patience – Pamela Helberg

I haven’t been writing much haiku recently—but I have managed to eke out a few in the past several months. Now is as good a time as any to share them. I’m working on a longer blog piece—my intention is to finish out the alphabet that I started in April, and I’m currently working on V. It’s proving to be somewhat Vexing—but I plan to finish it before school starts again in July. In fact, I’d like to wrap up the rest of the alphabet: V, W, X, Y, and Z before I resume my studies.

In the meantime, enjoy these, please.

We can’t finish what
we started. The pieces of
our pasts too puzzling.

You gifted me this
path. A bittersweet gesture
Since it leads nowhere.

You’re my Proof of Life
photo, ignoring this, our
relentless torture

Here’s tonight’s lesson:
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
It’s like this. This too

You left just silence
On my altar–some off’ring
Bloodless sacrifice

Open that tightly
closed fist–you can cradle worlds
in an open palm

Paradox
Loosen your grasp. Let
me go, and in the release
find deliverance

Rise with me–spiral
Up. Let us float heavenward
Toward hope and bliss

Sink with me–spiral
Down. The depths await. Sometimes
Hope simply won’t float

This grief well runs deep
Dowse here to discover my
Tears’ artesian spring

True happiness lies
In the letting go, in the
Absence of desire

I paid your ransom
With deposits from my soul–
Some installment plan

Even in silence
the Muse inspired. In her
quiet presence, grace.

I’d steal your kisses
If I could–a thief in the
Night. Unexpected.

I have read about
the tomb of longing and find
I am trapped inside

One awakening
Or many? Dwell in the now.
Breathe deeply. Again.

I’ve electrified
The fence around my heart. I’ll
post High Voltage signs.

Drown me. Hold my head
Under your water, gasping,
Breathless. So alive.

Ignite me. Touch your
Match to this tinder, my dry
Fuel needs a flame.

Once, someone asked me to explain my poems. This is what I said:

For me, it’s all about what is churning inside of me at the moment, feelings that I can’t make sense of or get a grip on I can somehow, magically or through this alchemy of words, distill the feelings down, make them manageable. The reader brings her own feelings to the same words and the meaning changes–I love the ambiguity and the not knowing. The mystery and the freedom to interpret and wonder. I started focusing on the power in each word, the impact that just the right word could have, double entendres and deeper meanings. I’ve started bringing this consciousness to my regular writing though it’s much easier in 17 syllables than in a book length manuscript and it makes it richer, deeper when the words can have meanings on so many levels. I feel like I go on a personal journey writing these, and then when I release them to the universe I see them differently again. Layers.

I’ll admit it Dear Reader—I am a notoriously impatient driver. Anyone who has ridden with me knows this and has listened to me carry on about slow drivers, Subarus, and left lane campers. They have also most likely pumped the imaginary brakes there on the passenger’s side for all they are worth.

That said—you know, my culpability adequately addressed— I must complain vociferously about three drivers I encountered in my recent mile and a half drive from my home to my favorite writing spot (no snarky comments about driving a mile and a half—I’m not in the mood).

Three drivers in less than two miles managed to piss me off. All three drivers parked themselves, unmoving, in their cars, in the middle of the road. And not only were they stationary where they should have been moving, they didn’t even bother to get out of the way when I approached. I sat patiently behind the first car and eventually it saw me there, in my large well-lighted black Jeep and moved, albeit slowly, to the curb.

The second car was parked at a four way stop pretty near my final destination, which was fine, for a minute, but then even when no more cars were at the other corners, it still sat there. I could see the driver and the passenger discussing something, discussing, discussing. I calculated my chances of a successful pass on their right but dismissed this option, not because it was illegal, but because with my luck they’d turn right and smash into me (even though their left blinker flashed incessantly as they just freaking sat there).

I muttered profanities about their mental capacities to myself when they finally made a decision and got their ass out of the intersection, but I kept my hands off the horn, firmly gripping 10 and 2 so as not to make any rude gestures that might result in them shooting me. I drove on slowly as my hopes for an empty parking space dimmed. When I came to the next four way stop, a car just sat there, in my lane while its driver conversed with a pedestrian who stood beside her car, laughing at something that passed between them.

Dear Reader, I did not snap quickly. I waited while they wrapped up their little chat, as the pedestrian made moves to get off the road; I waited for the driver to proceed since no other cars waited at any of the other stop signs. But she continued to talk, and the man came back into the street. She even made eye contact with me via her rear view mirror. Still, she did not move. Still, I did not gesture. Still I did not honk.

My patience seemed to be rewarded as the man finally moved away and driver’s window went up. Again she locked eyes with me in her rear view mirror (I may have been tilting my head at a severe angle in quiet desperation, but I was not honking, gesturing, or yelling). She just sat there, unmoving, waiting for nothing, as her window went down again and she said something to the aforementioned pedestrian. That’s when I snapped.

I honked, long and hard. I threw my hands in the air, and hoped she didn’t have a gun. She threw her hands in the air. Looked at me again in her mirror and rolled slowly across the intersection and up the hill.

I dunno, Dear Reader.I think I am losing my moral compass, not to mention my marbles Was my frustration uncalled for? Are common courtesy and common sense on the decline? What would you have done in my place? And don’t say you would have walked the mile and a half. I’m not in the mood.