River of Time

Rain rhythmically running alongside the music
playing in my car and heart.

Idir's s Ibeddel song warm and exotic
washes away the grey colours of the day.

Time is a river it seems, where hope and dreams
met with the ease of the river's water flowing by.

The electronic highways are busy these days
bumping my small barge of words around.

Now it is hard to find my way around
my words get lost like small cars

Getting stuck in the loops and noise
of the bigger cars and trucks rushing about.

The riverbanks no longer quiet, the words
and messages run around in circles.

Like fish trying to spawn, when time is running out
my words are dying as the noise of the electronic highways

Drowns out the music of the songs and dreams
my small vessel of poems tries to sing about.

Trudi Ralston.
February 24th, 2014.

The Space Around Me

The space around me is endless as the sea
A breath enormous at the bottom of my feet.

It allows me flight in an open glass like cocoon
Where I spread my arms and feet like da Vinci's

Vitruvian man, floating up to space above
Hendrik Marsman's " Heerscher ", my roaring song.

The space around me is endless as the sea
And there is plenty of room for everyone but me.

I dream, I sigh, I laugh and tumble about this universe
Of mine that I try not to let crumble under the weight

Of my heavy, solitary soul that cannot eat fast enough
The earth around me that pulls me to the ground.

As my feet search for the wings and power that will
Safely bring my heart and dreams to rest above the clouds.

Trudi Ralston.
February 13th, 2014.

Alice in Wonderland

In the land of dreams is where we meet,
where space is limitless and horizons are bright
under cover of stars and night.

What a thrill to take flight, to soar with eagles
above waters clear, strong and roar in giddy delight,
free from the shackles daylight brings to mind.

Time stands still, expands, dances around us,
a ballerina glittering in blinding colours and strides,
lifting away any sorrow, fear and dread.

As I breathe in the joy of freedom's run,
I notice the blankets on my bed oppressing
my laughter and my head.

Alas, dear Alice, you are leaving me behind,
as I struggle to fit my dream dazed body
back to the size that my bed will hold.

The kitchen seems so large, and I suddenly feel so small
as I reach up to the counter and quench my thirsty throat
with water from a glass that wants to slip from my minute hand.

In the land of dreams is where we meet
where space is limitless and horizons are bright
under cover of stars and night.

Sometimes it is you, sometimes it is me
who struggle each with size too big, too small
to fit the stage set for our freedom song.

Trudi Ralston
February 10th, 2014.

We are all misfits, in one way or another, and fitting in is often
an illusion, a disguise for dreams that slipped out of sight, and left
us too big, too small for the circumstances we now have to overcome
and fight, like Alice had to in Wonderland.  

Song for Yara

When I watch you outside, like a horse on the run
and I hear your powerful bark thunder across our yard

Or watch you sit alert under the evening sky
every muscle in your strong body ready for any trouble

And you look around in the afternoon sun
your honey brown eyes sharp and keen

I smile at your passion so denied
as often we struggle on your walks to hold you back.

Beautiful, eager, yearning for life to give you a cause
for which to defend and fight

you sit and wait, and dream and sigh
of horizons and spaces that could hold your awe and might.

And maybe, when you watch me dream, like a horse on the run
and hear me voice my longing up to the freedom of the sky

As we both watch the stars light the dark of night
and strain under the limits built around our soul.

You know and understand that you and I both have chains haunting
our days and paths, our eyes and cries.

You and I are so much alike, both too strong for the fences all around
our destiny and time, too vulnerable for the flight so long denied.

Trudi Ralston.
February 3rd, 2014.

I feel a strong connection to our Flemish Bouvier-Labrador, whom we adopted
from a no kill shelter two years ago. In temperament, it fascinates me to observe,
she and I are kindred souls. We have had many dogs over the last 28 years.
With Yara, I feel like I have met a kindred spirit, both in story and heart.

