Poetry

Seeking to be whole,
Hoping each piece fits,
Fingers picking me up
Only to put me down,
Sometimes confused
On and on…bit by bit.

Once I was whole
Or so I believed
Until Lewy arrived
Picking my brain apart
Piece by piece – first my keys
Why, oh why is it me?

Is this how it ends
Appearing strong on the edge
Surrounded and secure
While lost in the middle
Pieces close together
Yet disjointed and unsure

Shapes of many types
Colors of the rainbow
Once a work of art
Together as one
Until a shove, a shift
Breaks it all apart

So, what happens now
Pieces scattered everywhere
Some lost, some to be found
Life’s puzzle changed –
Never to be the same
Yet hope is eternal – never bound

Pick up the pieces – seeking the best
Pick the brightest shapes and colors
Discard the rest
Create new art – revive your heart
Piece by beautiful puzzle piece
Give your life a fresh start!

A theft so subtle at first
you don’t know
you are being robbed,
like having your pocket picked.

You notice
nothing missing,
nothing out of place
but the thief
has already moved in.

He starts
by stealing words,
stashing
them out of sight. Then
he siphons off your memory
drop by drop.

Over time
you begin to protest,
to grieve the losses. To beat
and blame yourself.

Not content with burgling
the meanings of things,
the thief makes a shambles
of what you see and hear.

He steals the blueprints for living.
How to brush your teeth.
Get dressed.
Later, how to walk.
Finally, how to swallow.

The scans show what
has shriveled, how little the thief
has left. By then the grieving
has begun in earnest, not by you

because all you know now
is fear or comfort,

but by those who love you
and have witnessed the slow
inexorable
theft of your mind and life.

Last Thursday, you rearranged
teabags in the nursing home.
Neat rows of blacks, greens, florals,
previously skewed in the cabinet
from other hurried hands shuffling them
searching for the right taste,
those other hands rushing
to wheel residents down the hall
or receive phone calls of families
wanting to speak to loved ones.
Your hands are delicate,
shriveling like mossy seaweed,
blue veins are running tributaries,
protruding, pulsating.
One of the staff members
told you to stop sorting
teabags, go back to your room,
read a magazine, or take a nap.
You refused, staying there,
silently organizing and
reorganizing. The scent of mint
and lemons lingers
in the air. You can barely
remember what day it is or how
to fold your own clothes,
yet you know that the jasmine
and lavender teas belong
next to each other.
Who are we to say to stop
sorting teas? After all,
part of you must know
that this is your kitchen,
this is your home.
I sit and ask you
to make me a cup of tea
and that moment lingers
even now as the happiest
I have seen you.

Loss  

I lost him twice
First his illness ravaged his mind
All the things which form a life
Abandoned him
Slowly, slowly
Reflection, memory, humor, love.
And then the illness ravaged his body
I could not help him —
In the end I lost
My husband and my best friend 

La Perte  

Je l’ai perdu deux fois—
Première la maladie a ravagé son esprit
Toutes les choses qui font une vie
l’a abandonné,
lentement, lentement.
réflexion, mémoire, humour, amour E
t puis la maladie a ravagé son corps
moi, je n’ai pas pu l’aider—
À la fin j’ai perdu
mon mari et mon meilleur ami 

Love, life, companionship, happiness, joy, faith, belonging

Hopefully,
Love finds Life
Companionship finds Happiness
Joy finds its Faith
Belonging Each to Each Other.

My love’s Creation

What God created you with a roar?
Greater than all orchestras
Greater than all sounds of spring —
The wind in trees, rushing water, waves, thunder.
How did he and she together create such newness?

How did I find you?
How was I the one to find you?
How did you see me?

Will we ever have enough of each other?
Will there be enough time?
How long is Infinity?
Thus, a hope for Infinity’s purpose.

I expect we may need an eternity.
We will need an eternity. Yes.
I believe in eternity.

Glad to have met you my dear Barbara.

Thoughts on Alzheimer’s:

Basically, I often cannot remember
Whatever has just happened.
It can sadden me.
I get used to it.
Breathe in, breath out,
Repeat,
Continue.
Enjoy the breathing, seeing, hearing.
Enjoy your heart’s beat.
You/we made it to being alive, to living.
Enjoy our todays. Our moments. Dear self.
Remember…

Poetry sometimes just sits down,
and waits outside the door.
Considering the mood
For itself…
For the day.
I ask for help.
“Help yourself” answers today’s grumpy whispery poetry.

… Some friend.

What I Did on the 500th Day

On the 500th day of meditation,
I stood in the yard before sunrise,
saw the moon at rest in the nest of her halo.

