DEAR LOVE #6

Dear Love,

Today, I had a conversation 
that reminded me why 
I love you so much. I love that 
you are willing to heal 
and be healing in our relationship; 
that you gave yourself over 
to forgiveness and kindness. 
I am glad for the ways 
we have supported each other 
and continue to do so, the way 
we speak truth in tender tones. 
I love that laughter fills our ears 
and that it, too, is a part of the healing. 
I love that our days are incomplete 
without hearing each other's woes 
and joys; how the war stories just remind us 
that we're warriors and that we can drop 
our swords and shields around each other. 
We are safe in each other's presence
I love that I am safe with you; 
that you are safe with me. I love it all. 
You make my heart sing. 
And I love that ALL is well. 
All is well. 
And all manner 
of things are well. 

With All my Heart,
Your Valerie

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 29, 2013

DEAR LOVE #5

Dear Love,

I am wasting time today--if there is such a thing. I have procrastinated in some creative ways, but always with my putting off, I have thought of you. Your laughter. Your raucous laughter. Your smile. Your kilowatt smile. The sheer power of your presence radiating in every direction. For all of these and more I would procrastinate another day. I love the way my cells anticipate your voice, the ringtone of it. I know your sound--eternal and soft and round. I have come to know the frequency and the frequency of it--the pitch and roll off your tongue, from the back of your larynx, the rumble of good loving with every whisper. I am glad. And procrastinating has never been so easy as when you are right there within earshot, and just one more giggle or sigh away. I love you in ways I cannot articulate. But I will keep trying, if for no other reason than if will elicit from you a sound--round and soft and eternal.

Your,
Valerie

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 28, 2013

DEAR LOVE 4

Dear Love,

It's a amazing to me

what a conversation can do

how you listen

how you respond

the way you accept

what I say as

worthy to be heard

even if you disagree

and how you do not make me feel

as if my world is fluorescent moondust

in a world full of dull mud

even when it is, or at least

you make me feel as if you

much prefer glowing dirt

Thank you for how you

make space for my weird

and kiss it on the forehead

caress my third-eye

with tenderness

remind me to see

beyond what is most

apparent, remind me

that I can and wait for 

me to open wide

I love you

for these small things

and more

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 27, 2013

 

DEAR LOVE 3

Dear Love,

You have figured out how to make me feel safe even when the ground underneath me is so unstable. Thank you. For being so steady. So true. So complete. So honest in your love. So kind. I didn't see you coming. But I'm glad you did.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 26, 2013

DEAR LOVE 2

THIS DAY is the actual anniversary
of THE KISS. I still remember.
I can still feel the first brush of rising
love and how we both blushed
that day. You still make me blush.
I am glad.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 25, 2013

DEAR LOVE

Dear Love,

It's one of those early mornings/late nights/I-never-quite-went-to-bed times when all I can think of is kissing you. A good psychiatrist might say that I am obsessed--compulsively so--given the way you show up in my thoughts and lodge there, the way you take a seat and prop your feet up in my mind and just stare at me. I'm sure you don't mean to; I mean, I'm sure you're not having any thoughts about me in this moment. Certainly not thoughts that keep you up and make you wonder what I'm doing right now. I'm sure you're not thinking about my lips or the time you turned your face up and we smiled and I lingered for a moment before I did it--kissed you I mean. I hadn't been thinking about kissing you when I did. It's just that in that moment, with the evening light streaming through the dining room window and the words floating all around us as poets were working... well, kissing you seemed like the most natural thing to do in that moment. And who knew what a kiss could lead to. Certainly, not I. I had no idea that love would be so contained, so potent, so pressed up against lips and teeth barely brushing. But then, I have always been slow about these things. And in this moment, when I feel the most insecure about Love, about you, about us as I haven't in so long, I am thinking only about the way you breathe when you're exasperated... or when you're happy (sometimes those exhalations sound the same). I am wrapped in my own fear right now. I tried to syphon some of it off by sharing with you my feelings, but you could not hold them without thinking I was saying something about you. "Don't take it personally" sounds good I guess, until you take it personally. Nevertheless, I am up. And you are no doubt sleep and dreaming of something else, or counting beans (a shorthand for the way you obsess over work). There are no kisses, I am sure, in your dreams tonight. But I am up. And kissing you is all I can think of in this moment.

