Breaking

Breaking

Somber

Wrists chained together

You peer through screened glass

Glimpsing one

Close enough

To bake cookies in the kitchen

To run bath water before bedtime

To cover with kisses

Before breaking

Away

Hearts

Law.

Passing shadow

Almost invisible

Led by a stranger

Locked

Alone

Your mother cries.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

Last Harvest

Sometimes, the last passes unnoticed.

Last Harvest

Scent of dried corn dusts

cool breeze.

September sun settles pinkly beyond

this field

of broken stalks and grasshoppers

and black soil.

Do these Midwestern slopes remember

stretching through

wild and untended

centuries

supporting

grass, flowers, briars, trees,

crops seeded by no hand?

When buffalo wandered,

did prairie see

squirrel burying black walnuts

unearthing fossilized fragments,

sea life long since

forgotten?

Which day

breaks

declared the beginning

of change?

How long

these acres yielded

to civilization bearing

food

year

after

year

at mercy

of farmer

and nature?

Today

some wildness

remains about.

Deer steps cautiously over

ground nuzzling dirt,

nibbling few remaining grains from

otherwise bare cob.

Tomorrow

deer hide.

Bulldozers and blueprints

bury

earth

as human eyes see in

buildings and concrete

growing

money.

Preparing to lie

dormant,

just another winter

tonight

this still

fertile

land

touches

coming age.

Last harvest.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

Who Knew?

Do you know lost? Have you been there or loved someone in that deeper-than-lonely place?

Who Knew?

Who knew my steps would ever lead me here?

A place where darkness and death appear as friends,

A time well past the time to make amends,

When days dissolve into corrosive fear.

Who knew that I would lessen year to year?

I may believe in God before this ends,

Releasing all as all I hold to rends

And know a good beyond me drawing near.

‘Til then, I live with demons day to day,

Sometimes aware that life is passing by,

That those once-loved are sad to watch me die,

Forgetting dreams of how my life could be.

Some keep the hope I’ve lost along the way.

Who knew that I could live without me?

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

Addiction

Oh, the attraction of deadly beauty.

Addiction

Just to look

Just to touch

Just to make mine for a little while

That lingers on and on

While all else dims,

Disappears against desire,

Need to be one

With this beloved that blazes dangerously

Numbing

Darkening

Burning me to ashes

Just to blow away.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

The Affair

How would you wrap words around an affair? This is how I did.

The Affair

Contentment safely contained chaos,

Ordered the world

With a gentle and thorough lover

Before another set of eyes

Unsuspectingly became

A swirling vortex of entropy,

Impassioned and unanchored,

Stability ignited into electric dance,

Exquisitely unquenchable obsession

Estranged from steadfast existence

Transported

To myopically misbegotten moments.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

Rain in Clover

While the intense heat of summer can be brutal, I sure am longing for July as I look out my window at piles of melting snow.

Rain in Clover

Dying in breathless summer silence,

field of clover lies wilted and limp.

Crimson faces mourn approaching shadows

and tremble

as deep

echoes

arise from earth.

Gasping at cool whispers, bowed heads slowly wake.

Green bodies sway in chanting wind.

With a frenzied dance, every rooted being sings

as showers from heaven spray and save all

from sure death.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

The Moment of Knowing

Once you know, life can never be the same.

The Moment of Knowing

Like one’s own child

That having been borne

Can never be unconceived,

Daughter sees mother’s sin,

Man witnesses wrong and remains silent,

Love washes over boy, softening yet strengthening,

Students read words from those long-dead.

The moment of knowing arrives nakedly.

Then the child merges with the parent’s heart

  before tearing away,

The young woman startles to recognize her mother

  in the mirror,

The man grows distrustful,

Love, through time’s erosion, remains nonetheless.

Old relives, refreshed in the young.

All yet to be

Hears the newborn cry

And changes.

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.-Psalm 62:5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com  

Click here to see my disclaimer and what I’m up to with this season of blog posts.

Falling Leaf Takes Flight

Falling leaf
Takes flight:
Floating
Yellow
Butterfly.
-Me

Back at it for a bit.

In 2011, I started this blog as an exploration of midlife and Generation X, thoughts about how the two may fit together, and some examples of how I've been influenced by older relatives.

Along the way, I've researched, contemplated, and rambled, sharing findings, my own poetry, and other people's voices. I've also shared some of my own childhood memories and insight into previous generations.

Life, and perhaps especially midlife, requires a balance of holding on and letting go, which is why, in 2012, I considered how people of any age stake claims but ultimately find ourselves powerless to keep anything.

To my horror, I recently encountered a blog post on a site for people over the age of . . . gasp . . . 50 . . . that had the audacity to mention that the first Gen Xers are heading into a half-century of life. The author does a nice job of looking at Gen Xers and Boomers and the bickering that still carries on between us. If you want to ponder where you are in the midst of all this generational evolution, click here to read: "Don't Call Me 'Slacker.'"

My last blog post was over a year and a half ago, on my 20th wedding anniversary. Since then, our household of two mid-life Gen Xers and two teenagers has had plenty of experience with middleness, generational interaction, and holding on and letting go. Bound to life in a human body, I'm still naturally inclined to want to claim and keep, only to realize the futility of grasping tightly. I've become more practiced with holding lightly. I continue to find that looking toward our Creator offers glimpses of holiness and certain hope in the midst of this imperfect and otherwise hopeless existence.

I've been playing with words and thoughts in the form of poetry and will share some of what I've written in the coming days. For the most part, I'll let short pieces stand on their own. Undoubtedly, a sense of middleness, a flavor of Gen X, and my personality will be evident.

If you read anything I post, please feel free to respond . . . to say hello, to react, or to talk about what topics are brewing with you in this season of your life.

DISCLAIMER FOR ALL MY POEMS: Realistic fiction is a writing genre; please keep that in mind. Just because I've wrestled with turning human experience and emotion into words doesn't mean that any particular piece is autobiographical. If some of you who know me find that something disturbs you on my behalf, pull your eyes to the bottom of each post where I will have this verse as a reminder of my true foundation: 

My soul, wait in silence for God only, 

for my hope is from Him. 

He only is my rock and my salvation, 

my stronghold; 

I shall not be shaken.

                              -Psalm 62: 5-6

This blog post is part of a series of writing (Feb.-March 2014) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland, sharing original poetry. tbergland.blogspot.com