Time | Telling the Truth

Tag: Time

passing through
silent white headstones
urge me on

* * * * *

Sister #3
who showed me
how to live and how to die

My Colleague
who told his family story
with tears streaming down his face

My Piano Teacher
who knew me inside out
and told me I needed a boyfriend

My Mother
who began to know me
inside out and longed to know more

My Brother-in-Law
who never told anything
but the full blunt-naked truth about life

My Theology Professor
who encouraged me to speak in
my distinct voice without shame or apology

My Quaker Employer
who thanked me in writing for
relational gifts I didn’t know I possessed

Members of a Great Cloud of Witnesses
gone in body from this earth
present in my spirit

Haiku written 18 August 2012

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 March 2014

winter sun pierces
my paralyzed heart waking
frozen grief at will

* * * * *

Buried deep, forgotten
Denied, minimized, ignored
Silenced, unexamined

Held at bay
‘It wasn’t that bad’
‘Others had it worse’

Ashamed of my own story
Just another privileged woman
Who doesn’t get it

Afraid to shine a light
On darkness that seems
To have overpowered me

You mean you’re this old and
You still haven’t gotten over it
Beyond it, done already?

Normal
We want normal
How much longer will this take. . . ?

Winter sun does its work
In the fullness of God’s time
Not one moment sooner

Haiku written 25 February 2014

Telling the Truth