Christine Salkin Davis (Focail do a Chara)

"His death left a void," the headline read.

All deaths leave a void, absence of space
like a black hole of nothingness, dead
silence and of what once was, no trace
remains, just remnants of memories
of somethings said, done, activities

and glimpses into eternity,
gone, bringing us to a new place where
sadness overwhelms, enormity,
nothing, feels like more than we can bear,
a growing gnawing tearing at your
gut until you can't take any more

emptiness. The contrast with living
is stark, startles, and the only way
you can still be close to the feeling
is pain, it's the closest you can say
you are loved; it's the evidence you dared
to love; it's the pain, nakedly bared.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Wandering and waxing moon, airy mind
and visions, rainy sky, dreams unfolding.
Frozen in the in-between, the green-vined
leaves await the time for falling, golding,
turning autumn, in the meantime, holding
on, they hang in mottled drear, not quite dead
but not still here; future hints beholding
a watercolor wash of yellow, red.

I often wonder why the world's unkind
as the headlines evil deeds upholding;
paying attention carries sense of dread.
Like vines, your future is with mine entwined,
and moving through the thresholds takes bolding
action to make this moment's watershed.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to g…

Wet brown leaves coat every surface
and droplets of rain cling tightly
as if hanging there was their purpose.
This is a day to hold lightly,
nighttime rain remnants and brightly
colored red and gold foliage
frame the change, a loss you can see,
turning points always take courage,
and liminal spaces flourish
in the pause, hold their own beauty.
If the journey's hard, it's up to us
to make the choice, fearful versus
bold. Think of a prayer said nightly;
exchange of that which will nourish.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to fol…

When you are knee-deep in paper
grading and reviews are overdue, and
editor remarks --constructive criticism--
still ring in your eyes
and five people want to talk to you
now
and your muse has moved south,

remember to breathe,
remember the kind words and
kindred souls, yourself,

remember who you are after you peel
away your carefully crafted business
casual, hippie chic shoes and
intellectualism jargon and pseudo
compassionate care, when your heart
is in charge and the child within is
let out to play, when your degrees
take a backseat to your hopes and
your fears give way to courage,

follow the river's
flow, meandering wildly,
one day at a time.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Late summer sun, ready to fall.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Help me discover who I am.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Holy wells everywhere,
holy waters flowing deep
and circling pools of holy possibility.
Follow sunward,
then seasons of life,
let the signposts speak to you,
listen closely,
for they are subtle
and secrets abound.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Please don't discover what I fear.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Generous sowing,
humbling understanding,
surrender results.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019


Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to follow me as well? If they want to read all my poetry when I post it, they should follow me on Facebook or on my blog.

When you're on my Facebook page, you can share the page and invite your Facebook friends to follow me; or you can give friends my information (search for Christine Salkin Davis@focaildoachara).

On my blog, you can invite people directly by sending them the link (www.focaildoachara.com), or you can forward a post via ema…

Rebuild, reborn, again, again, again, again.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Turning points, plot twists,
climax and a denouement
rewrite the ending.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Life and death and courage between.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

The path is wet and
puddles, mud, your feet are wet.
Conditions ripe, growth.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

The fire of the weathered tree lives in me,
cycle of life, decay and birth,
in my cells and soul,
shimmering light on golden leaves,
and I wonder what a light
on my dark places
would illuminate.
The cobwebs in my mind, and
world-weary thoughts.

The fire of the spider lives in me,
easily discarded but less easily forgotten,
returns again and again and again,
inching along a world large and foreign,
unfriendly, unnoticed.

The spider's web on the tree
connects the brown leaves and new shoots,
advancing again, always, to rebirth and life.
May its lacy shimmer light the thicket in my heart.


© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Storms within, without,
cloudy fog inside your mind,
reaching to the sky.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to follow me as well? If they want to read all my poetry when I post it, they should follow me on Facebook or on my blog.

When you're on my Facebook page, you can share the page and invite your Facebook friends to follow me; or you can give friends my information (search for Christine Salkin Davis@focaildoachara).

On my blog, you can invite people directly by sending them the link (www.focaildoachara.com), or you can forward …

I wait for the oxygen to light
the smoldering spark within myself.
Sun on skin and warm and golden vines
on leaf-tipped tree, a weathered wisdom
reaching down to hold me in embrace.
Decay and life in symbiotic
shimmer, blowing gently and the tree
stands tall and strong.

