The more people I meet
the more I think
that heaven must be like
a patchwork quilt
or like homemade soup
with a little bit
of everything in it.
04/20/13 – Emma Dumitra.
“Vacation”
We do ordinary things
in extraordinary places
so that we can come home
and do extraordinary things
in ordinary places.
08/22/16 – Emma Dumitra.
Photo credit: Nat Nahirney.
“Love is Patient”
If love is patient, what is it to me?
For I’m too weak to wait until it comes.
I need it now, but it does not need me
to feel its presence or to know its sums.
I cannot add it up, so I subtract,
dissect it into bytes I comprehend.
These fragments my own brokenness refract;
my actions just my sanity upend.
I feed into this culture of defeat,
join the addictive cycle as it spins,
detain my fear by fighting for false peace
of mind, but not of heart; thus folly wins.
But love – if patient – grants me quiet space
where structure gives me freedom hell to face.
“Five Months Later”
Five months later, and you’re still dead
As if it were still funny, still fresh, still new
Five months later, and the demons have spread
As if I let my guard down, as if it were still true
Five months later, and the well-wishing has stopped
Already, as if your death is passé
Five months later, and the world has gone on
But we’re trapped in the hold of that day
Five months – and the careless things people say
Only multiply: “you’re so lucky, to have a home,
A place to stay” – when home has died
And we saw it ripped from her body with our own eyes
09/29/16 – Emma Dumitra.
“September”
Chestnuts now litter the ground
Spaced apart in elegant brown
Curved and shiny shells unbroken
Like the last words that between us
Were spoken – dry
Dehydrate slowly as winter nears
This time without you
Where you lie garnished
With wilting roses and – to my surprise
The lilac bush we gave you sweetly,
Long ago thought dead, now tries
To bloom again
The yellow leaves fall always from the sky
Continuous in motion while you lie
In elegant, dry stillness fade
Leach out of life like chlorophyll from leaves
Impervious perhaps, or simply far
From here, your oldest daughter
While she grieves
Written September 2016, Emma Dumitra.
“Chemothera-Putrid”
It’s not like in the movies
Composed of questions, quests
Dramatic bald heads nodding, bobbing, suffering
Projectile vomit and finite deadlines.
It’s quieter, wispier, more uncertain
Like those dirty flakes we once called hair
You finally shaved off slightly.
It’s sore palms and painfully cracked skin
It’s gaining weight when the steroids do you in
It’s quality of life, and it’s chemo
When venom in your veins is better
Than your own cells.
It’s watching you melt like a candle
As the poison slowly fills you intravenously
Feeling the dread and the gorge rising
When I exit like a coward because that’s not really you
It can’t be.
It’s jokes about stool and all the colors and consistencies
We could apply to oil pastels,
But this is not art
And on good days it feels like we’re faking it all
And bad days are hell, but we smile.
When I hear you cough my mind jumps to your funeral
And health class reminds me of the day you will die.
Thera-putrid are those days when your door is closed
And you sleep the hours away, and it’s almost escape
And I’m grateful for how much you hide from me
But even forgetting makes me ache.
Written September 2015, Emma Dumitra.
Photo Credit: Nana Dumitra.
Simple Pleasures
A delicious little poem by my sister that you should only read if you’re prepared to salivate.
Cold apple-juice my insides licks
While sour-cream of coolness tastes
And in zucchini-soup goop sticks
While down my throat the food with haste
Next radish-horse on ham and bread
And pick of veggies from the cold
If cabbage, carrot, pepper red
Or something else my mouth enfolds
Yes sir, our fridge is full of food
Like herrings in their hallowed jar
A nest of eggs in styr-form broods
And juice completes the drinking bar
A taste of yogurt, frozen fruits
And freshly apples picked (and pears)
Pink radishes and onion-roots
‘Midst carrots with their verdant hairs
I don’t aspire to gluttons’ meals
Nor in my joy deny this wealth
But since, for once, the table feels
So full I won’t raid lair or shelf
From my own kitchen to my mouth
A spice, a sauce, a green, some meat
Ring true the words “i hör ned auf”**
And so, without…
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“Participation”
I will not rest in my own strength –
I cannot, for it would break me.
Too frail am I to trust myself –
A faith misplaced it would be.
If my own sword won’t win the land,
God, shall I even lift it?
If providence is from Your hand,
then how may I participate?
How sweet is the light of Your face –
Your love how strange to see
that inside each love I’ve ever craved
it was Yours that called to me.
“It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them.”
~ Psalm 44:3
Written December 2014, Emma Dumitra.
Image from parentmap.com
“Many Waters”
On the edge of my universe,
the rim of the glass,
still wet where you drank
of my dreams.
Come out where there are
oceans and many waters
that flow, alive
and waiting
to swallow your tears,
make them beautiful.
I’ll be one of many,
forgotten by my own
imagination
in the thrown waters,
sloshing through the earth’s
many veins.
And will I rise with the mists? –
the torn shreds of cotton fog that hold
the secrets of the world? –
that hide the trees and wake the sun,
then fade?
Come out – but I’m still inside the glass,
and I’ll trace the road with
rubbed fingers, bleeding water
because I was made to be here for
just a while longer,
to drain the glass
before I brave the many seas.
Written August 2013, Emma Dumitra.
Image from http://www.imgkid.com.
[Such Complicated Things the People Are]
Such complicated things the people are,
such silly notions we about them hold;
as if their only value’s found in gold,
as if by an equation we could chart
or map the minds of men on gilded things,
and trap them in a rhyme or on a wall,
as if, if they had roots could not have wings
or had a wealth of wealth and still not all.
Such complicated things the people are;
and we – disseminated by ourselves.
We know so little, yet have gone to far
to leave the sheaves of knowledge on our shelves.
Presumptuous are we. Is it just I
who cedes to myst’ries underneath the sky?
Written March 2013, Emma Dumitra.
Image from forumbiodiversity.com.
More Than Just Words 