, that could blow me up to heaven,

down to hell or somewhere in between

but something in me plants my feet, defiant.

I raise a fist and yell "Enough!" as if my voice

could even carry in a storm like this. But suddenly,

sensing my resolve, the wind moves on.

The air is sweet and full of peace and that

will have to do until the next time 

Death, once more, comes near.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2023

              

Midnight Introspection

Sometimes I wish that I was brave enough to throw off 

all the boundaries I’ve known since I was born, 

the noble expectations lurking, nimbly hidden there 

among the do’s and don'ts, the just-because-it’s-rights 

or that-would-be-bad-forms. Or what about the mirror 

of the Word of God that’s miraculously free of streaks 

some days but mostly, since my hands are soiled, is smudged. 

I’m judged as wacky by a world who could not possibly perceive 

my deepest needs and wants, the things I crave to see 

become reality. Freely I confess I’m judged more harshly 

by my inner inclinations interrupting, finding fault 

because I hesitate to face the mist alone, to step out of my comfort zone,

cocoon of who I think that I should be, must be, who I am 

that someone else decided long ago. Shadowed 

by those braver few I love who’ve forged new lives in steel 

and looking at them from the outside how they seem 

to thrive, surviving all the drama they created 

while I’m waiting here, just sitting with a pile of gold 

that glistens but is soft and therefore useless as a sword. 

Even more of those I see seem equally uneasy but 

still they choose to take a chance and push parameters 

to reinvent their universe at will. I wanted to believe 

the year before had whispered promises of change. 

I thought I heard them once or twice upon the breeze but no. 

The hope was just a self-inflicted wound that’s healing as we speak, 

the scar serving as reminder every day that almost all 

I ache for’s just beyond my reach and ever will be thus. 

The truth is sometimes cold but it’s enough. And when I light 

the match and when you gently blow upon the embers of my dreams 

the fire’s as blazing hot as it is short-lived. But if I’m honest – 

and why wouldn’t I be honest, raised by southern saints – 

I wonder if the wine I drank tonight’s responsible 

for all this introspection? Or if it was the key to open up 

the golden box inside my heart and hold it up, 

examining the what ifs and the maybe sos 

that sparkle even as the glowing coals that are my dreams 

grow dim and I am drifting off to sleep once more.

A Love Song in the Eye of the Hurricane

 It's so quiet.

Just weeks after Hurricane Irma  devastated 
Florida's SW coast, Nicole's eye passed over us
on the SE coast, thankfully only a Cat. 1.
My writers' group was assigned to write
something tonight about the eye.

Peace, even.

A welcome respite from the unleashed fury 

    only moments ago.

And yet, I know it's temporary.

The back side of the storm approaches with

    unfinished business.

A trick of nature. Life's sarcastic side revealed.

And isn't it always thus?

A crisis descends upon us suddenly and we endure,

    hanging on by fingernails we've bitten to the quick.

The grace is there for every hour and day 

    but when we fall into a fitful sleep that night ...

There's nothing left. The grace, like manna in the wilderness,

    doesn't keep. And then one day --

It's done. The eye of the storm of life passes over

    leaving clear skies, blue skies again,

And all is right with the world.

We dance and laugh, knowing deep down that it won't last.

But in the moment, we delight. We savor. We hope...again...

    that this will last forever, knowing that it won't.

Knowing that it can't but trusting...still...the promises 

    of grace and strength we learned in Sunday School

When we were innocent of hurricanes,

When clouds were simply funny shapes and not the 

    harbingers of doom. The storms will always come.

The storms will always pass.

Everything and everyone are here on loan,

    temporary joys and woes.

So little, really, is permanent, sustained, reliable.

There's God, of course.

There's you.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2022

After the Storm

I should be happier, I think,

to dodge a hurricane that only

skirted us, stole power for awhile

and rained a million branches in the yard.

I should be dancing, gleeful

that the sun is out again.

The weather people could explain

the dryness of the air, now cooler

than it's been in months

but who can tell me why

the storm just glanced our way

yet gut-punched neighbors

on the other coast.  It couldn't be

because we're better over here.

My sins alone would merit harsher stripes 

across our backs. Perhaps if I were out in space 

I'd see the need for balance on the planet

and the only way was shifting sands and

rivers down the street.

We think we're so important, all the things

we buy, the things we do, the homes we build. 

Everything can blow away and does,

when wind is motivated, focused, 

dedicated to its path.

We're all exposed. 

Bad things can happen. Often do.

Every silver lining has a cloud,

but then again, the wind's not angry

at the moment. No one's angry

at the moment.

Even where they've lost so much,

the water lapping against the walls

of flooded homes is a peaceful song.

(c) 2022. Ellen Gillette

Hospital Bed

Adam Rogers Gillette
b. May 22, 1984
d. August 22, 2000

He filled the bed.

Still just a boy, but already

hinting at the man he'd be

if he had not, instead

watched us crying there

from somewhere overhead

and waved goodbye.

He filled the bed

as he filled his years with ball games

of all kinds and cartwheels,

kindness, laughter, loyalty

to family, team and God,

who gifted him without revealing

it was only for awhile.

He filled the bed.

He filled his time on earth,

learning more and packing more into

his sixteen times around the sun 

than if he'd lived far longer.

He filled our hearts.

He always will.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2022