I've been away for such a long time! My last post was about a month ago, and was written when I thought that Katsuma was going to die. I was so incredibly worried about him, and I'm happy to report that he has pulled through that crisis, although he is still a very sick cat. He is now on lots of medication for his heart disease, and he is no longer capable of living the life he previously lived. But I think he's still content. He gets ever so much love, and I know he wishes he could still go out and kill things, but lying in any possible patch of sun comes a close second. He's never going to be fully better, and at some point another crisis will come, and that is when we will stop, because he's done amazingly well, he's walking again and everything, but I wouldn't want to see him go through such a terrible time again.
Anyway, what have I been doing to keep myself away for so long? Lots of poems. I have been writing away, with so many ideas that I'm getting lots of half poems to come back to later. I've been submitting things and getting rejected, and, occasionally, accepted, and it's all going along well enough. My rose book is currently also being rejected in various places, and I've made a few tweaks to that along the way, so that is going along fine as well. In addition to this I've been working with a local writing group to collate their upcoming anthology, which has such a marvellously eclectic selection of stuff in it, including a poem from a really good poet with Parkinson's which eloquently conveys his frustration with the time it takes for him to communicate verbally. I can't quite get over that poem. And a prose piece from a child's point of view about her parent's selfishness during their divorce, which brilliantly makes you side with the mother, even while the child is railing against her. Anyway, as you can gather, other people's work from that was taking over my mind, so today I have returned to my own work, and am using one of the poems I've half written this week inspired by Sara's prompt: Return.
I've been so inspired by this prompt, writing poems about failing to leave home, and about my 'interesting' experiences with living on a certain island, but I've not been able to finish any of them. I am going into too much detail, and losing track of what I'm trying to say. Do I know what I am trying to say?
The one that I am sharing was half written in the middle of the night after settling my youngest, incredibly wilful (which is a pain in the butt to live with but I admire anyway) child, again. I know what I'm trying to say in it, but I am also feeling really negative about my body after getting grief in public for being fat the other day, and just not having any resilience at the moment. So I am using the first two stanzas, and making up the rest right now, to share with you for The Prompt, Prose for Thought, and for What I'm Writing. Triple Whammy!
Anyway, I told you I was talking too much and losing the thread, so enough waffle, I shall poem at you.
Return
From my body she was cut
in blood and drama
of flashing lights.
One sweltering night
when my body could take no more.
To my body she returned
for hard-earned sustenance.
My body reluctant
in shock and pain,
yet yielding to her needs again.
And each time she takes a step
in ability, in confidence,
she returns to my body
to check that I'm still here.
Her young body, strong and fit,
no longer needs a hand
to hold. To lift her up.
And yet, in small, dark hours,
my body is her safe space.
My soft and failing body
has arms to hold her,
lips to kiss her,
a scent that reassures,
that when she returns
I am still here.
© Cara L McKee 8/9/16
Having nipped to the loo early this morning, I came out to find Miss 6 'reading' my notebook, in my bed. She was on the page of this poem, and said she thought I'd done it very well, which was very sweet of her, considering I'd written it in the dark, and could barely make it out myself!
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