Three Poems by Kathleen Chamberlin

Abandoned Woods 

 

I thread through the thicket of thoughts long neglected  

Twisting and turning, weaving my way from side to side. 

Sweat seeps across my shoulders, sliding down my back, 

A reminder of how difficult this journey has been 

From when I first set out. 

Pausing and pushing my hair from my eyes, I gaze around in wonder: 

Sweet yearnings surround me, sighing softly,  

The seductive sounds of youth startle me, 

So innocent and unsuspecting  

So many stifled, surrendered, 

Succumbing to the oppressive awareness of inevitability,  

Ominous images, of loneliness and dread, 

Broken dreams and broken heart, halt me in my tracks  

The thousand thorns along this route rake my body  

Sharp reminders  

Of all those things that were and never more can be,  

Of all that were stillborn, yet still sharply sting.

Color Poems 

 

The Colors of Grief 

 

Grief is not solely black though many believe it so.  

Black hues engulf us in the beginning, when the shock of loss strangles hope, 

Closing the senses to everything except the emptiness of nevermore,  

Plunging us into the dark, cavernous cistern from which there appears no escape.  

But they are wrong. 

Grief comes clad in the colors of the seasons, assumes every hue:  

Sometimes a blanketing frosty white cloud, chilling breath, obscuring sight,  

Silently smothering the will, 

Sometimes the roaring red of anger, 

Rage unleashed, fists pounding against reality, demanding to know the why. 

Sometimes the fierce orange flame of regret,  

Its flickering tongue singeing our cheeks 

Forcing us to face self-reproach burning without relief.  

Sometimes splashes of silver, like the shards of a shattered mirror, 

the multitude of loss repeated in slivers, irredeemable and irreplaceable  

My grief is gray, the limbo land of in-between, lacking color or definition. 

It is neither black nor white. 

Its shades shift around my head, darkest on those days I held you near: 

Birthday cakes unbaked, candles unlit, 

presents that would have made you smile no longer purchased,  

Anniversary dinners unplanned, uneaten, wine still corked, toasts unspoken. 

That gray is the charcoal of pain, wanting only the match strike to ignite the conflagration.  

On other days, my grief rides across my shoulders 

like streaming wisps of gray, white clouds 

Easier to bear 

Until a song unbidden reaches out over the airwaves,   

And your voice fills my head, 

And all at once I am enveloped by thunderclouds darkening, gloom billowing,  

Tears stream in a brief shower of grief, 

a flash flood of pain before the song ends and the memory fades. 

The world resumes its center, and I wobble onward, off kilter, searching 

Always searching... 

But the gray mists persist  

Disoriented, I wander, heartsick, through a drab, colorless world.

 

 

The Colors of Love in two stages 

 

FIRST LOVE 

 

First love glows white hot 

A supernova of exploding emotion  

All the colors of a rainbow of desire 

Imbuing each word and gesture with joy 

The delicate pinks of possibilities  

The scarlet reds of desire 

The ocean blues of the night sky, sleepy evenings snuggled in each other’s arms  

Waking to the lush verdant greens of the promise of tomorrow. 

  

TRUE LOVE 

  

True love sparkles like strands of silver, silken and shimmering,  

Silently slipping into silence of the night  

Long after the laughter lifts, floating away in the dark 

It is warmth woven into a lovers knot, pure and delicate, by wise and trusting hearts,

untarnished and unbreakable.

Kathleen Chamberlin is a retired educator living in Albany, New York. She began writing creatively during the quarantine period of Covid-19. Her writing has appeared in both print and online journals and anthologies. In addition to writing, she enjoys gardening, genealogy, and grandchildren.