With all my Heart,
Your Valerie

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 24, 2013

NEED RHYMING WORDS

What rhymes with
I give up
what sways with
No more
I'm done
call it a night
a day
don't ask me
for anything else
I've got
nothing
left

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 23, 2013

HOMELESS

There are the hidden homeless
who lay their heads on someone's couch
or share a bed with someone but
don't really belong there
I am one of the homeless
a vagabond, a rolling stone
with no address
loved but not acknowledged
Foxes have holes
Birds have nest
and here I am weary
from nowhere to call home.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 22, 2013

BELL

Ring the bell
sing the song
do the deed
be 
just
be

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 21, 2013

DEAR BELLA

Dear Bella,

Let me get this out of the way: I hate that I am missing seeing you grow up--I mean up close and personal, not from staring at the photographs posted on Facebook by your Auntie Ree and your Mama Leslie and Grand Birdie, or anyone else privileged to be in your orbit. You are a gravitational pull, Bella. Beautiful and haunting in the way one wants to know someone who is mystery and all out there in front--open, excited, curious. I can see your curiosity in your face, through the shine in your eyes. It makes me curious. I wish I could read a little girl's mind and know how the first time you tasted watermelon really was. It makes me want to know the "first times" of my own life. 

Bella, one day you will ask about your "real family," as if those of us who are your chosen aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and all are not "real family." You won't mean it to hurt us, and if we're kind to ourselves and to you, we will take no offense. I write this for that day: WE, all of us, are as REAL as family comes. You could be no more loved if "love" could be packaged and fed into your heart and soul intravenously. One day, you will know this truth at the core of your being. I hope I will be there to see when the recognition of it lights your eyes and makes you laugh with joy. That will be the gift we all await.

With Deep Desire,
Your Auntie Valerie

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 19, 2013

SNEAKY

I am not sneaky with my love
I love openly, out loud
prayerfully
full of joy
with intent
when it hurts
especially when it hurts
I love like the world
needs love to make it
go around; I love
like my skin is
brown and warm
and full of wonder
like tongues can tell
truth if they dare 
like everyone is watching
not at all sneaky
with my love
I believe it ought
to be like this

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 17, 2013

TEN GALLON LOVE

I'm not good at as much as I'd like to
can't speak the 10 languages I wish I could
don't run 10 miles without a lot of pain
often miss counting to 10 when I'm angry
but 10-gallon's worth of love and more
I'm good at that.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 16, 2013

BELLA

Beauty is born and chosen
wrapped in blankets
tiny paten leather shoes
a hat falls over eyes
this beauty--not 
nose or eyes or fingers
curled around index
around hair around lip
image of her
preacher mama
she chose her
was chosen
will be chosen
again

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 17, 2013

SEPTEMBER SUNDAYS (IN MEMORY OF)

For the dead: 4 girls: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley; 2 boys: Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson
For the grief-stricken girl and maimed: Sarah Collins Rudolph
For the other 22 people wounded in that bombing
For all of us...

They were martyrs:
witnesses to a violent hatred
that bombed a sacred place
--who could have imagined
such vile evil, a mind that 
could conceive such terror
in 1963. But it was Bombingham,
a violent city where more than 50
bombs had been set off in homes
and institutions of black citizens
with no accounting.
One week before the church
shattered into history, George
Wallace, governor over violence,
said integration could be stopped
if Alabama had "a few first-class funerals."

