Here in You: A Poem

It is always a

coming home,

a remembering,

the air whip thin

and sparkling

a sundance of

unfiltered joy

the crackling

under the feet

of a whole

cycle of life

preparing for

its journey

down, out,

through,

standing still

no matter

where you are

to find yourself

at the epicenter

of the language

of birdsong,

and you don’t

want to

decipher it

because

you realize

you already

understand.

You know you

are here

in you.

 

– TS

The Beauty of Loss

A memory is not
a hole
or an empty space
creating fissures
in the wind,
anymore than a flower
is its missing petals
that discovered
their time to say
goodbye.
Why is it we look
and regard the world
from a place of
such wholeness,
only to complicate
what is absent,
or no more?
It is the full vitality
of what is
that allows even
for our experience
of loss.
We are always
what is. – TS

What heals

i want to follow

you to the place

 

past what is broken

fallen in pieces

 

to where we can

soothe our memories

 

hold them in

nature’s arms

 

find our rest in

what lives so brightly

 

what heals we the

world with her bounty. – TS

New Poem Published!

Hello!

Thank you so much for being here and for reading my poems (and viewing my photos) – it means so much to me!

It snowed last night here in Japan. Where I live, we hardly get any snow, maybe a few flurries that don’t stick to the ground. Today, a playground of white! A walk in the fluffiness last night opened my heart wide open. I’m Canadian – I grew up digging ice rink in the backyard between two ancient crab apple trees. I love snow!

An even better day to wake up and receive news that I’ve had a poem published in First Literary Review  -East. It’s not about snow, but it is about home, memory and time.

I hope you enjoy it! You can find it among really great poems second-to-last here.

Have a great day/night!

 

Path to Light

Notice how the eye

reaches first for the light,

how the heart sings

into the great distances

beyond, into the joy

that brightens our horizons.

Then, after resting

in ecstatic wonder,

now in repose,

the shadows come to view,

slowly, not before we

are ready, and we

do not succumb

to the darkness.

No, now we notice

how the shadows frame

our view, how they

pose no obstacle,

how they sift through

our consciousness,

soft tendrils of our

pained memories,

and how they give us

our path to light. – TS

Memory (It’s Always Love)

The overgrowth

the times that were

crowding into the

space of me,

lush reminders

of the juices that

continue to dance

through my veins,

the flowers that

grow on bones

in floral remembrance.

The times that were!

I rush to move

the words through me,

to have them leak

from my fingers

into the world

but they come too fast,

or not at all.

Still the sun beats,

Still the way is lit.

So it must be done,

and one just moves on,

One just carries on. – TS

We/Memorial (Poem)

Tammy T. Stone in Kyoto.

Blue carpets like the sea Learning how to braid Using hair ribbons and The leg of a chair My mother taught me She let me help her make French toast When I was too sick To go to my best friend’s birthday party I was inconsolable until she consoled me My sister’s room seventies brown and orange With a toy horse in the corner She would jump up and down On the coiled springs Smiling big Bubbly and reaching out to the whole world Once I walked by as she bounced on the horse Her hair flying up She-demon of day She terrified me Sunday family night with Disney movies Living room lit by the phosphorescence of the TV screen Sitting on chairs we squeezed together A new configuration We felt like fairy tale princesses Seduced by the late hour, giddy We must have purred like cats do When strong arms hold gently and massage Nothing was better

Except the living room floor And our tent made from pink and yellow blankets Ready made to receive the room’s warm incandescence In just the right amount Tucked under coffee table legs Hung from ceiling lights Crawling through to sit on the soft blanketed floor Pillows for chairs And another treat Pizza dinner No interruptions And sweet dessert. This was where I was a child and I never liked sleeping with my teddy bears But had them all around me.