Greek to Me

If she'd been Greek she would have understood his love

smacked more of philo or agape than the eros she imagined.

Over time, the pragma that took over was a welcome change,

a love of comfort and convenience, each one well aware of what

the other wanted, needed, fleeting expectations making way for 

solid knowledge of what would and would not happen.

By then, of course, she'd figured out that "love" can mean a dozen

different things depending on whose lips have formed the words, 

and she adapted. She adapted well, in fact, until she met someone 

whose love for her encompassed all the facets of the word 

in any language, any dialect, the words far less important

than expression, definitions lost in an embrace that didn't

ever seem to end, despite the hours or distance. And she still enjoyed
the word, of course, the whisper of commitment and of hope,
but which love did he mean? It never dawned on her to ask,
as if the morning wondered if the sun, today, would rise.

(c) 2019 Ellen Gillette

Maybe you know couples like that, as I do, who get used to something less than what they hoped for, and then get blown away by something new. It happens.

The New Year Approaches

As the year draws to a close, an accident.
The champagne spilled, her laptop compromised.
How many moments just like these, she thinks,
have been encountered in a lifetime? Momentary
things gone wrong, and yet, assurance that not
everything is lost. The memories of all that really
matters is intact. The people who still care, although
the names may change from year to year, are there.
No data missing, no relationships that mattered
in the last twelve months will matter less, perhaps
a few, of late, have faded but that wasn't anything
that she would or could have changed. The champagne
sopped up with a towel, she is hopeful that the year
ahead will bring some changes for the better. Still
she weeps for what she's lost, for difficulties she'd have
rather helped her loved ones to avoid but they would
not. She hears the sound of fireworks in the distance
and she prays that next year will be better, that a year
from now, she'll toast the turning of the calendar with
company,'
and hope,
and love.




(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Ghosts of Thanksgiving

They represent, collectively, 800 turkeys carved or more,

Norman Rockwell's famous
"Freedom from Want" painting

2000 pies, a treasure trove of casseroles, a semi load of

sweet ice tea, hot rolls with butter by the barrel. 

Sixty years, around, of holidays made special 

for their families and friends. Or not. Some have the look 

of scoundrels still. Old age does not erase past hurts,

but listening to now cracked and feeble voices try to

stay on key for Silent Night, I hope that there are people

who will visit those who gave them many memories 

in younger years, who set a table with the candles 

and good china, worked for hours on a meal because that's 

what you do. Or what you did once long ago.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

On the Eve of Mama's Birthday

I thought it was another of the multitude of things:
the particles of drama, quarks of quirks that make this
place a challenge I can tolerate with promised grace
but without much left over by the end of day. As tempting
as it is to smooth the wrinkles of my words and make it sound
as if my present state of mind is overblown, I am
too honest, I'm afraid. And yet tonight I realize
that nothing of the normal nastiness may be to blame
at all. Perhaps it is, instead, the fact that in the morning,
I will wake up to the first of Mama's birthdays in my life
that will not have her voice, her breath, her joy.

I hadn't really planned on that.

The rest is ordinary stress I recognize as Life, at least
for now. Although I often do not know my place or what
my role should be at any given minute, I adjust
(and fairly quickly, since I get such frequent practice).

But how do I adjust to nothing

when the something, when the someone,

was so dear?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Bridge

Like a bridge that's built to give a little

under stress, allow for weather and for weight,

I wonder how much more this little heart

can take today. The heaviness. Concerns,

catastrophes that build, one sitting nicely on

the one below. You know at some point it

will topple over, you just hope you're not

there underneath the load, that something,

someone will have grabbed your hand and

pulled (at least) a moment sooner, and offered

you a hug, a touch, a glass of wine, some oxygen,

a pillow to prop up your head, a foot rub,

pleasant music, candles maybe, something

nice to eat, a smile, a poem, warm cloth

to wash the dirt away, a bandage for that scrape,

the promise that there's someone on the earth

that cares and understands that little heart

with so much love to give it hurts.

(c) Ellen Gillette 2018

Paranoid

We've become so paranoid.
Hysteria must fill the void left by
those other quantities like trust or decency.
A friend has asked for volunteers
to send a book, just one, the premise
being that if lots of folks agree,
eventually each one will get a steady
stream of favorite titles in the mail.
I bit. And friends of mine did too,
and then the steady stream of something
else: It's just a scam. A fraud! A chain mail
gizmo that snopes or someone else 
has denigrated. Who cares if the
Canadian whose name I wrote upon the
extra copy of a Ferrol Sams book I always
buy when seen at secondhand stores (it's
good) just gets that book, not all the
ones she hoped for. She will spend
some pleasant days while reading
all about sweet Porter Osborne, whom
I truly love. But I digress, the point to make
is not my book, but how suspicious we
are (and need to be, I'm sad to say).
Not every compliment or situation is
fodder for MeToo or what Matters
at the moment. To me, hysteria dilutes
legitimate offenses, while all the wannabes
and coattail hangers on attract attention
and enrage the armchair quarterbacks
who lack imagination to consider that
sometimes, cigars are just cigars,
that things are said and done most often
by mistake or stupid chance or choice.
Conspiracies exist, no doubt, but looking
for them under every headline or event
distracts us from reality, detracts from
stories of the victims we must never
get so weary of, that we close our ears.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018

Meltdown 2018

I didn't have the meltdown as I stood there at his grave,

my shadow falling on the marker with his name

much like my shadow must have fallen

through an open doorway countless nights

when some slight noise alerted me to check the crib,

or later, just to see the childrens' shapes in bed and know

that they were safe. 

The tears did not appear beneath the wind chime 

that I couldn't reach to (hopefully) repair at home.

The tubes were guarded by a frog, some wasps, and as I

batted them away, a groundsman came to see what was

the matter. We worked together, Juan and I, and

got it down for me to take, but I could tell that he was

clearly moved that he could help a mother

at her baby's grave, and on this special day as well.

We both agreed that I would see him once again,

but longing for that far-off day (or not) did not precede

the so-familiar ache that warns my surface will be breached,

the pain about to make its way 

into the light.

At Daddy's place, I listened as they answered crossword questions,

knowing I could tell him what today was, knowing if I did that

likely in a minute, he would slip back into the  fog

where he resides, where loved ones aren't in sight

but close, and coming back, perhaps, at any time.

But as I left him, walking to the car and driving off,

a woman called who needed me to scan some documents.

My signature last week went through in portrait and she

needed landscape for the files and with so many clients 

in her care she really can't be bothered. Would I email right away 

so they can process the insurance?

That's when I lost it. 

I could hold it all together, seamlessly transitioning

from task to task, from exercise to kitchen and from getting

dressed to errands, all without a sense of stress,  until 

she called and one more thing was asked of me.

Poor lady. I could tell that she felt terrible.

But not, I think, as terrible as me. 

You see, that's what a meltdown does. 

You know they'll come, they just don't come on cue. You 

might be talking to someone about a birthday, say the words sixteen 

or son or accident or stand in line for deli meat, or see 

that one of his old friends is getting married 

and you're happy, really happy,

but you're also not. 

For just a minute, meltdowns let you wallow in the loss, 

reminding you that grief is never done, that it's

a process, and a fire that may cool down at times to

ashes and to embers, but also where the breath of God 

may blow it into flames at any time.

Reminding you that it's okay.

Make no apology for feeling.

What you feel is really not the loss at all:

It's love.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2018