Rooms

We have themes for every room
Like three parties
All happening at once
Because this is a home
Whose promise we sense
But can't define
Its a scary proposition
Moving in to a place
With no idea of its future
Its purpose
So we have given it purpose

Wild flowers - untamed, ecclectic
Life based solely on whim
And personal preference
Not here to impress someone else
A place of my own

Light green with butterflies
The quiet place she goes to
In her heart and mind
In the counselor's office
The color under her eyelids
The soft little creatures
Almost mythical
Who flutter and light on her sorrow
And drink it away through curlicue tongues

The bottom of the deep blue sea
A new adventure
Where courage and bravery
Curiosity and momentum
Are rewarded with visual wonders
Mysteries revealed
Treasures collected
Making the frightening darkness of getting there
Worth it after all

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2011

No Room For You

I have a new house
One you've never seen
And there is no room for you here.
The owner called it little and rustic,
it is old and decrepit
with flaking paint
and clogged pipes
but it is free of any hint of you.
The children explore the overgrown yard
and I sweep the cobwebs off the ceilings
and never wonder if you will arrive.
You can not arrive.
I decorate my room in fans
and four mismatched bookcases
and I do not leave one shelf
empty in anticipation of your appearance.
The king sized bed is
made up on one side
and the other still holds laundry.
There is no place for your tools
Or your belt to hang in the closet.
There is no place for your razor
or your keys.
There is no room for you
in this house.
You are gone.
There is no room for you
in my life now.
It is full already,
with all that you abandoned.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2011

Quiescence

I wait in stillness, a holy silence
I've been in this state of expectation
for so long now, it is home away from home.
A hundred times I have felt certain
a breakthrough was imminent
A change was coming.
I pray
I wait.
I consecrate myself.
My food is an offering
My heart on the altar,
I believe. My trusting heart
sits.
Like a dog awaiting permission to move.
Yes, you have trained me to wait.
I've forgotten how to
anxiously wonder
The hows and whys and whens
belong to the Master alone.
All that is left for me
Is Amen.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2011

Emergency Room

A heart condition.
So much implication in that.
A needy heart.
A greedy heart.
A broken heart.
Pierced through with its own sword?
Disappearing like grass?
What depths are in my own
too-human heart?
To wish someone's death
who I don't even know?
To calculate how this may be
my answer to prayer?
I despise the thought
and still entertain it.

She is a child;
a mother of children;
a weak, frail thing.
That I never was,
nomatter my submission.
I was never weak or frail or a child.
Does that give him power?
Does he feel big and strong?
As his pipes in his divey apartment crumble and
his ceiling caves in.
As his business falls apart
and disappears like sand through fingers.
As his children become strangers
hating all he stands for
because it is not them.
Does he derive power
from a child-lover
with a bad heart?

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2011