I ate a speckled red apple with a tough skin,
threw the core in the woods for a squirrel.

I brushed the dog on the back deck,
watched her fur float away on cold air.
It was the winter of her sixteenth year.

I sat with my mom, who asked
if a scarf she had knitted was my boyfriend
and if she could marry my husband.     

I said yes and yes.
It was a day to say yes.

I walked in the late afternoon,
a mile for every hundred days,
chanted a naming mantra 

dirt     grass     mulch    
pine cones     leaves     sand

From The Map of Unseen Things by Brett Warren
(Pine Row Press, 2023)

Still Life With Skeletons and Asian Pear

I

At the beginning of each week,
I sit with her and make up reasons
it’s not a good week to die:
a ride in the car, her favorite dinner planned.
Lately my reasons have become ridiculous.
I’ve finally hired a court jester.
The queen is giving you a medal. 
On Thursday we’ll make a birthday cake
and set it on fire. She can’t understand
the words anymore—it’s the telling
she hears. This I believe without evidence.

II

Outside, wind sweeps water
onto the beach. It rings the rope
against the flagpole, like a temple bell
or the singular note of someone sobbing.
We spend an hour preparing to go.
I hear the wind dying down.
She insists on carrying a black vinyl purse
that snaps open and shut with its brassy tooth.
On the sand, dozens of baby horseshoe crabs
have washed up, each parchment exoskeleton
a perfect miniature of its parent, but translucent.
She pauses, wondering or remembering.
I pace back and forth between the dead babies
and the old lady in the sequined hat.

III

I try to let go of the need to understand.
She is like an Asian pear or a tapestry,
a gold glaze the modern world
could never replicate. I see the precision
of this color and everything within it.
When I close my eyes, I can see it as clearly
as I can hear the rising and falling of her breath.
I am afraid of forgetting her the way she was.
None of us will survive THIS, 
she says, frowning at her dinner plate.
I fall asleep on the sofa, and in my dream
I am standing on a bridge
with the ghost of my actor friend.
He walks along the railing and says,
You have to let go of letting go.
He thinks this is funny,
extremely obvious. I wake up.
Everything seems steady, absolute.
I begin to practice remembering.

​

From The Map of Unseen Things by Brett Warren
(Pine Row Press, 2023); first published in
Cape Cod Poetry Review

Infinity

I used to wish that when it was all over,
I’d be able to visit an alternate universe
where we’d be our true selves again: you
in your fifties, me visiting from college, my heart
years away from knowing what breaking was,
my arms resting on the cool Spanish tiles
while you made drinks. We’d go out to the patio,
dangle our feet in the double-hexagon pool,
a cubist infinity symbol, and I’d tell you the story
of how it all happened. I’d skip over the worst parts,
like how they tried to put you on antipsychotic drugs
because you went naked into the dining room
and it was upsetting to people who were visiting
their fully clothed parents. Instead, I’d start
with an abridged version of the car accident.
Then I’d tell you the funny things you said
when you started to go off the deep end.
I’d describe the pretty silver of your hair,
and tell you how everyone always loved you
no matter how crazy you became,
even if they didn’t know you before.
Because you were always still you, somehow.
We’d have gin and tonics with triangles of lime,
and our glasses would sweat pleasantly
while our feet swayed back and forth
in the silky and luminous water. The lights
of Los Angeles would still obscure the stars,
but you would fill the universe around us
with your radiant face and your radiant eyes
and your radiant soul. You’d say how wonderful
this life is, no matter what. You’d tell me
I handled everything exactly right, just as you knew
I would. Later, we’d curl up on opposite ends
of the Danish sofa, where just by sitting together,
even with all that happened, we’d remember
how lucky we are. You’d get out your brushes
and your ink, and write in the air, in the calligraphy
of your unmistakable hand, ad astra per aspera: 
to the stars, through difficulties.

From The Map of Unseen Things by Brett Warren
(Pine Row Press, 2023); first published in duality

To See Your Face

I want to get on my knees when I pray.
Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?
Kneel and worship the awe of possibility.

The might of miracle.

Let the hope of all you’ve been taught
about the power of God wash through you
and when you have been filled
the pain of prostration fades,
like mist off a riverbed.
The nerves are no longer on fire.
The numbness no longer a current of electricity
burning through kneecaps, down shins
and into your feet.

It’s just – gone.

