Napping in My Recliner

You are here with me.
We are smiling,
Looking into each other’s eyes.
We say nothing.
Just stare and smile,
Laughing now and then.
I feel warm, happy.
You are young, like the day we were married.
Am I old? I don’t know.
The only reflection I can find is the one in your eyes.
Love is staring back at me, and I don’t want to look away.

But something startles me, and your image fades.
I look around at my surroundings…
A lighted Christmas tree with your flashing red bells
In a dim room that is very familiar.
Everything is still except those flashing lights
And the swinging of the pendulum on the clock.
I look to my left, but your chair is empty.
I feel the weight of my age bearing down on me again,
But it doesn’t compare to the ache I feel in my heart,
Knowing that another Christmas approaches,
And you are just a dream.

My soul searches for you but only finds you in dreams.
And I will live for dreams until we are together again.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar December 18, 2009

Writing With a Full Time Job

Monday 4 a.m.
I am nocturnal
Coffee brews, and midnight is long gone.
The birds serenade me with a joyful song to greet the morning.
Dark crescent moons fall beneath my eyes.
One question often arises just before the sun,
"Is it better to sleep for an hour

Or not at all?"

.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar March 27, 2006

Ivory Oceans

I understand.
Opening up to me
Is like opening the door
To a secret room.
.
Anything could be hiding.
Something might be lurking
Somewhere in the shadows,
Anxiously waiting to devour anything good,
And you’ll do.
.
I have never been to the home where you grew up.
I have to imagine the staircase

And you as a child,
Thrown down like a rag doll.

.

Are you still stuck drinking water from a murky creek
While your mamma suckles boxed wine like a Capri-sun?

How can I wrap my mind around you

and grab you out of that moment when you were so thirsty?
.
History is an okay teacher,

But pain is a better one.

Your eyes match mine.

They are hazel

And change according to what you wear.

.
We lie beneath faded stars,
And discuss the distance between life and death.

Your breath feels warm against the skin on my neck,

But your hands are frozen.

They cling to a glacier just below your surface,

While ivory oceans confess your innocence.

Written by Erin Elizabeth Cloar July 2006

Earthquake on O'ahu

I keep flipping

The light switch on--off

As I enter or exit a room.

I haven’t had electricity for 6 hours,

But I can see just fine.

I do not hear television noise.

I'm listening to the roar of rain

And watching the drops fall into puddles.

It’s like the earth cleared her throat to speak,

And those vibrations halted our lives on this island.

The whole world paused and gave attention.

She said, “Loose the chords bound round your wrists,

Whether your captor be a computer,

A vacuum, or some other machine.

You can enjoy this world without electricity.

Come bathe in my sweet shower to be reborn.

Be still and listen to the sound that silence makes when she has an audience.”

Branches in trees swayed and rattled their leaves

To applaud the majesty of their mother.

.

.

Erin Elizabeth Cloar October 15, 2006

Gravity Cuts In (as Mother Earth Dances to the Music of the Spheres)

She weaves and wobbles,
Dancing to a song
That only she can hear.
Stumbling there
And here,
She spins
While wine sloshes
Back and forth
In her crystal glass.

The music stops.
She pauses to glance at spinning stars
In a sky-dyed, dark, sapphire night,
But she finds herself lost.

Skew-whiffed and dizzied,
She fumbles through darkness—
Feeling everything,
Looking for anything
That could generate a familiar flicker or flash
…of Light.

Just then,
A force grabs hold of her.
Taking on the weight of her world,
He pulls her arm around his shoulder,
And leads her back to her revolution
Around the sun.


Erin Elizabeth Cloar July 26, 2005

Lovers at Starbucks

Love is like
Waiting to take the first sip
Of a Chai Latte.

I want to taste it so badly
So I jump the gun
And press the cup to my lips.

Anticipating a possible burn,
I blow the top and the foam ripples—
Tiny bubbles in a boiling ocean move around slowly.

Overwhelmed by the desire to succumb to the pleasure
Of drinking a hot Chai Latte in December,
I sip.

I felt some pain for a moment,
But it was my fault.
I sipped too quickly.

Should I have
Looked at my watch
So I would have known the perfect timing?

Maybe,
But who can pause and think
When love is first placed in waiting hands?

Even though I know I might get burned,
I sip up life and love and Chai Latte
Whenever and wherever I can.







© Erin Elizabeth CloarDecember 28, 2007