Mounting Costs

School here starts tomorrow and M will be a senior. I do not know where the time went, and all said and done - he's turning out respectably - at least from what I can tell most of the time.
Hard work and commitment have not translated into results beyond the modest home that I have been able to provide. So, while I know it is not negotiable that he must spend time deciding on a college I am pretty sure that unless I win a hefty lottery jackpot - there is not much of a chance in hell that I will have the money to help pay for his education.

Grants, loans and a favorite patron saint will definately be needed!

Great Day with Mom

Glorious weather usually warrants the same returns on the day - yet sometimes, somehow I have witnessed just the opposite with Mom. Any excuse to be miserable usually works when her frame is turned toward the shadows. It is unpredictable, disheartening, and unearthing at times. My foundation was built from the early example and words of my mom – a lover of all that is naturally and spiritually charged in this world. She was a young mom -happy and singing uninhibitedly while preparing Sunday breakfast. Offering us the freedom to explore, and the confidence of the success that she knew would be ours, she sacrificed her own options. Her friends all several years older than her, she grew beyond her years too quickly, while her expectations of the world remained those of a teenager. Caught between these two worlds, she now lives in a tug of war between despair and acceptance while that wonderful spirit of hers seems trapped behind a mirror of reality.

Today, however, was a great day with Mom. We ate tomatoes and talked of nothing and everything as moms and daughters do. Torrential rain didn’t prevent her from dressing like a flower. The soft edges of her hair, her smile and the glimmer in her eye renewed my hopes for the world. We shopped frivolously, and laughed. Hours passed like the rain. Her parting hug will linger within me.

Autonomy and Anonymity

Dark shadow hovering over the image of my soul

Reflecting variations of my actions, desires, and impressions

As a kabuki doll upon a stage.

Performing my truth to me while showing something else

To others - from their point of view.

Disillusionment of love, the blood of the womb wills not

To acknowledge the Pulsing warm intent.

Rejection nourishes the poison as it Seeps into

Spaces unoccupied – moving with a vitality

Unknown to me.

Nameless, Faceless fruit, reclaim thy purpose!

Illuminate blossoms of hope from stems of oak-

Hard, callous, tree of everlasting life -

Endures the engraving of generations

While willows without roots, Topple

From the weight of themselves.