Fifty years ago today at 10:22 am Central
Daylight Time. It was Youth
Sunday. Youth. Sunday.
The mayor wept. Tears have
never been enough for the 
four who died, and the one
who lost her sister and an eye,
or the two young boys killed just 
hours later. It was Youth Sunday.
They were primping and laughing,
practicing their singing, the
words they'd need to say
for Youth Sunday. They were
dressed to the nines
that day, talking about
school or boys, no doubt
whispering secrets, maybe
even gossiping about other
friends, because they were
young without a care for the 
world beyond those doors
that day. Besides it was, after all,
Youth Sunday.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 15, 2013

MY LOVE IS

My love is iced tea sweating
in a crystal glass on a hot
Southern summer's day; it's
hot bread pudding topped
with homemade vanilla
ice cream; it's hugs so tight
you wheeze for breath
and a hope that you will
always be an arm's length away.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 15, 2013

TIME

Make some time
for your own mind
Breathe

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 14, 2013

(FORGOT TO POST, but written and now posted)

BRAIN WEARY

Brain weary
soul tired
heart spent
body fatigued
Nothing left today
Friday the 13th sad
Sleep medicine
coming
I certainly hope

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 13, 2013

NO PRETENSE

We make no pretense of our hungry
the way our fingers grope for curves
and danger, the way our tongues
seek like missiles the target of our desire
we know too well this longing, these
pangs that push against our rib cage
against our pelvic bones
we are not confused of what
would make us full

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 12, 2013

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

This day--9/11- 9-1-1 ... Call Emergency
poets will write, politicians will pontificate
memories posted all over the internet
100 years from 2001, will people
scour the internet for old images
and stories about what people were
doing when they heard the towers fell:

I was dressing for work, standing in the living room
of the house on Boothill when Diane Sawyer said
there had been an apparent accident: a plane had
crashed into one of the towers. While she was 
explaining, the second plane plowed into the other
twin and we knew, all of us at the same time knew--
this was no accident and that we would never be
the same. 

I sat down on the couch trying to decide whether
to go to work, whether it was safe--Austin, after all,
is a state capital and there were now reports of
a plane and the Pentagon and somewhere over
Pennsylvania and what if I were riding into
disaster number five or six or 46? And the phone
started ringing. We all needed each others' voices,
to hear each other as we knew there were people
incinerating as we spoke, flames fueled by
hatred were lapping around our feet, we understood.

It's history to some, but for others this day in history
is a recurring nightmare, a testament to how cruel
humans can be. I was waiting for the next attack--
maybe I still am. 

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 11, 2013

I WISH FOR YOU

I wish for you:
tender hearts to receive you
sturdy arms to hold you
kind eyes to greet you
steady feet to travel alongside you
faithful friends to keep you company

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 10, 2013

(POSTED LATE, but posted)

PIGGYBACK

Grief will ride on the back of a memory, stealth, make you think it's nostalgia until it gets right up on you... then it just piggyback hard, choke you to hold on, make you gag for want of breath, squeeze tears and sighs out of you, repeat at the oddest of moments....

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 9, 2013

KINDNESS

It is a cruel kindness
that you would allow me some
contact with you, brief and
intense, but contact
no voice--that would be
too kind, and god/ess
forbid you be
really kind to me


Valerie Bridgeman
© September 9, 2013

THE HAND OF GOD

"I see a cloud about the size of a woman's hand..."

These moments work like mystery

the small showing of hope

like ink spilled over a page

spread slow

like the roll of dough

kneaded into its best chance

at rising

times of "I think it might"

makes it all worth the possibilities

I feel it rising, like a cloud gathering

like lightning on the edge of

storms that cleanse air

a cloud small like the size

of a woman's hand

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 8, 2013

GRATEFUL

For hands that know
the contours of muscles
that soothe the strain
of life out of my body
with love, for a therapist
who knows Spirit
and the points of stress
and how to conjure
healing.

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 7, 2013

DEATH COMES AGAIN

Death comes again
like slow moving fog low to ground
like stalking tiger with eye on prey
death comes to our elder
who does not summon it
wants nothing of its fangs
around the base of her neck
snapped in two by the force
of impact, quick in the jaws
of this enemy of life, death comes
wrapped in metal and speed
and too-slow reflexes
with fear and unanticipated
goodbyes to waiting kin
it was to be a different kind
of reunion, but death comes
inconvenient to plans
or expectations.

