UNBROKEN THINGS
By Katherine Darlington

Strong and hungry for the sun, the flower reaches toward heaven

Spreading its saffron petals, unafraid of what it might tap

Should the wind begin to knock...

You, a whole eight years of life

Sometimes locked, bound, in your own world

I’m just beginning to know you

Mourning comes to me remembering what will never be

Yet you are

Here

Not gone

Just gone into your extraordinary world

For awhile

The sunflower’s sticky petals are sturdy

And the Mason jar glows when the sun streams in just so,

As the flower is strengthened from the sun…

But no, it shouldn’t be picked;

My favorite flower

Is meant to be growing wild out there

Where the unbroken things grow

You were picked and placed in my world

Your name is Joshua

Your grace is felt

Your strength enormous

Yet should you be here or out there

Where the unbroken things grow

I know you yet you know not the daystar

That glows steadily for the world…

Sunflower

Joshua

Sun

These three bind tightly to my chest

As you hand me my favorite flower

You call it Sunflower

I call it

Joshua.

ANGEL
By Katherine Darlington

The days were heavy, undecided

My dreams were empty, my arms empty

But when I awoke one beautiful day

You were standing near me

Hair tousled, skinny little boy, dressed in

Pajamas

I knew you were my angel

You were the hope I had been given

So I believed you would be born

Then you came to earth

Not what I expected yet very much the same

At five years of age you were the angel from my dream

Five years old and I began to know you

As you emerged from your world that I can’t name

Can I even whisper the word?

Autistic

Five years old the angel was

Five years old and then you were born

That makes you three, not eight

I try to understand your world

And you struggle to understand mine…

Angel,

I can never be taken from you

Because you and me --

We understand the world between pavement and sand

Layer upon layer you have peeled my soul

Revealing to me

What had been missing:

My angel.

AGAIN
By Katherine Darlington

What is a friend, he who throws words to you and you bat at them

Trying to win a point, a score

What is a friend, he who laughs at the way you talk?

And you ask why your sister

Has friends that play

They don’t throw things at her

Friends, they can be books, I say, or dogs

You have a friend in Muffin

The black Labrador we searched for

Until we knew she was right for you

Friends, they can be without heart

Visionless, empty-souls

You gaze through the glass at your sister’s friends

Laughter misunderstood, laughter far away

Friends bound tightly for life

You decide to play with your friend

But I see your single tear;

And as you and the black dog race through the yard

My eyes become liquid

Because everyone needs friends and I have not been truthful

Because you are my son and because I haven’t forgiven those

Who hit you with brutal words

And ring my doorbell and ask to see

Their friend.

AWAKENING
By Katherine Darlington

January’s silence is being heard – I hear it in the call of the geese

That fly above, I hear it in the way my heart feels;

January’s colors will soon become alive

And spring will make its way into life

Cold surrounds us but it’s meant to be, just as sure as

The stars shine on crisp nights and the sun blazes

In mid-summer; just as sure as the sun is seen over the hill

At dawn

So must this time of awakening be – slow but steady

Its mission almost complete;

Like the rose’s bud not yet awake

We, too, are asleep in the silence of winter

In the stillness of the time when we prepare for life

To resume – a new form, a new place, a new spirit

Is on its way, never to be stopped

Not a dream or a wish or a thought but genuine

Truth almost unfolded…

The awakening of my senses will be magnified a thousand times

My look at life will be multiplied greatly –

The sun will be warmer, the winter days perhaps not as cold

As I am awakened with the truth that all is meant to be,

As surely as the sun climbs over the hill

As surely as new born colts continue to stand on weak legs –

But they grow strong; they have the breath of life

And soon I will be awakened to the song

Of my life, a dance, a play, a symphony I hope ends never

Even with the end of time...

I have been writing poetry and stories for many years, and publications include a story in Bay Forest Publishing (March 2001), a short story in Lines in the Sand, and poems published in major poetry anthologies for the years 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985. I also received an Honorable Mention in a 1981 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Poetry Contest. For one year, I served as Editor for Resolve, a newsletter for infertile couples. Although I am a licensed massage therapist and love my work, my true passion is writing and I am making time daily to work on stories and poetry. I recently finished a novel and am seeking a publisher.