January 4, 2016

Two Poems And a Flash By Belinda Hubert: "Striving", "Grief", "Morning"

In addition to writing fiction and poetry, Belinda Hubert is currently working on a  a collection of short stories about life in the Midwest. Her novel, Shrink Wrapped is available on Amazon. Belinda works as a clinical psychologist in a private practice in Lowell, Indiana.  http://buelasprairiepractice.blogspot.com/



Indiana Voice Journal January Poem 






Striving

My body wants me to move.
You’ll rust out before you wear out.
But my spirit wants me to be still,
pay attention.
I’m trying to mind
that place
in between.
Moving but not spinning.
Aware but not self conscious.

I simply refuse to rust.  
As if I can have a say
in such a thing.
Except to keep moving.
And I hate it when my life
rolls past while I bustle
unaware.
Such a waste.

So, I keep tuning the quality
of my attention
to meaning and essence,
not deeds done today.
While I cross out the stuff
on my list.

One of these days I’ll get it.
How to be, effortlessly, fully
in my life
at this exact moment.

And then
everything will be
just as it always ever was.
All that striving
and effort
to get where I am.
I can be such a goob.


Grief

Making friends
with death.
Fear and grief
are inevitable.
We will fear,
lose,
grieve
and die.


Like the joy,
love,
celebration
and new life
It  is all temporary.

The delicacy
and immediacy
of the pulse
would be meaningless
if not for
the fragility.
It’s end
sitting there at
the edge
of our field of vision.

And the healing
could not come
without the searing,
roiling
waves of pain
and grief.

Appreciation, thankfulness
are only possible after
great suffering,
when the extremes wind together.

Then the presence
weaves with the absence
into something much more precious
than either thing alone.





Morning

He came up this morning with binoculars in his hand.  He is on a mission the moment he wakes up.  He climbs up in my bed and rests a minute before he asks for help with whatever it is.  “Abuela, will you help me find my Auntie Gator kitty?”  The plan will come together eventually.  But for this minute, I’m just soaking up his warm little self, snuggled on my arm.


I put my forehead on his to help him go backwards in his mind to the last time he played with the Auntie Gator kitty.  What was he playing?  Where was he?  We remember the last place I saw it was his drawer in the kitchen.


We are having a cozy wake up.  He tells me about his dream of tadpoles shooting out of his backpack.  Whoa!  Then he clutches his side and says his goblin is bent.  He runs to the bathroom and takes care of that problem.  Goblin is gallbladder.  His mom just had hers removed.  His is just fine after the trip to the bathroom.  


Annnnd he’s off in search of the Auntie Gator kitty.  And a few beats later, he’s back.


He found connected together gum.  “I taked the package out and I ripped it so you could have some gum and I could have some gum.”  We chew.  Now he’s meandering out the door again.  Binoculars in hand, but still no Auntie Gator kitty.  He’ll share the grand scheme if I stay right here and wait.  The whole plan will unfold.  He won’t forget, no matter how many sweet distractions he encounters in between.  And he won’t be able to drop it until it comes together.  All the ingredients will be assembled by the time he eats breakfast. It must be or he is frantic and can’t eat.  Usually, whatever it is travels to preschool with him in his backpack.


Yesterday it was fancy rocks and little fuzzy yellow chicks.  Six of them.  Today, it’s Auntie Gator’s Kitty.  He’s back.  It was in the drawer!  Yay! And he still has his binoculars.  “Why do you need those guys today, Ollie man?”  “It’s foggy. I need the binoculars to see stuff.”  Auntie Gator’s kitty needs them to see Auntie too, because she is far away.  She went home to San Francisco yesterday.  

Told you.  “Can you see your Auntie?”  “Yep.  And so can kitty”.  “Tell her we love her.  Time for breakfast.”



~Belinda Hubert

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