Words and Photos
… words …
In an old trunk
amid papers saved and rotting
a letter from you never seen before.
Where, I wonder, did this come from?
The words shine like moon rise
Still – I let it go.
…and photos…
small faces
unmoving lips give the script a voice
“Here is Ali by the Great Rock Here is Ali by the Great Rock!”
cried the lost boy under a full desert moon.
Wooden camels scraped across the stage
How I loved you!
Still – I let it go.
© photo and poem by caf
At 89 she still wears high heels
with skinny straps and rhinestones,
she clicks right along in them
while holding onto my arm for balance.
I’m gonna wear high heels and big earrings
until I die, she declares.
Noticing the oncoming traffic she asks
if I’ll help her write her obituary.
I know she sees her future and it hurts me,
but I agree, knowing that even when
the final road is crossed
things will not be finished between us,
for love doesn’t understand
red lights, stop signs, or death.
©photo and poem by carole fults
Coyote Wind
Did you hear the wind last night
howling up the creek
whistling in the snowy, twig shaped shadows
of January’s full moon?
Did you see the moon
last blustering night
brazenly brightening the deep sky
dark of clouds?
One time, when the gale quieted
and all sound was frozen silent
I slipped outside in time to see
a Screech Owl fly stage front shrieking
“Wild, wild everything is wild!
Everything is wild!”
The wind rose again as I huddled under a tree
It pushed me through a tunnel
into the reckless freedom of space and adventure,
shattering the stale sameness
that orbits everyday life.
It sang a new way into being and then,
returned me to my bed, freshened,
where the barking spirit of Coyote
stalked my sleep
and dreams dripped into an awakened life.
©Carole Fults photo and poem
A Perfect Storm
Once a six month storm tore at her shutters
a hot and turbulent wind
pummeled the untanned hide that sheltered the door of a dark cave
wherein lived one of the world’s most illiterate hearts.
As she allowed the wind to help her dance in the trees
Her toughened pelt became soft as velvet
and as pliable as priceless leather
limp, whipped and limber.
In the aftermath of the thrashing torrent
tears kept her hardness soft
and as she walked in the forest
she saw Bittersweet
strewn on the path under her feet
and she rested with her eyes wide open.
©Carole Fults photo and poem
Echoes
Once I called to the past
and the past answered clearly, joyously
Memories dancing with laughter.
Once I called to the past
and the past answered clearly, sadly
weeping tears enough to wet the world.
Today I called to the past
and heard only an empty echo
returning to me
No musical refrain, no complaints of wounded heart.
Maybe the past has died
abandoning me to my very present self
Distractions are deceased
leaving me with this very present moment.
by caf
©Carole Fults
Inside-out Art and Writing 