Meting My Needs

 

I carry so much inside of this heart

sometimes I feel it will burst.

I am not patient; ruminating anxiously,

watching, wondering what holds the key?

And I do my best to keep moving forward

pondering if second-chances

are based in reality, or if they’re a myth

that we tell ourselves to keep on keepin’ on.

Joy is gleaned in all of  the small moments.

Hope carried on the fringes of those moments,.

But the light that we that seek,

the love that we reach for,

isn’t always as forthcoming.

We may feel its warmth from time to time,

a will-o-the wisp that rests for a heartbeat

then moves on, leaving us wanting for more.

It’s hard to find stability in an unstable world,

to feel confidence when nothing is sure.

Our want for companionship seems impossible to obtain,

but the need to find love, to give love, to be loved still remains.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

*Meting = measuring

 

Between Eternities

 

I’m on a road that I’ve not travelled in such a long, long time

the signs are unfamiliar, my map is obsolete

feeling apprehension with each new turn and bend

not sure if I’ll ever get back home again.

Not getting any younger, but sometimes I pretend

wallowing in darkness just isn’t who I am

yet I can feel the shadows on the periphery

wondering, as always, if they come for me.

So I paint my pretty pictures of all the things I do

omitting how the quiet times, the emptiness, accrues–

for others like it better when we hide our broken parts

cover up the ugly scars, the trauma to our hearts.

So should you search the subterfuge looking for a sign

picking through the boneyard of the words I leave behind

perhaps another traveler just searching for their home,

take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

The Connection

 

We look for the pretext, the hidden connection

a word to encourage, a sign someone cares–

it’s not in their words that we garner the meaning

but inside the knowledge that someone is there.

Caught up in this void is the echo of voices,

the faces once clear disappear from display;

we hide them away in a cache deep inside us

not willing to share lest we give them away.

The winter months beg to be given our secrets

but who’s really listening to what we might say?

In the silence and emptiness, in hollow of loneliness

lie the chapters of stories and things we’ve outgrown,

yet we cannot forget all the places we’ve come from
the communion of friendship, the people we’ve known.

We’re born to this world, become one among many—

  it seems when we leave, that we all go alone.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

Photo credit: C. Parant at Appetite for Photos. Used with expressed written permission.

"We come into the world alone, we leave the world alone." James Anthony Froude

Footnotes

It is a heavy tome I carry

filled with people I have known

in this space where they exist,

their stories bound into my own.

Perhaps that’s why in dreams I tarry

inside this place where we connect;

so many now no longer here 

are carried in this book I bear.

The days weigh heavy on these shoulders

I sometimes feel that I can’t breathe;

the years spin by as I grow older,

and life keeps sifting though this sieve.

What hands once held slips though these fingers

I reach for things I cannot grasp,

and so it is I‘ve come to know

that nothing ever stays or lasts.

There won't be any double-takes

the years we live can’t be reprised,

perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to linger 

in this space behind closed eyes.

When we’re gone, what will remain?

Where is it that our stories go?

Will we appear in someone’s dreams

...existing in the afterglow

   of this life we used to know

 

© Ginny Brannan 2023

Perhaps You Didn't Notice

 

I feel like I am myself again,

but really, what does that mean?

Aren’t we all ourselves,  all of the time?

So I should say “I’m back to my usual 

state of normalcy.”  I’m back to being me.

For a little while I was in a different place

a darker space,  somewhere inside a well

no rope ladder, each day the same

not good or bad; they just were.

Anxiety ruled: the overwhelming

sense of being alone.  How could I

start again? How would I survive?

So I parodied all the right motions

doing the things that must be done

all the routine and mundane

I guess that’s called “survival mode.”

I can almost put my finger on the exact moment

when the skies cleared, the fog disappeared.

No, I do not dwell in the dark places, the

empty spaces, but for a time I was a guest there.

