Connie's Poems

A FEW POEMS............ Questions? e-mail me connie@poetrypost.com

BY THE WINDOW (for my Thomas)

I used to put your baby chair
facing the backyard
facing the big pane glass window

you were so quiet, as I saw your spirit lift
and you were soon lost
Inside the dance of leaves
of the tall tree outside

At five months
you would stare for what seemed hours
Cooing at the melodic motion of leaves,
your hands and feet moving
Synchronized with each turn of the tree’s kaleidoscope of light
as the afternoon would seem to drip down upon me
I found tasks to do, not far away, and I would listen….

I would fall effortlessly into your gentle baby sounds
Feeling certain that you would grow to love nature
And that I must be doing something right,
to have such a calm baby

I didn’t know then
That the temporary disappearance from this world
Was only the beginning of autism

It was the dawning of other worlds
of prisms that would take you from us
that would take language from you

It was genesis of a specific kind of spinning
that would yearn to make the picture whole, centered,

to make the light and its refraction seem just right
It is a time encapsulated in my mind,

When I could not have known where your silent motion would take us
yet I still cannot separate from it,
still cannot disengage from that time

When I knew where certainty ended and began
yet,
you walk in the living room today
A young man with brown straight hair
taller than I,
slender and carrying a blanket you’ve had since you were three

You go to the couch by the window,
cover yourself in warmth
Place your head on the distinct edge of the couch pillow

And watch the leaves
dance above you on the trellis outside
Adjusting your position, to merge with all I cannot comprehend
You smile in a satin and oceanic serenity,
I have rarely seen in another
Become immersed in the incandescence of the entirety of this one day

This one afternoon
from which I cannot disengage
And I realize that you have grown
And have grown to love nature

and that as much as I have lost and found you
In all the waltzes of leaves and light
That I must have done something right.

by connie Post - Carquinez Poetry Review January 2006
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THE HAIR STYLIST

They come to her
Ends frazzled
In need of fixing

In the beginning, they may recede from her

But eventually she combs them through

They settle into her chair
With a certain kind of permanence

They bring her their moods
Stories of the day
The secrets they don’t tell
Their other friends, spouses or lovers

She cuts away the unwanted pieces
Absorbs and reshapes them
As their secrets fall to the floor
With the hair she quietly sweeps away
Long after they’ve gone

By connie post Copyright 2004