Rest, Mother. Rest.

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 6, 2013

For Betty Cummings, mother to many, including her firstborn son John Cummings; grandmother to many, including Catharine A. Cummings. Rest in peace; rise in glory.

WHAT I'M LEARNING

maybe what i'm learning is that i'm not a poet
since it's day whatever and words run from
me quicker than a gazelle runs from lions
in the Serengeti. no quick-wit rhyme
no way to describe the way the world is
off-center, tilting in the direction of evil
and prayer seems an exercise for the
foolish at heart (I've been called a fool
many a times, so I pray everyday. it's all
in the living)
or the way love overwhelms a moment
of utter disbelief and makes a believer
out of me all over again
maybe what I'm learning is that
words don't matter some days
at least not as much as 
lilies and laughter or the way
my granddaughter tilts her head
as she watercolors my name on
a grid in cobalt blue and purple
on top of a upside down triangle
that looks like the watermelon
awaiting us in the refrigerator
she is reason enough to keep
getting out of bed, reason enough
to want the world to work,
for her to inherit a world better
than the one I am currently
leaving her, enough reason
to want to keep living so I can
keep working on this world
for her watercolors and piano
playing heart
maybe what I'm learning
is that the future needs
those of us with a past
to stay present, to show up
in force and on time
to do our part and then some
to write even when we don't
have words, to work even when
we don't have energy
to keep going because
there are watercolors
still being painted
by little girls

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 5, 2013

NO GAME

ARREST in the Death of Jonylah Watkins

I am words out of words

nothing left to say

I want the bleeding to stop

no kids to die because

of a game console

no father to steal someone

else's mess of a world

no gang member to think

bang bang is the answer

to thievery

no baby to die

while her diaper is being

changed.

Too late I know. This is no game.

and what I want doesn't count

in this madness

but I want it

nevertheless

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 4, 2013

ONE-YEAR-OLDS

Dateline New Orleans:
September 1, 2013: 
Londyn Samuels, 1
shot dead while
wrapped in her babysitter's
arms

Dateline New York City
September 1, 2013
Antiq Hennis, 1
shot dead in the head
while in his stroller
as his dad crossed
the street

What kind of world
do we live in 
where shootings
is the answer
to anything, where
babies are the 
price exacted
in a war they don't
even know is 
happening?

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 3, 2013

IN YOUR HONOR

Jaha, today I celebrate you 
and the way you
struggle into glory 
with a grace
that is amazing 
and heavy
You are liquid fire
Flaming river
power surging
into our world
we are blessed
because you flow
I honor you for
the stream of love
you are.

Valerie Bridgeman
© September 3, 2013

PERHAPS

One day, perhaps, I will forget

what it felt like to sit on your lap

to have you protect me with

your arms, to hold me close

to breathe softly on my neck

to want me as much as I want

you/perhaps I will forget how

hot your touch could be, 

how tender your lips as you

kissed me with the kisses

of years to come/perhaps

my arms will one day stop

aching, my knees stop

knocking at the door of

your decoded palaces

where my dreams visit

for want of your eyes 

to look at me just one

more time. Perhaps.

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 2, 2013

MOTHER IN ZION

I preached in a fit of faith
about laying on hands
and seeking God's face
and trusting that persecution
will press what you really
believe out of you
and how the church at
Antioch was diverse,
though they didn't mention
the women who no doubt
were fasting and praying
and listening along side
the Levi, the Pharisee,
the Encourager and the
Black man from northern
Africa--all trying to pay 
attention to what the Spirit
sounds like

Separate out for me, was
the word and as I preached
I saw the separating, the choosing
the agreeing that these two
really are the seeds of my
labor, years of pouring into
lives, believing that the gospel
is for everybody
and there, standing in front
of me, was proof that I am
a mother in Zion.

Valerie Bridgeman

© September 1, 2013