Fields of Remembrance

“Cut corn stalks in the wind” video by Maria Wulf at Full Moon Fiber Art

The howling of the wolves,

the empty stalks,

this is home now.

Remember when we had it all,

before the burning, the chafing,

the emptying?

I won't cry, though;

tonight, a full moon

reveals the sickle-swept rows

we hid between,

and our ghosts laughing

and playing,

reflecting us

as we always should have been.

© 2016 Jennifer Wagner



For Artistic Interpretations at IGWRT, featuring artist Maria Wulf. 

After Suicide

He still goes over to his house,
sits in his room,
says a lifetime of goodbyes to ashes
--what's left
when the oxygen of hope thins,
choked out by the rasping fire-of-lies
believed at just-turned twenty.


Remembering often in stories,
as the living do
of the dead--
he laughs,
cries,
swears,
breaks, bitterly.


And when reads to me what he writes,
how it is to lose a brother,
memorializing what was,
he ends it
the only way he can.


You don’t know what you’ve done to me.



© 2015 Jennifer Wagner


At the end of August my son's best friend since he was 11 years old committed suicide at the age of 20. A crater-sized hole has been created, and though I know it is a pain that will remain for the rest of his life, I pray for it to lessen for him and for all those who loved Baily. He is greatly missed.

Prince

Prince and me, circa 1977

He was puffy and fluffy

and rarely barked.

I was in the car

that ran over him

the night he died. Six years old

and sitting in the backseat

between my mom and Shirley

as we headed out for dinner. Louie’s Chinese.

Shirley’s husband, Harry,

was the driver. A sweet, adorable man.

A diabetic whose foot later developed gangrene.

He felt terrible, of course.

I felt indescribable.

How do you say

how you feel,

your first prince’s yelps

stinging everything?

© 2015 Jennifer Wagner

Everything

Photo © 2014 Jennifer Wagner

There are things we lost

in the flood

or after it

in the seeping, standing water

up past our hips.

It’s no use;

they’re gone.

Remember when

I told you

I thought

we weren’t strong enough,

maybe we

were too damaged

to make this work?

But you

only remember me saying

I’d stay

and let you try.

And for that

you’d give up everything, again,

because everything

means nothing.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

The Finest Thing

High Angle Rescue Drill, Firefighter Ian Wagner

Photos © 2012 Ian and Jennifer Wagner Family

On the deck

sipping the last of summer

from my glass of iced coffee,

I’m drenched in a moment

of luscious sunshine,

one of the few left before

autumn’s return.

I’m watching our youngest boys

with delight—

plastic swords and shields in their hands,

attacking The Alien, also known as

the small green sprinkler

with four arms

and a mind of its own.

A miniscule, slate blue butterfly

flits by

and then a larger one, white and clumsy—

meanders by too.

Does it know where it’s going? 

I like thinking it doesn’t,

it just floats along, discovering.

But I know as I watch

two crows

wave west over my roof,

looking so purposeful,

that there are jobs to do, of course—

and each one of us has our own.

A neighboring apple tree

is nearly full of green-gold apples,

three Asian pear trees are laden too—

our Polynesian neighbor

will fill sacks full of the succulent fruit soon,

drop them off on our porch,

with his brown-sugar fingers

and white smile, wrinkled.

My contentment spreads,

a drunken, giddy peace

in the listening to leaves rustling—

still clinging, green, to trees.

They will fall soon enough,

as time keeps its own pace.

I’ll savor this good day

with the gray day of remembering looming,

ashy, grating,

real—

for the grief of

New York’s Bravest, Best and Finest

and all who fell too soon.

But real, too, is the spirit

of what is the best of us.

And that has lived on.

I know it

in the browned fingers of giving,

in the bright laugh of the innocent,

and in your mouth on my neck—

like a breeze,

like sunshine.

I am reminded,

here, in this moment,

not eclipsed

by any large, evil scheme,

that come what may,

some will continue to Give,

Sacrifice,

Love.

And that is still The Finest Thing

on any given day.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

 

dVerse OpenLinkNight

Bloodless March

today

i can tell you what

a dried orange peel feels like

hanging on—

barely

wrapped in yesterday’s color

now a duller shade

possessed by winter

contained in the glass bowl of night

where mango and cinnamon

and cardamom

die on my lips scented citrus

nut hard and inedible

a shade

of passion’s fruit

wheeled out on gurneys

of seasons past

Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

26

26 reasons

to remember why

He came

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

It’s Christmas, but I find it difficult to feel celebratory.  I know most are probably feeling the same way with hearts heavy and broken from last week’s devastation.  And yet I am reminded of why He came.  He came not because He wanted us to decorate trees and drink egg nog and rack up credit card debt giving gifts.  He came because we are in darkness, and He is the Light of the world.  John 8:12  Come, let us behold Him.  Perhaps we have never needed to more.

 

Settling Upon November

The artistry of SueAnn.  Used with permission.

Damp yellow leaves

and a hanging gray

settled upon November

with sharp scents of burning wood

and smoke encircling chimneys.

Head down, she trudged ‘home’

rain splattering her jacket

and hiding bright tears.

November, the month

she knew more than leaves

were dying.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

For dVerse Poetics: Through the Artist's Lens 

Quenched

Stepping with bare toes across

meadows of balsamroot

I glide swiftly on grasses

soft from last night’s rain.

Quietly slipping between rocks

I meet the gush of spray;

with full pupils down,

tiny rivulets cascade my bare shoulders.

Droplets form and cling precariously

to my hair, responding as I shiver;

a flirty audience of aquilegia formosa

quivers with the steady rush.

The voice of the waterfall

is a mighty quenching of everything;

a gushing spray of explosion and tranquility, reverberating

like the sound of a mother’s heart in a growing womb.

I didn’t come here to grieve, only to soak

in the majesty of a paradisiacal place;

but my heart remembers and wishes I could have buried you here,

instead of where you ended up, in pieces, on porcelain.

I feel embryonic in the moment, wholly enveloped, naked, treasured.

Coming alive in the lusty boom, I scream, and moan,

and grieve, leaving everything here on these ancient stones—

laboring with the violent echo of women’s loss before mine.

I hold hands with the knowing barren wombs

and weep the deficit that will never feel your sigh at my breast,

your pink mouth to my skin, see the shine of accomplishment in your eyes.

They know how I feel—you were brief, but you were mine.

I let you go, but still carry you with me as I push through;

emerging back into the sun of life, weaker and stronger,

spent, and refreshed, sprinkled with pure minerals,

with lilac and wild lavender, and just a hint of baby’s breath.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

found in The Beautiful Sadness, dVerse and Poets United: Poetry Pantry