I test this newfound state of painlessness.
Put one foot in front of me, easily.
Push up and let my left follow. Standing.
Without wobbling. No swaying or catching myself
to prevent a fall. Balanced. Strong.
My body lathered with the balm of the Lord I’ve read about.
The one who walked the desert.
The one Luke proclaimed had the power to heal the sick,
before a paralyzed man was lowered from a ceiling
and laid at the feet of the anointed.
Being faithful, he was forgiven and walked.

Is that what it takes? Faith. Forgiveness?
A command to get up? So simple.
This miracle seems. This healing. This cure.

When I was a child I ran. I climbed trees and
nestled myself into the bosom of her bark. That was peace.
I breathed the sweet air of her flowers and felt no suffering.
She held me. Mother. Nature.

There lies my faith. In the grass.
The pond with water spiders skimming,
lily pads, fathead minnows. The wild.
Untamed and growing. Expanding and giving.
Of nourishment. Of hydration. Of shelter. Of warmth. Of air.
Is this my sin? Looking down at the dirt,
watching the ants scurry to and fro? Catching a deer
in the forest noshing on a leaf? Finding solace with birds,
comforted by the hymns they sing?
Is this why I stumble when I stand?

Am I to look up? Beyond the stars.
Beyond what is seen.
Am I then to witness? Your face?
The light of the God I was told makes impossibility possible?

I have faith.

In the collective power of the universe. The higher power.
The gods and goddesses. The angels. Arch angels.
Essential angels. They can bring my healing.
The power of multitude.

I’m angry. I feel betrayed.
By the teachings of the good book.
Like a bad romantic comedy,
I’ve been taught that there will be a man,
a savior, who will heal me in an instant,
if only I get on my knees and believe.

I believe.
I believe.
I believe.

In love. In light. In compassion. In grace. In hope.
In pain. Sorrow. Sickness. In possibility. Faith.
Yes, even miracles.

I believe in my humanity. My doubt.
My unwavering conviction in my unknowing.

Some say our dreams are where we enter the beyond.
Another level of reality we can’t reach in consciousness.
In my dreams I get up and walk. Some dreams come true, don’t they?

I can’t see your face with these mortal eyes.
I can picture myself walking, though.
Maybe that’s enough. That’s all I need. The possibility.

I’ll see your face and walk to you

Shawls

In the throes of dis-ease, and insane thinking, I find myself looking, not ahead, but before me now, feeling as if I’m being gently awakened from a long afternoon nap in the summer sun, to find the evening of life stretched out in front of me, awaiting my wonder and mark. I see the balance of my life as a beautiful paisley shawl thrown over a grand piano. Contented to lay in the warmth of the sun’s rays, even when they fade the color, the shawl remains. Still woven. Still able to comfort. Dis-ease came like an immense electric shock. In time, I feel galvanized to meet the world and societies expectations and demands. I am allowed to be new. Not between or betwixt, but emerging. In the wake of revelation, I feel my old selves taking their leave. Some easily riding off, others lingering a bit longer, in case they have one more question or answer to give. And when they have all moved onto their new states, I will remain. True. Reduced to my essence, and it is in this I know I am whole.

Celestial Optimism

Sometimes I imagine holding hope in my hands feels like holding a star. Of course I, nor anyone else for that matter, can actually hold a star, or even touch one. If the gravity didn’t rip me apart before I had a chance to graze my fingers on the fiery ball of light, the intense, all-consuming heat would destroy me instantaneously. Sometimes hope feels that way. Welcoming the blinding, all-encompassing brightness, knowing its fragility could undoubtedly devastate me, like a star whose brilliance is so unbearably beautiful I can’t help but want it in my hands. I’m pulled into hope, like stars. Why is it I’m fascinated and drawn to this body that can ravage me? Why do I look up to the night sky and ache? Carl Sagan said that we are all “made of star stuff”, so we long to return to the cosmos. I can believe that. Especially since the disease became known by name, I’ve felt the stirring inside me, of carbon and nitrogen and oxygen. Swirling atoms forged in the furnace of some now-long-dead star alive in me. A holy, astral figure worthy of awe, yearning to return home. To a place where I can be free of this epithelial prison gone awry. Diagnosis exposing the ways creation gets it wrong. The dis-ease awakening a once dormant cacophony of white blood cells, T cells, B cells and myelin. A marvel of comprehensive construction miraculously formed into being bastardized by faulty wiring. To be back in my original state. Stardust. Floating in an atmosphere of unknown. I stare at the darkness speckled with stars and realize I am in my original state. The unknown of this illness peppered with hope. Watching it explode into a universe in my hands.

Artist Statement: Erin Catherine Hunter writes for connection. For honoring our collective humanity. With faith our hearts are always leading us, even if we can’t hear their subtle beats. With love.