Time Change

 When the time changed he had trouble keeping up.

The oven might be wrong.

His cell phone's rarely used so not much help.

"What time is it?" he asks her as he interrupts her work.

"You have a watch," she says, a bit annoyed. "I gave it to you, so..."

"It doesn't work," he says.

And there it is.

The silent implication that the problem is with her

and not the watch at all. Her gift has stopped.

Her patience and her love, her willingness to free this moment

now, this broken watch of wanting anything from life.

The cue is obvious. He waits for her to offer, get the battery it needs,

a simple act of service that she's done before.

Today she just feels done. The deeper issue's not the watch

or expectations but the wish that all the things around her

in a current state of disrepair (no pun intended)

could so easily be put to rights.

A battery for that one's motivation.

And another that can fix such grave mistakes.

The nation's ills, injustice. She can't just run down to the store

and pick up something that will put these back on track.

Instead she could just run. An hour later she is back, the battery in hand.

So much of life she cannot fix,

but now at least he'll know what time it was

when she decided that she'd leave and not return.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2020

Note: Never read things into someone's poetry. It's poetry. A random observation, an overheard remark, a third-hand anecdote. Anything's fair game when it comes to poetry, especially when there's a writing group coming up and homework needs to be done.

July 1st

It feels like June was never here,

as if the record of my life was scratched;

the needle jumped and now it is July.

June bled out slowly, in reality. My mind

goes back and plays the record at

another speed to slow it down, revisit

every moment of the early part with projects

filling time and then the phone call on the 10th

that stopped the clock, the calendar,

the calm that settled in for days and weeks,

that lulled me into thinking I was fine.

Decisions, deadlines, Daddy's death

and boxes of the memories he left behind,

photographs of people with no names,

of buildings without people, trees, flowers

more than anything as if their momentary

blooms had been a lesson that we didn't

even recognize the need to learn.

Smiling children who grew up with him

would sit and weep on padded pews and later, 

shovel dirt inside the hole beside my son. 

But that was then and now it is July, too soon

and yet, in many ways, not soon enough.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2019

Brief Ode to Summer

July whizzed by
it's over now and
school will start too soon.
The stars were only briefly
in a line, my planet barely
rubbing shoulders with the moon.
Some people came and went
and others died but one day
I was naked on a dune.
The summer's almost over
and I love the fall but
this?
Today?
Inopportune.
I need more time
to sweat and dodge the rain
that's typical of afternoon.
I need another August,
longer, please, with fewer knives.
More spoons.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Another Realm

String theory, particles of time

and space, continua I don't begin
to understand, the possibility
of parallels and places in the
universe that suck light molecules
into black holes or wormholes
that could be the gates of hell itself
or heaven's, either one. I couldn't say.
I'm stuck in place, assigned a role,
a post to man until the planets all
align and I am free to venture to
another realm. Once in awhile I get
a foretaste, all it takes to keep me
going, grace today and hope tomorrow
that the cosmic train I ride will
reach its destination; but there'll
be a few more stops along the way,
exotic climates with intriguing scenery
I have only dreamed of.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014