Christine Salkin Davis (Focail do a Chara)

Listen!
My beloved is knocking,
listen!
The creaking of the chair as my back yields to its softness and
the scratching sound of pen on paper,
motor fading in the distance,
and my stomach's gurgle.
Sounds of settling in.
Listen.

Their voices are crying to be heard and you have already received the call.
Buried bodies, their arms are reaching up, grasping the air for anything solid to grab.
Listen.

They are crying, calling, and
you are deaf from things to do, buried dreams, and impotence.
The first step is to listen.

Listen.
From the safety of your HVAC home
and rocking chair,
Apple everything,
their voices feel very faint
but their faces burn your eyes,
their eyes staring,
windows to the soul,
pain thresholds exceeded
and still standing
staring
waiting
still.

If you don't see them now will you grieve them when they are gone?
Listen.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

I want to remember
the open door,
invitation,
sun's light shining in,
warming,
and the way the brown leaves of winter sparkle gold in the noonday bright.
I want to remember the faithfulness of the cardinal's return
and the sparrow feasting on winter's fare.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2019

Change blows through my doorway like a tornado,
and I try to hold on to my life
--now debris--blowing about, but all I
can do is cover my head while I hope
something of me will remain when the winds die
down. Seems like every two decades -- or so--
everything changes. I've noticed the more
I resist, the harder the struggle lies.
I stand in the doorway and watch the sky
darken, darkness deepen, and I remind
myself that rain and thunder bring a kind
of cleansing. See branches sway and birds fly.

While it's true that Mary said, "let it be,"
I'm more inclined to say, "let's wait and see."

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

The passageway to success is an illusion,
fun-house mirror that leads to nowhere,
and there is no escape from the avalanche of stuff.
False doors and false hopes,
friends and fabled endings are not the openings.
You thought romance would save you,
but we are all just companions in the search for love.
You pull at doors that turn to stone,
and your clawing fingers' futility exhausts.
Doing is distraction and pleasures are fleeting
and your facade crumbles from the weight of your fears.
Are you still pretending the life you are living is the reality?
When will you realize,
the door to your deepest self is within, already ajar.

Nothing is simple,
so far from home.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

Thank you to the ones who believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself.
Friends, companions on the journey, and kind souls who sent me on my way with a hug or kind word,
and to the gruff sorts who sent me on with a shove, thank you too.
The path is strewn with backs and bodies of friends and foe,
people who carried me and those whom I thought would never leave me and those whose absence I thought I would never survive.
They light my path, all of them, and the way is bright.
I offer a candle to you.


© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

The door is hidden, yet has been here all along;
its closing is an illusion born of time.
The edges fade and beauty, lush and joyful, begins
and begins.
Her colors beckon and overgrow the hardness of my heart.
Sepia tones of winter transform in Disney Technicolor
and I expect to see a talking bird atop my finger.
Alas, no magic here, save for a remnant of hope remaining.
Enter beauty,
for you are beautiful.


© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

The holy one brings me tea and cookies (gluten free)
and the tea is actually coffee (since this is my dream)
with oatmilk cream
and there are tulips blooming with their scent of sweetness.
She loves my ivy tendrils
and she loves me;
the sunlight of her love fills me and spills out
to the forest beyond.
We sit in silence as the warmth of her light envelops me.

These are the things I love.
Bird songs in the silence,
sunlight through the cold windowpane and a warm blanket on my lap.
Coffee and sweetness.
Peace.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

The door to my heart
is tiny, more like a window
you can squeeze through,
but once inside,
my heart is huge,
gleaming gold love for people in pain and children;
the child in all of us.

The door to my heart
has weathered hinges that creak when opened,
and a sill of distressed wood.
The door is just ajar and a tendril of ivy
wanders out, green and gleaming.

The door to my heart
invites you in, there is no secret password required,
just sweetness and peace.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020

Since the world is going to hell right now anyway,
what is the point of getting up again,
and doing it again,
and again,
and again,
and again?

The answer comes:
There is always a point
in doing what you can
for good.

Why would compassion anger?
Sweetness and love are small things.
Begin again.

© Christine Salkin Davis, 2020