The Beach

In 1983, a Belgian friend of mine whom I had known since childhood, invited me on a trip through Brittany and Normandy. It was a lovely trip. We also visited Versailles, since neither one of us had ever visited the famous castle. We also visited of course Omaha Beach, the place of the Normandy Invasion that brought an end to the Nazi terror and WW II. One night in Normandy, after a delicious dinner of local cuisine, my friend and I went for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful evening, with a gorgeous red sunset, against the rhythm of the crashing waves of the sea. The beach was virtually deserted. A few people besides my friend and I were strolling along the water, and it was then I noticed two women in their late fifties swimming in the ocean. They got out of the water, laughing, topless, their tanned bodies muscular and strong, their long dark hair dripping wet. They seemed completely oblivious to any one around them, uncaring that their aging no longer beautiful upper bodies might offend a squeamish observer on the beach. I was intrigued by their ease with themselves and each other, their joy at being together on this beautiful beach. At 26, it seemed I was older than them in my more modest apparel and apparent reluctance to be equally free of inhibition and need for approval. The two women have stayed in my mind all these years, and I remember them with a certain melancholy. In 1983 my parents marriage became officially toxic, after years of more or less polite discord. My mother was terrorizing my father emotionally and drinking like crazy. My friend had invited me on this trip to get me away from it all for a while, as my parents " Dance of Death" spiraled out of control. Seeing the two women ,free, relaxed, obvious soul mates take life by the proverbial balls, was a powerful anti-dote to the hopeless stress my father and mother's marriage had devolved into. At 26 I was still trying to define myself, and the lethal disintegration of my parents' marriage certainly added fuel to the doubts and insecurities I was struggling with. The struggle for freedom and respect became a theme, and is ongoing, all these years later. So did the determination to continue the path to recovery and identity. On days that the battle for that identity and dignity is particularly challenged, and especially if I am near a beach, the two women come to mind. Free, strong, living life on their own terms. I never spoke to anyone about how strong an emotional impact these two women made on me at that moment in time, until a few days ago when I shared it with a friend of mine from my graduate days in Austin, with whom I have a connection of both honesty and emotional ease. I hope by the time I am old and grey, I will have become a free and strong woman, living life on my own terms, unencumbered by preconceived notions and fears.  

The Bridge

Still waters run deep, so the saying goes
and waters like that need a sturdy bridge.

Your heart and mine are entwined across
a large stretch of life, across desert and meadow.

And I hear the water run across my breath
as I try hard to reach the shore and take a rest.

The bridge I build a part of each and every day
seems finally to reach deep into the waters of your soul.

Allowing my feet to reach the music that is there,
as I wade and peer into the colours that are flowing quietly
in shadow and light , I swim and dive deeply to the bottom
where the bridge is anchored deep.

The water is the colour of your eyes,
its rhythm steady, strong, its feel like silk
flows through my fingers that write your name
into its memories, that are both yours and mine.

Trudi Ralston.
January 20th, 2014.
This poem is dedicated to my husband of 28 years this summer,
a great guy by the name of Michael Clare Ralston. 
 

The Waiting Room

Just the other day I found myself in the waiting room of our doctor's office. A routine checkup, so nothing that provoked anxiety. As many a waiting room, the place is drab, neutral. It is a curious place to be, a waiting room, in this hectic world. It is a place where you have no choice but to slow down, relax if you can so convince yourself, and idle the time away, a sin it seems. The way people busy themselves reading articles they are not interested in, in magazines they would never subscribe to. Of course, now we have cell phones to make sure we make the best of every idle minute in those waiting rooms. And of course, there is an unwritten rule it seems, that you will not engage in conversation with any one else in the waiting room. No conversating, just waiting. I often break that taboo, much to the chagrin of my husband or whoever else may have the fortune to be there with me. The silence in a waiting room is like no other, punctuated with the obligatory rhythm of coughs, chuckles, whispers and yawns. The waiting room to me is a rather mundane but persistent reminder that a lot of life is waiting, it is just that we do not like to think about that, and maybe the reason we do not particularly like waiting rooms is because we have to do so much waiting as our lives unfold. We wait to be born, we wait to walk, to talk, to go to school, to grow up, to fall in love, to study, to work, to marry, or divorce, to get well, to travel, to publish, to eat, to laugh, to cry, ... the list is endless. In the daily rhythm of life, the waiting gets blended in with the rest of life, but step into a waiting room, and the jig is up. There you are, just plain waiting. The chairs in the room tell you to sit down, and well, wait. Time is weird, too, in a waiting room. It goes into suspended animation mode. You never really know how long you are going to be there. Fifteen minutes, or maybe two hours. You have no control. It is a total existential joke, and a bad one at that. Just look around you. Everyone has a sour puss expression. The only people that have fun at waiting rooms are children, even though it is made very clear to them they should just get bored to tears, which they often do, like the rest of us. Children will climb on the chairs, run around in circles, laugh, cry, argue, explore, and are a wonderful reminder that life should be about more than sterile waiting rooms. Children actually have encouraged some kind doctors and dentists to put toys in place for the children subjected to their waiting rooms.They should do the same for the adults. Install a slide for grown ups, maybe a place for tag or hopscotch, anything to get the stale air and stagnation out of these places. There are waiting rooms everywhere, it seems. Airports, train stations, bus depots, subways. We should make them more fun, and some places do just that. Because the way things still mostly are in waiting rooms, it puts into question the whole mystery of modern human existence and its tragic inability to make sense of it.