Sometimes we get lost for awhile, inside the

loss that we carry. We talk the talk and 

walk the walk, and paint ourselves into a better place

knowing that we aren’t there yet; wondering

if we ever will be. Oh, I have seen this place before,

this empty well without a rope. Life chews us up

and spits us out,  and we can either sink or swim 

But to stay afloat, now that’s the challenge isn’t it? 

Perhaps you didn’t notice I was gone—so practiced 

in the art of the façade. And while I can’t explain just 

where I’ve been, I’m happy just to be myself again.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2023

My tipping point came in February, where I no longer felt that I was just "functioning" but was actually happy and excited about doing things again, about life again. Don't feel bad if you didn't notice. It means I did a good job covering. Some things are too personal to share until they're over. See that picture in the upper left corner of this blog? That was February.

The Seven Ages of Woman

 

I wonder how long it actually takes someone 

      to know exactly who they are....

we start a young child, wind under our wings

our mother’s daughter, father’s pride and joy,

already we are daughter, granddaughter, and niece,

all of these things in someone so small.

Next comes the schoolgirl: learning and growing...

we add student, friend, scholar to our repertoire;

perhaps even athlete and musician as well.

As we mature, so too, our sense of community

as we looks toward the future and what it can hold

and our pathway converges to coed and college girl–

the scholar, the tutor, attaining, advancing...

our life lies before us, the world is our oyster

as we shift to career woman, manager, boss.

Then comes a new stage on this path to the future–

deeper than friendship, a profound admiration 

filled with passion and fervor, unlike any other–

this need to exist just to be with another.

And so love evolves with its vows and its promises,

and we open our heart to a child of our own.

Now daughter, provider, friend, wife, and mother,

we watch as our child meets his own milestones...

while time keeps on moving, through gains and through losses, 

through comings and goings, through a young child growing—

until one day we find that we are alone 

for loved ones do pass, and children leave home.

Looking back now we count all the people we've been

the child, the student, the lover, the friend 

and now a new milepost on our plane of existence.

seen as sage and respected for all our experience.

Time, much like justice, tends to be blind

can’t know what’s before us, just what’s left behind

each act sets the stage for the next one to follow—

while the reaper, he waits in the wings for us all;

as for me, I can tell you, he’ll meet some resistance,

for much lies ahead till the last curtain falls.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2023

 

This is inspired by Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man From ‘As You Like It’

1.  Schoolboy 2. Teenager 3. Young Man 4. Middle Aged 5. Old Aged 6. Dotage & Death

Here I share my thoughts on the 7 ages of woman, with a bit more positive spin, I think. We transition with nary a notice except on reflection....and yet we are so much more than the sum of all of our "acts."

1. Child 2. Schoolgirl 3. Coed/College 4. Career 5. Wife  6. Mother 7. Elder

**For Alice, who grabbed onto a random comment of mine some years ago and suggested this as a possible 'book' title. No book (yet) though, just a poem. Thanks Alice, always, for inspiring and encouraging! 

Ad Infinitum

The sum of the whole is less than all of its parts­–

it fades more with each passing hour, no rhyme

or reason. Maybe it’s the month, or the day, 

or just the way that time likes to slip away. 

No rest for the weary, nothing finds realization

as time folds in on us; completion calculated

by those whose expectations exceed our abilities.

Reality and insanity occupy the same timeline:

when it comes down to it, it’s all about time.

Time is not our friend. Only so many minutes in the day,

it’s always running away when there’s so much to do.

Everyone rushing to finish their tasks, no wonder

the days disappear, and nothing good lasts.

Another day, another dollar...more likely fifty cents,

after the taxes and bills are digested...

If this life is a test will we pass or fail?

I sit obsessing on the day that’s ahead

second-guessing the challenges yet to come

anticipating it to be the same as yesterday,

locked inside this loop of endless tedium.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2023 

No Longer Legible

Why do we try to reconnect,

to seek out names that we once knew?

To find where they landed?  To learn their fate?

Is it just to set our memories straight?

