Dandelion Breaths

 Today over at the poetry blog, "What's Going On ?", the prompt was, write a boomerang poem. There's an explanation on the page of the form so I won't go into it, but the whole time I was writing it I was seeing and hearing you Dawn. Every day I've asked for inspiration for this April month of poetry. You chose to come inspire me for the 24th day. I miss you so much, but I know you would love this poem. I should say I know you do because I believe it came from you. This Poem is Clouds, Bloom, and Sparkle This poem is an April day without sun. This poem is two hummingbirds huddled in a rose. This poem is rain turning grass into emerald sparkles. This poem is walking water puddles, and giggles echoing in the street. This poem is a girl holding an umbrella believing she is the princess of wind. This poem is an April day without sun. This poem is moments that pass too quickly, photographs from newborn to graduation. This poem is storms, tears, broken hearts, a fri...

The weight of sorrow wraps around my feet as I pace  the shifting shadows of Wednesday. I wander the house with my palms open trying to feel your presence in rooms where I heard you laugh. My pacing leads me to the memory of the day you tattooed your wrist with the word “free.” In a brick and glass tattoo shop in Tulsa you inked light from your spirit onto your skin to proclaim your power. Guided to your framed smile beauty takes me by the heart and  comforts me with images of you walking in a garden where pain  no longer chases you. Filled with a rush of the unexplainable I hear you in my spirit sing, “It is well with my soul.” Tearfully I look toward a window and watch tree limbs pregnant with spring buds brush blue sky with hallelujahs and lift a silent amen.     ©Susie Clevenger 2025 What's Going On? ~ Beauty Below is a song Dawn wrote and sang.  Touch and Go DawnClev · Touch and Go (original tune by Dawn)

Today’s sermon is tea too cold to thaw the wind that ruffles a buzzard’s feathers as it stares through my kitchen window daring me to deny mortality. Today’s sermon is the sound of a television in the other room providing sound to fill empty space. Today’s sermon is a sweatshirt that smells like my daughter, gray sleeves helping me feel what I can’t hold. Today’s sermon is a picture on a shelf where she smiles from a photograph urging me to keep my eyes on blue sky. ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ Today's Sermon

We were four souls in a U-Haul watching snowflakes dance across the windshield.  Change doesn’t often provide confetti, but on that winter night my husband, two small daughters, and myself were given the gift of magic  that glittered us into a bond that could never be broken. With goodbye still stinging our lips we felt like the only ones the moon had forgotten as the truck’s headlights struggled to give us eyes in the blizzard. Out of the crackle of the dashboard radio words sang, “You have to believe we are magic nothin' can stand in our way”. In that moment Oliva Newton John  gave us our hope song, our love song, our family song, our forever song. On an icy Missouri road mapped with a journey to Texas “Magic” told us it would keep us whole even when grief would leave us broken.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 Cynthia Dawn took her last breath to the song "Magic" on January 26th, 2022...the magic continues What's Going On? ~ Magic  

My daughter, Cynthia Dawn and her fiancé, Daniel Daniel Bobby Blanchard JUNE 19, 1974 – SEPTEMBER 22, 2019 Cynthia Dawn Clevenger February 21, 1974 – January 26, 2022 Your faces sit in every room except the place where I sleep. In that place of dreams, you visit me where impossible has no chair. Daylight so often has me standing before your photographs never certain if I will cry or smile, or attempt to hear you speak from ink trapped beneath glass. I drift between memories and present wondering if I’m losing my mind. Does grief have a map to guide  me back to whole? Each day is an envelope I must open, a letter telling me you’re no longer here. Perhaps being strong is simply taking a step trusting I won’t fall.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ Elegy

April promises days without frost, riots of blossoms erasing the gray of petals sacrificed in winter. My walks through the woods  are Monet’s paintbrush dipped into shades of wild violets, emerald moss, and bluebird wing writing a path to its nest. From my window I see my front garden exhale in shades of pink and yellow roses. Their sigh of joy helps me step out of my shell of grief to imagine my daughter singing from her favorite chair on the porch. My eyes spot the first butterfly resting on a dandelion and I am encouraged by their determination to find space to grow in a horizon of concrete.  Oh April, I’ve needed you this year.  My ashy sweater of grief loosens another button. Today feels less like I’m holding my breath  while trying not to drown in undone.  ©Susie Clevenger 2024 What's Going On? ~ April Dawn Singing Someone to Watch Over Me Cynthia Dawn Clevenger  2/21/1974 - 1/26/2022