her first untimely death

her first untimely death
   (Or: A teenager mourns a death)
 
She couldn't have known it was Childhood's last night.
So she stood on the wet grass and sang to the evening
as though it was any other.

She should have realized when she noticed,
in grown-up thoughts,
the stars arcing above her had shifted
and were marking time like the hands of a clock.

Then somewhere far away a boy died
and the moon winked a minute.
She could not have known she was waiting for a shooting star
to note the second on the asphalt sky.

In ten hours, the phone will ring.
She will step outside her body without effort. To watch,
because events like those need historians.

Detached, she'll consider it theatrical.
And when she falls to the ground
she'll wonder if the wail filling the room and straining against the walls
really comes from her.

Somewhere, innocence just isn't anymore.
It will be too late for her to know
she's wishing she were outside, singing to the stars again.
Oblivious to the clock.

~Mari Nichols Haining

This is my contribution to One Shot Wednesday - a poetic flash mob. Go check it out!

Newly edited: The Second Kind

After you gave me her poem, the name replaced,
I said there were two kinds of women:
those who inspire sonnets
and those who don't.

And then I laughed;
the tension was too much to bear.
It's fine, I said.
I tried not to sound like a martyr
but thought,
Why have I never inspired
art of any kind?
Not even a charcoal sketch or quick haiku.

Once, I convinced myself I was a rough draft
living  in the coffee-stained pages of your journal.
On that occasion, I didn't mind --
because we were a draft
and romance can be rough.

I am aware of my own gracelessness.
Yet grace is required of a muse.
Still, consider that I have desire,
and what is love without desire?
And here is patience,
because what is art without patience?

I remember now. Again.
And the uneasy laugh escapes again.
I conclude aloud
(with melancholy, not martyrdom)
that if I had been the first kind,
I would have abandoned beauty and art
as just moments.

Moments as transient as our forever.

The grass sighs

Melancholy floats in the wind today.
Memories are deposited by the rippling breeze,
and the waving grass sighs.

I remember when fall winds
brought fairy songs twisting around me
teaching me to dance and fly in concert.

Later, zephyrs nudged me to the future,
before towing me urgently by my whipped umbrella.
Yet, aren't I too young to hear the sigh?

These days beneath the crimson,
I see the dust has settled now as crystal morning frost.
These evenings, no nanny in the wind
and no longing for the memories.
But the grass?
It still sighs.

From somewhere: a bird.

I am cold, my sweater damp,
but I am only here.

Without decision,
I stay to watch a leaf parachute
and listen for the wind to shift

until the sighs fade in to day.

~Mari Nichols-Haining

One Shot Wednesday: A poetic flashmob.

Once Gold

Like Midas in this world
far removed from myths and gods,
your touch consumed it all--
time, the past, then even vague dreams.
In their places
are thoughts like statuettes.
They stare, unnerve me, remind me
that value is often measured differently.

So, once reminded, I think
Perhaps I didn't understand you.
But of course, I did.
And perhaps I didn't love enough?
But of course I did.

It is reflected in the obscene glint of all that is left
unconsumed.
It is in the grime that settles after droughts and dusty summers;
a blanket on the golden of the decayed.

In Passing: For my complicated friends.

A repost from my other blog...

It's time now to admit that if I'm lucky
these are my middle years.
That while watching the obvious enormity
of each morning rise,
this other life I couldn't watch
became the one I'm living.

Before I thought to look, four decades passed,
while people wandered in and out of doubt
and of these years.
And while I thought I was moving
(or knew I was standing still)
I met the people who will become
my old, complicated friends in another cycle of time.

In our complications then
we'll play chess and talk of now with nostalgic fondness
while watching the imperceptible shadow of each day fall.
And if we're honest, we'll admit we're content
with enduring our passions
and with the passing decades.

It's then, I think, that time will stall.

~Mari Nichols-Haining

This is not supposed to happen.

 A friend wrote: 
I still can't believe it. Honestly. All day today I spent not believing any of it. Does that ever go away? I mean,I can't believe that he's really gone. That this has happened to me. This is not supposed to happen.  

Sometimes, I think it would be wise for me to remember my own response to hm:

--clipped--

 You know, I started a response a few days ago and fell asleep while writing it. I'm glad I did, because today seems more right. My answer today is No. It never seems exactly real...
I flipped on the news this morning and came across a story about a little girl who died. Her parents said that right before she died, she was  reaching and grabbing at the air from her bed. When they asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to catch the butterflies she could see everywhere.
Ron died 15 years ago this December, yet hearing this made me wonder what he saw as he died. It left me crying. The kids are at a sleepover this weekend, so I did the 'talking out loud' to him thing I seem to do when I'm alone and get into moods like this. 
My secret craziness goes deeper. This is how sick I am: sometimes, I'm mad at the world that people can give birth to 8 preemies in a small hospital in PA and every one of them survives and are healthy. But my one preemie, who wasn't even THAT early, couldn't make it out of a top notch Children's Hospital in LA. WTF? I'm not saying I wish anything had happened to other babies, I'm just pissed about the randomness.
So my answer is that the bad days go on forever. But they become a comfort, because to hurt this long means I've loved intensely. To have loved and lost is better than having never loved at all is really true on a much deeper level than most people realize. To have known the kind of love that can touch you randomly on a Saturday morning 15 years later is astounding. It's weird to be so pained and so grateful at the same time.

So, I hope you're having better days. But I don't hope you're not sad anymore. And I hope that if you're dating again, you're having fun and enjoying the people you meet for who they are; but I don't hope it erases the joy of loving Antonio or the pain of losing him.

And I really hope I explained myself well enough that my last paragraph made sense and doesn't sound like I'm just cruelly wishing you endless pain.
 --------

The Grown-up Me

Feb. 2009

Growing up taught me there are no gallant steeds.
White horses, though they exist,
just aren't commonplace around here.
And though I could fill my rooms with round tables
the knights I hoped would visit
all died in the plague.

I understand that sleep can not be cast by spell;
a kiss can not restore the tragedy of death;
a frog is a frog, or more likely --
a mistaken toad. And warts are caused by virus.

I've learned
wicked witches aren't always ugly,
the bad guys don't always wear black,
and poisoned fruit is sold in darkened doorways
by scruffy fallen boys.

Growing up taught me that crystal slippers slice my heels;
ball gowns suffocate;
wolves don't take the time to huff and puff
(nor are they limited to forests);
and mirrors only talk in whispers
to those who listen.

I have learned there is a genetic law:
once born a duck you'll never be a swan.
And while the mallard is a fickle lover,
it is the swan that mates for life.

Growing up taught me, most importantly,
that fairy tales are absolutely never shelved
with non-fiction
between biographies and history.
Which is where you will someday find

the grown-up me.

~mnh

In Time (revised)

There was a time 

...when I needed to name the moments
   so each could be filed in a memory
   that is too worn and weary to recall without cues--

...when my throat, inflamed and rough,
   couldn't hold my voice;
   when doubt strangled my thoughts before words formed--

       --Because minutes don't pause to be mourned

I keep postcards from the past in a worn leather briefcase.
They were ribboned and packed only after
I did my business with time.

Now, names I assigned to the moments then,
fall into my head
as dead as the browned autumn leaves.
And as easy to ignore,

         --in time.

~MNH

Your Photo

You are frozen in a frame above the mantle.
Your face thin, I notice now; but though it seems
not for the first time.

There are things I want to ask you; when I'm alone
I do. You haven't answered me yet-
this is the first promise you've broken.

It's been too many years for me to keep talking
to ink behind glass.
This photographic love must end.

My sweet memory. I should forget.