The next phase
I sit back and watch as the unreal becomes real
Horrors become usual
And outrage begins to fade
Responsibility is not a negative
A dirty word
To be avoided
I am both here and not here
Grief makes it more real
And less
I don’t know what comes next
The moon was full last night
as we stepped out into the cold
This will be our last
Time seeing the moon
Over this particular field and hills
I mourn it
But I am ready
to move to the
next phase
In the fall time
when the harvest comes
and the air turns cool
And I am left alone
I become both angry and afraid
In demand
Pulled and pushed and prodded and needed
But then a routine emerges
We grow accustomed
And then
I feel powerful
Capable
Independent
sometimes feel s like the end of the world
And sometimes feels all together manageable,
We are such moody creatures
We women,
We bribe and we plead
With ourselves
And these small creatures
Who surround us
We move as if one hand is tied behind our backs
We accomplish
Against all odds.
We feel so very alone.
Its not that we have to make all the hard decisions
Its that all decisions are now hard.
we know enough to allow the struggle
We love our small tyrants
We wait for rain,
For puddles and splashing
Wait for dark
For the moonrise
Which we watch in awe together,
Her love for the moon is something I did not teach
She came to it on her own
Or was born with it perhaps
Innate
As some things are.
We regrow
We harvest
We eat
And dig
And dry
And try to make things last for as long as possible
We bring the colors of the outside in
We peel and plan for next year
We are in a place that is strange
Unfinished,
Because truthfully every place is strange and unfinished
We each feel a full rainbow of emotion
Forgetting in the moment that they are each a gift
Forgetting the feeling of going years without the release of a good solid cry
Without so many portions of a truthful life
And truthfully we cannot be powerfully anything
Without being truthful
Loudly truthful
Irritatingly truthful.
I wonder often why so many others can do it
So much better than me
Forgetting that perception is a liar
Always taking us down impossible paths
But I will try to instead
Declare my truths loudly
And in that declaration
Hope that I am heard
I will remember that
decomposition brings fertility
and so release what is dark and thick
And smells like life
prepare the ground around us
So it is full of richness from
the selves that we let fall away
The continuity of things
Let us talk about the stars and sky
Do not ask for answers from the trees
And ferns
But instead be them
Learn their ways
Do not judge them for their slow growth
Their growth is steady
And they know how to forgive
Which is a magical quality all its own
And they are patient like no other
We should be as the forest
Blessed and growing
And constant.
Our power lies in each new moment
Time will not disappoint us
Collect the light,
Gather it into the bowl of your bones
Keep it safe until you are at the ocean
And then spread open your hips
And birth it out again
And watch bits of light
Drift into the sky
And out again
Undulating with the waves
I want to learn the language of the bees
The language of blue prints and treasure maps
Create something from the cosmos
From the light you have swallowed
Which is resting on your tongue.
I watch him at the window
Out in the rain
Burning what we no longer need
and transplanting a basil plant from the garden
So that we can taste its flavor
During the cold sleep
Of winter.
I watch him
Without him
Knowing
And am remade
And astounded
At my reality.
and my luck.
At this life
we’ve made together
the sky reminds me
not to question what i already know
what was already revealed
I speak to God often
And sometimes he speaks back.
He almost always
waves hello When
the wind rustles
The leaves
On the large tree
By the driveway
And the sound is
So lovely
And noticeable
That even
my 1 ½ year old
stops her splashing
in the middle puddle
and turns to listen.
Sometimes I do what I do
(walk in the woods or write a poem)
Because it’s the only way
I know how to pray.
Strange Beauty, my second poetry collection, is now available for pre order HERE. All pre ordered copies will ship on December 15th.
I am so excited that the book is finally available, thanks so much for your support!
Strange Beauty is an exceptionally appropriate title for this collection of poems. Susan Sweetland Garay marvels at the ordinary, expressing her observations about the everyday with precision and adoration in equal measure. Her poetry will make you fall in love with the world or fall in love with it even more. “The sacred/and mundane/overlap like/ocean and sand,/in constant motion…”
-Matt Margo
Author of When Empurpled: An Elegy
editor of Zoomoozophone Review
Garay’s poetry is sharp and clean, yet embraces ideas with lines as open and wild as they are sonorous. Her words blur dichotomies to pastel shades, then soar through vistas where art meets elegance and free-flying expressions of color and sound wing their way along like chromatic birds. A talented poetess with a bright future ahead of her to be sure.
-Earl E.S. Wynn
Editor of Leaves of Ink
With its unadorned images and pared back narrative, Strange Beauty is filled with exactly that—strange beauty. The world introduced within these histories balances between fantasy and reality, between the world we wonder at and the world we struggle in. This narrator is domestic instinct—is woken by secrets—is presenter of rain and waves in the sea—with her dream-like charm on exhibition.
—Stephanie Bryant Anderson
Founder of Red Paint Hill Publishing
author of Monozygotic | Codependent
Strange Beauty includes 77 pages of original writing with themes including motherhood, family relationships, finding beauty in the ordinary and a relationship with the natural world.
The book is available through Aldrich Press, an imprint of Kelsay Books. Please include a message in comments if you would like a signed copy of the book.
Copyright Susan Sweetland Garay 2015. All rights reserved.
I am super happy to show you the cover to my forthcoming book Strange Beauty. It will be available for purchase in mid December and possibly for pre order before that.
Thanks so much for your support!
Today it rained for
7 hours straight I think
and then abruptly cleared
to a lovely blue sky and
magical quality of light
that you can never
quite capture in
a picture.
So the two of us put on
our jackets and ran out
the door so as not to
miss our chance.
Not too late, but late for us,
the three of us are together
in the car driving home after
a night with friends.
Cold and dark and rain beat on the windows
but are unable to penetrate our small world.
There is only us,
inside together –
an island,
apart from the rest
of the world.
Just us,
safe and warm
and on our way home.
Susan Sweetland Garay 