Living Sparsely

I was only gathering up things
to save.
They were evidence
of the time and place.
I was saving them
for proof that it was
really that good.

I was watching the splash
of thick raindrops
on paved walkways.
And smelling the cleanness
of the rain.

I was listening to the
rush of wind through pine
trees and the groan of
aspen shifting
their weight
as golden coinage
fell to the ground
about autumn.

I was tasting the
cool water as it
flowed from the red pump
and satisfying thirst
for the ages.

I was only
ingesting the words
in the order in which
they were written,
and the feeling of
the weight and the woven
cloth spine of the book
escaped me as I absorbed
the pages.

I was savoring quiet
minutes and hours to
use for hard times
I did not know
would come.

It was instinct,
survival
to collect
and sort them,
shelving them
to take out when
needed.

Yes, I had eaten well
and my belly had been full.
Yes, dreams cushioned my
nights, safe and warm.
Yes, the sounds of the
cooing dove assured and
soothed me a thousand times.

I only took what I needed
and I shared what I could.

(c) Nita Walker Boles

Why the Sun Comes Up Every Day (c) Nita Walker Boles

She stands clad in
gossamer white,
her hair a sea of
wheated waves all
billowing round her
shoulders.

She waits at the crossing
a chasm away
split by time and space
her voice echoing
from the past
just this side of
yesterday.

She goes to places obscured
by obsidian and quartz
unparalleled in this
universe,
where I cannot see
and there she learns
what I cannot know
while I
stand peering
for any glimpse
of her
shadow.

I feel the gnawing
away
of time,
through the filter of
sunny days and balmy nights
not to
exclude the weathering of
wind and the wrinkling
of skin.

I will be forced to
go through untold
happiness without
her, admitting truthfully
to God
and man that it was not
complete desolation with her gone.

In the torture of my
gladness for the good
left in life,
I will betray her
over and over as I
rock the babies of
her brothers and sisters
and feel thankful
for them.

And secretly I will
take heart that she
is not forgotten,
that she is missed
when I hear how
her closest of friends
wept over the likeness
of her image in
her sister's daughter.

So, it seems,
she is not forgotten,
I say coyly to myself.
So, I say, it is not
just me who
misses her face,
her laughter,
her eyes, her hair.

I turn back to my
weaving, plucking
the strands of
memories,
setting the waft and
pulling the
warp to be
sure the pattern is
set: We will not
forget this
Daughter of Light.

All the while
I am working
and working
to weave a bit of
cloth with many names
engraved, with
stories all told
the best they could
be and at the end
of mine,
she waits for me.