Advice to a Young Person: a poem

 Having recently been judged for who I am, on a brief single meeting, based on labels and closed minds and prejudices, when I thought we had made a connection--I am processing this news. Rather than post the poetry that is coming out of this pondering, I will post this poem about my self--giving advice to potentially a younger version of me. Or to anyone who needs to hear it. 

Please, in this world of anger, hurt, tumult, and uncertainty, be kind to each other. Learn to find our commonalities, our qualities of goodness, the wonder that surrounds us.  There is a universe full of love out there, if we choose to share it. 

Advice to a Young Person

Who am I to give you advice?

Having fallen down the stairs
a dozen times,
not from some inept dance step
gone wrong

but a mismanagement
of medication,

a build-up of toxicity
from becoming sober

so my brain
and doctor didn’t know how to
handle me:

I am now
one mis-wired soul
held together by hope and
the few memories that remain.

What do I recommend for life?

 Find a doctor with whom you are
comfortable,

that listens to you,
to whom you can sing all your problems
so your anxiety doesn’t play

like a fiddle
and you are in harmony with

your body.

 Go to the dentist so your teeth
don’t jiggle like an un-played piano,
keys loose,

wires out of tune,
melody irretrievably lost.

Find someone or something to love
full-bodied

and do it proudly,
whose care and respect for you
is enduring and endearing.

Cuddle and hug daily.

Listen to the natural world;
let it surround you with serenity.

Repair yourself;

allow others to aid

in that mending;
allow them time to mold themselves

anew

as well.

 You are not who you were,
            but who you have become.

 Be the story-teller of your own song.

Be original and assertively authentic,
your voice sonorific enough to be heard,

whether it twangy or soothing,
sonorous or off-beat,

country or city,
bizarre or sad or modern or antique.

Be you, for we are all broken,

and yes,
you are enough.

 

 Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold
11.6.24

The Stance on Holding Love: a poem

 The Stance on Holding Love:

I Know if You Were Here

 --to Lyle

 

Two days ago on my walk at work,
alongside the county road lay a raccoon,
body so fresh I wanted to reach out
and touch its nose and I know
if you were here you would have been
as intrigued as I in the small leathery
snout and tiny hands, still outstretched,
and we would create some story to go along
with its upturned belly and shortened life.

 

When I got home, the air so dry
it smelled of newly shed pencil shavings,
my roommate had gotten rid of a snake
she trapped in our basement—
her fear of this harmless garter
so severe she screamed beforehand—
and I know if you were here, you would
have examined each stripe and the
forked tongue and scales before
taking it back outside.

 

Tonight I started watching Life On Our Planet
on Netflix as you suggested, and I know
if you were here we would be enamored
with each fact and creature, and have to stop
the program to have conversations about
what we were learning.

 

Later on my way out of town I had to
slow down on the highway to let a coyote
finish crossing the road. He planted
his paws and straightened his legs
in such a stance, head bowed, that it
seemed he was thanking me for waiting,
for saving him. I know if you were here,
you would appreciate that.

 

Nora Rose Tomas says that to love something
means that you can’t quite hold it, and I know
now that you are an adult
I can no longer hold you here, keep you
from moving out on your own. Though my home
is now your permanent residence,
your room usually remains empty as you are
out exploring the world. But I also know
the heart has many rooms,
and there is a space in mine where I
still hold you, forever in my love.

 

Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

10.4.24

A True Story in August Air

 

A True Story in Cool August Air:

not the aubade I wanted to write

 --for E.L.

