Expectant Hope

On September 22, 2022September 22, 2022 By dorahakIn Poems23 Comments

She was still swaying as the last honey-laden tunes
Of sweet summer faded away like fragile baby’s breath—
Her eyes were closed, a shawl lightly over shoulders
Under the net of stars that had become a shroud
As one by one they died silent into the pale light
Of a clouded dawn, and all the guests had gone
In a whispered goodbye, like the twinkle in his eye.

But the womb still has its memory as does the heart—
Heart over heart, head over head, eight months bodied
Though autumn breezes steal him away like a changeling,
Like a changeling into winter’s overcoat to fleeting summer’s loss—
I will not speak of spring, she said, breathing gusts of prayer
Aware at last of the chillness in the air, but of tombs, oh LORD, empty
Oh, my God, in that long-expectant day, birthing him to eternity, holy.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 (NIV)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

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Unbereaved

On October 25, 2021November 1, 2022 By dorahakIn Poems, Prompts46 Comments

Frank at dVerse asks us to write a haibun (prose plus haiku) dealing with fear. Unlike the trumped up fear of Halloween games, there are real fears that children deal with at the hands of a parent, their childhood stolen. Perhaps years from now in their adulthood, one will thank you because you noticed and cared.

**Kathleen Munn, *Composition (Horses)*, c. 1927**

Nightmares when they roughshod ride primeval, cross cave walls and closet doors, charm no one, least of all you, appearing on site like a combative cow to remind me that when you gave birth it was in pain, a pain that didn’t end with birth. For you it won’t be enough that the shamanic horse runs wild torment across my plain features, flushed hot, now cold with fear, gaping at the undisclosed terrain of days yet unrun, populated by masked faces finding a home where I cannot. Flesh-like you appear to say, “I screamed bloody murder, you devouring me inside out, the doctor said, literally, you were eating me alive, like some malnutritioned demon-child, and I’m just a shadow of myself. To haunt you. In whatever caves you may roam. Gypsy-cursed.”

Have you seen a cow eat its calf? A hen pluck out its chick’s eyes? A mother hate her child? From where does this malformation derive than in red misery, bitter burning coals, stone-shaped eyes that glitter from the grave to shriek and shriek and shriek?

I fear you. But it’s not what you think. Though you’re dead your pain inflicts me. Your strained neck as you push onward defying all but gravity, defying the gods of nature to take from you the child you will punish because you can’t punish them.

steel-born heart in sheath
trampled plain of childhood’s corpse
nightmare by firelight

A Mother’s Joy

On May 9, 2021 By dorahakIn Poetry27 Comments

As clouds curl and stretch above a ginkgo tree
a twilight gold wreathes three small figures
their Dad quickening his steps
as they race toward open church doors
their laughter echoing in its depths
and I still warm from the summer’s smile
sit waiting on the benches of sung psalms
there to worship the living God
who knew this moment
before it began
a moment
that began long before
my conception in the dreaming womb
of a mother returned to the songs of her land
and I cold from her lost embrace, lost lamb
carried in the arms of the Shepherd to sail motherhood
embraced by the cossetting arms of a sun-kissed husband
and the eager hands of ebullient children whose mouths
warble love like songbirds in the Sabbath twilight
as clouds curl and stretch above a ginkgo tree.

For my husband and children on Mother’s Day with love.

Fauré’s “Sanctus”

On May 14, 2017May 14, 2017 By dorahakIn Church, MusicLeave a comment

“I never had a mother,” Emily Dickinson wrote. “I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” But where mothers fail, God never fails. His is a mother’s touch that is always ready to receive, ready to lift and comfort, ready to provide what is needed. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Is. 49:15).

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Her Mother

On August 4, 2014November 5, 2022 By dorahakIn Poems2 Comments

She was mute all her life.
Though she spoke words
In dumb agony of reproach
Rage-built torment of unredeemed
Days past when deeds were done wrong
And wounds like serpent bites
Had devoured her tongue
Leaving voiceless fury, unsung tears
Among goaded offspring
Of jealous hate
Where a child of flesh
Fed on milky vinegar
Beneath her ravaged gaze
Hears mute anger
In jagged commands
And runs joylessly to the sound
Of her voice.