Why insist on recapturing this past that exists

only in our mind's eye; a dimming collage 

of youthful desires and broken dreams

seen in fading colors and sepia-toned themes.

Were we really so different from one another?

Each of us pursuing our own place as we chased

obscure shadows toward a future unknown;

each searching for salvation on this road to perdition

where time has become the great equalizer

between our cradle and the grave

 

© Ginny Brannan 2022

The Path We Choose

 

I know this passage only too well

each turn, each bend

each stone unturned

how far it wends

the paths pursued

the roads not taken.

I will not be sullied by my choices 

wise or foolish,  brave or weak

each decision is my own to bear

Of regrets, I never speak;

no point in keeping score…

You always said that you loved me

I know I loved you more

 

© Ginny Brannan 2022

Riding the Thunderbolt

 

Hills and valleys, turns and twists,

we are strapped into this ride

each mountain climbed attests to glory

every cog, part of our story.

Such a ride, hard to resist!

The clickety-clack of well-used track

echoes through the wooden rails

And though it seems we’ve just begun

our days of youth now come undone.

But still we chug to scale the hills,

another dip, another turn

so often fears are amplified…

climb aboard, or just exist?

Valiantly, I choose the ride!

 

© Ginny Brannan 2022

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3

 

What’s to lose and what’s to gain

we work our lives away in vain,

the poor can never get ahead

illusions render poor refrain;

the rich get richer by default

off the backs of all the rest.

Perhaps this life just a test:

with no money to invest

no treasure hidden in some vault

day-to-day, we peck away

just trying to keep the bills at bay,

counting hours as they pass

with very little time to play.

Yet when the reaper comes at last

what is it that we’ll have to show

for all the trials that we faced?

Perhaps it’s time to reassess,

to take a stand for what is best.

Empty, full or in between

we each interpret what is seen…

we count our joys, however rare,

the happiness that we have gleaned.

We weigh the tears that we have shed,

each exhausted minute spent,

every drop that we have bled

each smile, each laugh, each wrinkle earned

each loss, each gain, each heart we’ve spurned

while trying to grasp with clarity

if we are where we’re meant to be.

© Ginny Brannan 2021

Five Months

The clock resets

there is no back, only forward

while heart yearns for what once was,

and mind wonders what will be…

And we? We float in the limbo in-between.

Friend wife, mother, caregiver, lover…

I have been all of these, who am I now?

It is hard to see ourselves as others may, 

be defined inside of someone’s expectations.

Sentimentalist?  Realist?

There is no right or wrong.

There are times when I‘ve felt lost

in the moment, let thoughts wander,

and wonder why this had to be?

But for all that others go through 

all the pain and anguish

the grief and the uncertainty,

then really, why not me?

And so the clock resets

and I move forward, no regrets

as heart remembers what once was,

  and mind wonders what will be.

 

 

© Ginny Brannan 9/7/2021

 

 

Past Participles

 

The past is in the past

we never have looked back

our lives already cast—

but in the quietude

when I can’t fall asleep

I recall a time 

from that place where memories steep.

Under this façade, 

where all is status quo

sometimes I have pondered;

—but things are what they are

and what was meant to be

has already unfolded.

O, how we skirt our truth

when speaking of our youth,

it’s better not to say…

 when words diminish memories

    and just get in the way

 

© Ginny Brannan 2021

Restored

There hardly seems a time that I recall

when we weren’t pulled in opposite directions,

some days I feel I’m up against a wall

no longer now your object of affection.

But then I see your eyes and feel your touch

your sweet, soft words are tempered with inflection:

you see me for the person that I am

we needn’t mask ourselves in self-pretention.

And when there’s little else I can endure,

when I’ve lost belief in my convictions
it’s by your faith in me I am restored

and through your love am cured of my afflictions.

With you here by my side I am complete–

 enfolded in your arms, I cede defeat.

© Ginny Brannan 2020

For my friend, Yvonne, who challenges a poem with three words included: wall, touch, restore.

Image Credit: Buzz16