Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group.

Letting Go the Grail

It’s the soft giving up of everything
the chipped cup from your grandmother’s wedding
the framed kindergarten painting by your younger son
a drawer full of cords and wire too full to close

A life’s work of gathering comes to nothing
more than a swollen shell mound covering
a small corner of the Goodwill parking lot
shrinking to an anthill in your rearview mirror

Later, awaken in the darkness wondering
if  tomorrow you’ll be new, gallantly stepping
out of your fourteenth century skin, ambling
fresh and raw toward the light from the window

The slow even beating of your heart
like the beating of wings overhead
walks you rhythmically down the stairs
the morning mist luring you out the door

Asking if today is the day, the day
you face that great expanse of water
ascend out of seductive sand onto
the wobbly boat which will ferry your spirit to Avalon

Cynthia Hénon

~ ~ ~ ~

Phobophobia

I’ve come to know Fear as a fat little faerie
sporting rounded horns and a hard pot belly

I pry his fingers out from where
he clings to my extra rib
untangling him from myself

brush him off and hold his clammy little paw
“What can I do for you today, Fear? May I
offer you a cup of chamomile tea?”

Fear takes his other paw and
places it over his eyes

hoping if he can’t see me I can’t see him
A child’s game of invisibility

I quietly hum a melody to try to soothe him
but he gasps in every desperate breath

turning his face maroon with apoplexy
floating himself up into the air like a red balloon

Poor little fellow!
If only he’d brave an exhale
all the wonders of the world would be revealed

Cynthia Hénon

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cynthia Hénon is a poet, yoga teacher, and Mama bear. She proudly participates in the monthly EPIC Poetry Group and her work can be found in their anthology, Soundings of the Salish Sea. She lives with her family in beautiful Edmonds.