No Small Thing
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
The spruce tree missing from your grave
brought me to ground.
Another loss I could not save,
a low blow some thief blithely gave,
the superficial turned profound.
Author Archive
Susan Noyes Anderson
Susan Noyes Anderson is the author of At the End of Your Rope, There’s Hope, Deseret Book, ©1997; Awaken Your Spiritual Power: The Fairy Godmother Isn’t Coming!, Karisma Press, ©1999; and His Children (poetry only, photos are by Anita Schiller), Vantage Point Press, ©2003.
One Tender Mercy
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Erik Karits
image by Erik KaritsI wrote a poem of you
and your blue eyes,
then took a walk
to read it at your grave.
Arriving there, I found
to my surprise,
no trace of tree
or pot, love-gifts we gave.
On Signs and Mysteries
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Erik Karits on Unsplash
This morning, rather suddenly,
the cemetery called to me.
I did not yield; my day was full,
yet every hour I felt the pull.
My washer hummed; my keyboard clicked;
the oven baked; the timer ticked,
but underneath their steady thrum,
I heard your soft song, “Come, come, come…”
Wildfires
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash
image by Egor Vikhrev on UnsplashThe wildfires burn fuel to ashes. I’m melted
and homeless. Adrift in the redwoods,
resilience is theirs, not my own.
The Overlay
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Pascal Bernardon
The melancholy overlays each day,
a weeping willow branch shading bright blooms.
Reminders of you wind through all my rooms
in flowers, bright and dark along the way.
What Matters
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
You looked at me through soft blue eyes,
expressions you did not disguise
of courage, anger, love and pain,
compassion, humor, wry disdain.
Ghosting Grief
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Steinar Engeland
Grief was a ghost with an ache in her chest
and a lot of emotions that scared me to death.
She was love with no outlet and pain with too many…
had little control and less grace (scarcely any).
Her feelings exploded on walls and on ceilings
in chaos, a state not conducive to healing;
and even when she settled down for a while,
she could never be trusted. Her sad little smile
was a lid (a loose lid) on a cauldron of loss,
and she spent every moment just counting the cost.
On Wishing, Well
©2021 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Aleksandr Ledogoro
Beauty is in the simple things
that ease into a willing heart:
Dusk falls, then calls forth starling wings
while sun and moon paint works of art.