Astronomer's delight.

They say there is a star, a Christmas star. It is filled with light. It brings a message of hope. It inspires those it touches to be more than they dream. It draws, like tide, the inner courage to do more than they dare.

I know it as a myth. There is no such star. We have searched galaxies, the scientists and I, and never found it. We have scoured books and histories and never caught an echo.

Still, Christmas is around the corner and it's time to sing.

So I went to a Christmas concert at a retirement home, to watch my friend lead a choir of eighty- and ninety-year-olds. I watched her coax them into performing solos, words and melodies painstakingly memorised, into giving it their all, and they did.

I know her voice well enough to be able to hear her sing along with them. Hers is a beautiful powerful voice that could fill a hall on its own strength, but not tonight. Tonight she sang gently and softly, just loud enough to guide and support them, as they put on the show.

I watched them sing. They sang about that star, the one that does not exist. The one that disobeys the laws of physics, and follows donkeys on desert nights.

I have the facts. I could have turned aside with a smirk, but I looked at my friend instead. I watched her touch, inspire and love them.

I looked at her face, and I found the Christmas star there.

Happy days.

Happy birthday, Dorothy!
Happy birthday, me!
I knew I'd be a writer.
I've known since I was three.
I don't know how I know that,
with memories blocked or lost.
Is that the price we pay for a gift?
Must childhood be the cost?

But happy birthday all the same.
It's not about THAT day.

Saying good bye.

Don't you hate saying good bye to children?

Some of them go away
and some of them grow distant.

Some of them we leave (what fools we are)
and are left with a lifetime of remembrances.

Some of them die (only a few, thank goodness)
but the ones that don't, grow up.

To you that have the children,
I hope you know what you've got.

The future, changeable, in your hands,
something to treasure and tend.

Treasure, not topiary.
Do not prune, twist, or bend.

Trust in the universe.

                                                            Trust in the universe,

                                                               she bleated at me.

This universe,

                                                                   in which you are a speck
                                                      on a planet,

                                                                        which is a speck

                                                                                                    in a galaxy,

           which is a speck

       in a universe

                                   which is one of many,

                                                                all of which

                                                   could be swallowed

                                                                                                                 by a black hole,

                                                                                       
                                                                        this universe

                                                                                       will take time out

                                                                                       from its concerns

                                                    with expansion

                                       and orbits

                                                                             and gravity

                                         and other laws of physics,  

                                                                             and somehow arrange

                                                          to right your wrongs,

                                                  or grant your wishes,

                    or turn red lights to green,

                                or treat you like the queen

                                                                             you are.

                                  Or not.

Still here.

I suppose his bones are dust by now. Why can't my grief be like that? It should have crumbled apart and settled into the dark earth that is my past. Why is it still here? How do I bury my grief? I carry it around with me everywhere, and it just won't die.

People die so easily. No matter how, that final moment, that very last moment when they pass from life to death, is so simple and straightforward:  they're here, they're gone.

Why can't grief die, too? I want to sentence my grief to death. I want to murder it savagely or mercifully, but quickly, but I don't. I carry it around with me everywhere, like a corpse that will not rot.

Banging doors is better.

Words are wonderful weapons
and words my special skill
so when I'm passive-aggressive
be glad my tongue stays still

A door slammed twice
A teaspoon flung
into a kitchen sink
a cigarette
some Valium
a syringe
another drink

These are the ways
people try to tell
express the pain
of their personal hell
I know these ways
I knew them well
so I'll say it just once more

Words are wonderful weapons
and words my special skill
so when I'm passive-aggressive
be glad my tongue stays still
my actions will only piss you off
but my words
would shoot to kill.

Mockery in pink (and red, yellow and white).

It's not that they are mocking me. They can't help themselves. They are beautiful, and blooming. That's all they know.

I chose them for their colours:  red, yellow, pink and white; when I went to change the water this afternoon, I found them still vibrant, still alive. It hurt.

Three things, I found, are excruciating to encounter when grieving.

