Ashore
In the morning the scarring world holds me down so I cannot rise.
I stretch my arms above my head like elastic bands with no end.
My toes reach far below until my calves ache and my spine lengthens.

The lake outside my window rustles aimlessly
Spreading worried waves across the surface.
Lights across the river beam from silent homes
Beckoning shimmers on waves rolling without direction.

My ribs rise. My stomach sinks. My calves tighten.
New thoughts rushing with the current suck up my fears as if they too can shift and float.
For a moment my neck strains too far and my calves harden like steel.


But there is no mistaking the feeling
When the spring lets loose in my body
Swings my legs over my bedside and lands my feet.

I wriggle my toes as if hard wood beneath
Could move like a current yielding to a lifeline
That reels me up to stand and lets my mind lose
As I step ashore onto the day.

A Living

She knew of sadness
That sadness was disturbing

A woman of many years
Pulling and climbing a granite shelf

So many thoughts to care about
Her throat was thick and heavy

Yet the late sun still shone over new bridges
Against the emptiness of the last deep gorges

With deep rocky walls she’d seen
Filled anew with fresh streams running through them.

She With Me

Some words are more important than others
Sinking deeper water into a hole
Farther and deeper
Becoming one with the hole

A perimeter like humans
Is a hole with a space
To be filled by an other
In the same place

If water drains from you
It drains from me
Just as when a baby cries
Her mother cries with thee

Anything that diminishes my baby
Diminishes me
Because I am in love with my baby
And she with me.

The Holy Ghost

When the sun faded late afternoon
The brook’s shimmers leaped
And the mountain sloped a delicate new green

As the light softened her figure
With less chance to be seen
In the afterglow her heart silvered the scene

Throbbing wings spread like snow
Until the war blinded the wood
Endowing forgiveness lean.

Laurie Hollman is a psychoanalyst, published author and artist. Her website is lauriehollmanphd.com