 

It is not yet dawn.
I wake up crying
and wander outside
in the near darkness.
I want this to be your aubade,
a morning song leaving
cool lips in the sunrise.
But under a porch light
where no moths gather,
a deep seated saudade falls
like a curtain over the scene,
this longing in your absence
a melancholy I fear will not end.
I can’t escape the possibility
it was meant to end this way,
that I was meant to stay alone,
that I did something
to make you disappear
this time never to return.
Or that I should have showed up
at your house and
taken you in my arms,
kissed each rugged worn finger
that night you were sick
from heat exhaustion
or that night you said you
were fine but your thoughts
really weren’t.
I’m supposed to write a happy
ending where I walk out of here
resolved to move on but when I
Trust God and Wait
what am I waiting for? Dunno, but how
is certain: slowly. I’ve always
run head-on and fully towards
what I loved too far and too fast,
and I fear that’s what happened
here. Your hands never got enough
attention. I just wanted to hold them.
Now they’re on the list of what I’ve
lost. Over-loved and lost, but how
do you measure love? I love you
more abundantly than the tomatoes
in my garden this year; I love you
more serendipitously than the
volunteer trees I’ve gathered
in pots and around the yard for you
that you may never come retrieve;
my love for you is taller than the
sunflowers bending over my shed
in the backyard, their brown and yellow
faces watching me now with a
certain sorrow. They must be
thinking, poor human.
I only wanted to be your friend.
When will there be a time I
cease thinking of you? Perhaps when
I look out at the porch light,
see the moths again, and think,
so this is the famous happiness
I’ve heard so much about.

by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold

8.13.24

after Bob Hicok’s “True Story”

You Live On: A poem for Brandy Thuernagle

 

On Wednesday, July 17, I celebrated the life of Brandy Thuernagle, a sister in recovery.  This is the poem I read for her service.  As I was writing this, I didn't realize how close we really were, how well I knew her, how much our lives mirrored each other.  This poem was a way of working through my own grief. It is said people are in our lives for a reason.  Perhaps Brandy was in my life to show me how to cherish and capture the blessings we have before it is too late.  To hold on to sobriety and grab on to the opportunities it offers as they come along. To all of those in my life that make it better, thank you. And to all of those who came along that gave me lessons and left, thank you. I am grateful for all the love I have to give. 

Brandy, I loved you. Loved you like a sister.  May your memory live on. 

You Live On

 --For Brandy, with love

 

It is a Wednesday as I write this.
You died only a few days ago.
Now whenever someone speaks your name,
there is silence.
That isn’t like you,
to leave something unsaid,
something unexplained,
to let me get a word spoken in response,
more than a sentence said in reply
during the hour we’d spend together.

 Now I’ll be walking
the blue raised 3-lane track at the Y
in silence for good,
with only my tinnitus
and the plodding of my steps for company.
No one to push me, tell me I’m walking too slow,
talk in my ear rushed emphatic words
of seemingly mundane everyday things—
parts of life in small detail.

Now the two sobriety chips you gave me
to hold until you get better
will go unearned, will clink together
and sit on my shelf, ownerless.

You struggled so hard
to smooth your rough edges
and work away your pain;
there is a solace in knowing
your struggle is finally over,
that now you no longer
fight your demons.

Today tears fall at work
so I have to walk to the pond
beyond our building
to hear the bullfrogs talk to each other,
and there’s this small black birdup on the wire following me.
She won’t keep quiet,
keeps chirping in what sounds like
But but but see
and flies above me the entire time,
hopping from wire to wire above me,
calling out “But but but see”,
never letting go of her call,
never keeping silent.
Seems you’ve sent a message,
kept me company out here afterwards
after all.

Tonight I will sit on my steps
in the backyard beside potted plants,
and notice that, where a squirrel
had unearthed and broken a
hackberry seedling, leaving a mere twig
in soil, there now grows a new
small green leaf: new life.
Where death seemed certain,
life appeared.

And I know when I look at your daughter—
though you are gone, your love shines
through her eyes.
Where death seems certain,
you live on.

You live on,
in the chips we give each other for sobriety,
in the birds that sing,
in the plants that send out new leaves,
in the eyes of your daughter.

You live on because we do,
because we remember you.

May God call your spirit home.
May you finally rest.
You were loved, my friend.
You were loved, and you live on.

 

*****

by Tansy Julie the Soaring Eagle Paschold
aka Julie S. Paschold
author of Horizons & You Have Always Been Here

 

July 10, 2024