One is laughter from a group of people at the next table in a cafe. It burbles out of their throats so easily, while I struggle to swallow just one sip of a comforting coffee.

One is the sound of a child's voice, the opposite of death. It rings with her hope, but echoes my despair, magnifying my awareness of time running out. Of loss, and losses to come.

And one is the beauty of nature that shines out as a moon or a star or a flower, completely without empathy it would seem, just being what it is:  an amazing, eternally renewing mystery.

Unlike me.

Book windows.

My favourite books were always the ones with windows. Windows through which to escape. I climbed out, or climbed down. Down a ladder, or maybe a string of bedsheets knotted together. Sometimes I sailed out. Sometimes I flew.

Some book windows opened onto gardens, at least two of which were secret ones. Into battles, into dormitories, into other worlds. Some led me into the past, or the future, anywhere but here and now.

Book windows didn't have jailers or monsters or snarling dogs or snapping crocodiles waiting for me outside. Or, if they did, I knew it was just part of the story, and I'd get past them eventually. I'd turn the page.

I didn't need pictures. I could have them, of course, some pictures are special. But they weren't absolutely necessary. I didn't need pictures or SFX or animation because the book windows always led to the most amazing place of all:  my mind.

Getting along with grief.

My grief and I go walking 

together everywhere.

It’s curled up like a foetus 

somewhere behind my breasts.

It’s not human. 

It’s not animal, or plant.

It just is. 

It’s a something I can’t describe, 

because I can’t see it. 

But I can feel it.

I feel it there almost always.

The moment I take my mind off 

mundane matters like being alive,

and staying alive,

there it is. 

Sometimes it sleeps 

but when it is awake 

it is a palpable ache I can do nothing about.

A name, a song, a conversation, a smell.

Gothic words from Books I once loved.

An I Love You whispered in the margin of a dead boy's letter.

Or just numbers added up on a scrap of notepaper,

in the quavering script of an old man’s hand.

A feather.

A regret.

A memory.

All these things waken it.

Some tears, some sighs, some pain,

And then I am ready to soothe it to sleep and try to ignore it again.

What did you do with yours today?

There's this thing about us humans.
No other species has it. Not like us.
This wonderful, awesome thing.

We don't use it very often
and we don't get to see it very often
but when we do...

When we do, and we recognise it,
we give each other goosebumps
and bring tears to each other's eyes.

When we do see it, we know it in every cell,
that this is what makes everything worthwhile,
this rare, precious, and yet so easily available thing.

If only we could remember to ask ourselves,
What did I do with my humanity today?
Anything? Nothing? And ask again tomorrow.

Building a bridge.

I am building a bridge. It might be a bridge across hell. But there is also a kind of hell behind me, and when I finish this bridge and find myself on the other side, there may be a hell waiting for me just because I built it.

I am building a bridge because it feels Asked of me, because it needs to be built, and it must be crossed, if only by me.

I do not know how to build a bridge.
I do not know the physics. I am bad at math and uncomfortable with engineering, and the earth is round enough that if I build a bridge long enough, I may just find myself back where I started.

But I will build it anyway. And I am told that it will not be a smooth and easy shortcut but will still be a glorious drive with a wonderful view and the air will be lovely to breathe.

And this bridge that I build shall have no toll. No burning of holes nor playing with souls. The blueprint has never been in my hand yet here, from the tips of my fingers, it will start to stand.

It will stand true, and it will be free, this bridge, and you, and me.

Not the same thing.

What I say and what you hear

are not the same thing.

My words, shared, become yours to interpret.

You may take them and wrap them around

Your perspective, and make it look prettier.

You may decide that my words polish your armour.

But if you stop, and think, and question,

you may find that my words don’t belong there.

You may want to put aside my words,

or, I hope,

you may want to put aside your perspective,

and look from mine for a while,

and see which way sees truer.

Take your pick.

Matter or Energy.

Garden or Fire.

Peace or Freedom.

Hope or Truth.