                                               Bamboo forest, sun
shadows thicket on the leaf-strewn ground,
illumination on the green-gold
hew. I search for shade because the sun's
passion is too much to bear, and I
avert my eyes because the brightness
of truth is too much to see. Now the
shimmer is within, ground and green and
crawling bug and the leaf gently floats
                                                                         to
                                                                                    earth.

Tree frogs, birds, and the shadows lengthen,
firmness of the ground beneath my feet.
Consider the spider on your arm,
flicked into the air,
                                           fre…

Seed the clouds with love.
Words, like raindrops, sting, silence,
Find the light in you.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

The breeze gently blows the hairs on my arm
and a sudden raindrop threatens a storm.
Left without an oar, I feel a panic
rising and my breath quickens, so I breathe
deeply and give thanks, arigato, for
the wind and the mountain air, steadiness
of soul, seven times and seventy, still.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Be courageous voice,
words of wisdom, shelter, peace,
Stand the eye of storm.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019


Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to follow me as well? If they want to read all my poetry when I post it, they should follow me on Facebook or on my blog.

When you're on my Facebook page, you can share the page and invite your Facebook friends to follow me; or you can give friends my information (search for Christine Salkin Davis@focaildoachara).

On my blog, you can invite people directly by sending them the link (www.focaildoachara.com), or you can forw…

Presence of the soft wood floors,
smooth to touch and fingertips
like the soft sound of a roaring fire,
let the memories wash over you,
campfires and hot dogs on sticks,
chicken stew and warm hands,
turning so you can warm your other side,
friends and mesmerizing yellow at the core,
smell of burnt wood and smoke in your eyes,
turning marshmallows golden brown,
melted gooey mess on fingers,
arm in arm and love as loud as the cracking embers, fire,
white hot coals and remnant sparks,
smooth and soft until the chill returns,
say goodbye to the stars and black sky,
smoke returns upward,
sigh.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019


Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go…

In the raging storms
of life, may yours be the voice,
calms the angry wind.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019


Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to follow me as well? If they want to read all my poetry when I post it, they should follow me on Facebook or on my blog.

When you're on my Facebook page, you can share the page and invite your Facebook friends to follow me; or you can give friends my information (search for Christine Salkin Davis@focaildoachara).

On my blog, you can invite people directly by sending them the link (www.focaildoachara.com), or you can forwar…

Thank you for following my poetry blog. I greatly appreciate your readership of my posts, and knowing you are reading is very motivating to my muse.

I wonder if you can do me a favor.

I have a goal to reach 500 followers. Between my Focail do a Chara blog, my Focail do a Chara Facebook page, and my Medium page, I currently have 397 followers, so I've got a way to go to get to 500 followers.

If you enjoy reading my poetry, would you please invite others to follow me as well? If they want to read all my poetry when I post it, they should follow me on Facebook or on my blog.

When you're on my Facebook page, you can share the page and invite your Facebook friends to follow me; or you can give friends my information (search for Christine Salkin Davis@focaildoachara).

On my blog, you can invite people directly by sending them the link (www.focaildoachara.com), or you can forward a post via email, Facebook, or Twitter by using the three dots on the top right corner of each post. Your…

Beneath the paving stones, the occasional weed
pokes through dried leaves and weathered remnants of debris.
I step as the gravel-filled hexagon crunches
underfoot amid emerging weeds and bunches
of stones. Dirt and moss and hardened earth lie under
browning leaves; trees stumped to the ground nearby blunder.
A lone heart-shaped leaf tittups in the breeze, it’s green
and reaching. On the ivy-covered trees, buds glean
vining leaves as they bypass the soil below.
The carpet of leaves is lined with marks of a plough;
its green shoots are shorn exactly three inches deep.
Closer inspection reveals some straw-colored heaps
flattened underfoot and moss growing at the base
of the graceful arching form of dancing grass blades.
Dark leafy decay fills the deep crevices made
by the irregular shape of stones and the gray-
brown patterns on the rocks form a smooth painterly
surface of lines and curves, an effect praiseworthy.
Scattered seeds abounding wildly in abundance
remind us that mother nature…