On Loss and Missing Pieces
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Wioletta Plonkowska on Unsplash
The day his spirit flew,
mine rose to follow.
(Though only a few bits
got clean away.)
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.
the gift of memory
©2019 Susan Noyes Anderson
today I am remembering
dinners at the olive garden
late-night feasts debriefing
your surgical rotation
you: enthusiastic, exhausted
me: attentive, admiring
A Million Words
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
A million words would
never bring you back.
I know, for I have said
them all and more.
I call you in my mind,
greet you in dreams,
pen you in poems that leak
from every pore.
They march out the front door,
sneak out the back one,
slip from windows on
bedsheets, deftly tied.
I do not slide the bolts
nor lock the shutters,
wary of stanzas
trapping me inside.
Still, I won’t send words
packing. They are mine.
Imperfect words, and yet
I hold them dear.
Ethereal as stars, they
have not raised you,
just hooked me on their power
to draw you near.
If this poem resonates with you, you may enjoy reading The Summons.
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The Summons
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Kevin Cole
I am the one who knows
you are not present.
And yet, I come to stand
beside your grave.
Hungry for any service
I might render,
hoping to cross a bridge
I cannot pave.
My Heart Is a Google Drive
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
My heart is like a google drive. Streamed memories of you
float through the cloud in my less-sunny mind,
an often-viewed assortment of mixed ages and all stages,
good moods and lengthy broods, a motley find.
Land of the Free
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Brandon Mowinkle on Unsplash
Our country is a sonnet
written in another time.
Set down in 14 lines,
no more, no less.
Love, Grief, and Grace
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
She’d waited two years for grief to end.
It wasn’t easy, but she was game.
“Two years should do it,” remarked a friend,
but Anne was still going round the bend
with nothing improving and much the same.
Love Remains
©2020 Susan Noyes Anderson
image by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
Sometimes, I think of your body,
sunk deep in the earth.
I look at your grave and imagine
the wood crate below.
I try not to wonder and yet
I cannot help but wonder
how much flesh is left, and
how long it will take that to go.