Tag: relationships

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJan 25, 20247:00 am

Storm Hardened

Some thought her broken
Even brittle

But all the brittle
Had broken away
In countless storms

What remained
Was hardened
Tenacious

She’d shed many facades
Until what was left
Was what she chose
To keep

She kept nothing
For perfunctory friendships
Or pettiness

Able to withstand any hardship
She chose carefully
What to stand for

And who

Content in gentleness
She suffered no one
Who drove hard upon her shores

If some thought
Walking away made her weak
She walked away
While they washed out to sea

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 23, 20237:00 am

A Whisper in the Silence, Quaco Head Lighthouse, St. Martins, New Brunswick, Canada

Song to Silence

I wake in the mornings
Mind always in a foggy mist
To find, always
Like a whisper in the silence
Rising to become song
You are there

Nothing so rouses
My faded spirit
As your voice of grace
And compassion
Singing love to this soul
That’s lived in silence

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 22, 20237:54 pm

Safe Harbour

Enveloped in the safe harbour of your arms

The pain
The fear
The anguish

Drawn away with the tide

I drift in the ocean of calm that is you
Until peace washes over me

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 21, 20232:42 pm

Island off the Point of an Island, White Point, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Drifting not Adrift

When I lost her
Some small but integral
Part of my being
Broke away

For a while
It floated nearby
Just out of reach
Yet a lingering presence

The current of time
The drift of the everyday
That Island of her
Receded further and further

Until one day
I scanned the horizon
No Island was there
A single tear fell into the sea

The sea was unperturbed
It said to me
You have learned to live without her
That is all

I understood
I had forgiven her
And myself
For our breakup

I’d allowed the blame
To drift away
Which made me
Whole again

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 17, 202310:47 pm

Waves

The land moves
Waves of soil and asphalt
Break at my feet

Transport me
To a distant beach
And the love I shared there

I imagine the wind
Carries wafts of brine and low-tide
Amid the many scents of you

Across this rolling sea
And a beckoning highway
I reach out for a hand

That cannot be here

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 14, 20237:00 am

High Power, highway 570, Sunnybrook, Alberta, Canada

Power Line

Through the gloom
You reach out
To offer light
And energy

Poetry by Patrick JenningsAug 12, 20237:00 am

Soft Like Velvet, Artemisia Stelleriana, Basin Head Provincial Park, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Velvet in the Sand

Be soft
She said
Like velvet

Bend with the wind
Like grass
In the field

So when others
Touch your life
They are not cut

And if they lean on you
A little hard
You do not break

All this broken glass
You wear
From your past

It harms you
As much as those
You love

And what is not
Already broken
Is brittle

With the slightest pressure
It shatters
Into shards you wield as weapons

Learn to be soft
Before you crumble
To no more than sand

Or only when
You are naught but dust
Will you ever be soft

Poetry by Patrick JenningsOct 18, 202212:45 pm

Wonder in the Smallest Things, Bridger Bay, Antelope Island State Park, Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA

Wonder in the Little Things

In the midst
Of expansive glory
She finds wonder
In the smallest
Little things

It is that smallest
Little thing
About her
I love
Most

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 22, 202211:56 pm

Beachcomber

Beachcombing
You come with me
The same way you come shopping
Indulge me

Shopping
You come into the mall
Find a comfortable place
Then sit and read
Or people watch
Feign interest in the things I buy
Then watch over the bags
While I go to another shop

At the beach
You walk safely
Beyond the longest waves
While I splash about
Getting soaked
Finding sea stars and shells
Sand dollars and seaweed
Always feigning amazement
At the wonders I bring

But whether a crowded mall
Or an empty beach
You always come
Often despite my protestations
That you don’t like to shop
Or go beachcombing
That you’ll be bored
And I’m sure your time
Would be better spent
Doing something else

“No”
You say
“I’m coming”

And it always surprises me
Takes my breath away
When I notice that your feigned pleasure
In a new scarf
Or a hermit crab
Is just a distraction
Because you’re not looking at the object
I’m showing you
You’re looking at me
With the sparkle of wonder in your eye
And I’m reminded again
That you come
To be with me
And there’s no place
You’d rather be

And, my god
I could not love you more
For the way you take pleasure
In indulging me

Poetry by Patrick JenningsSep 7, 202211:59 pm

Hours Before the Dawn, Bridger Bay, Antelope State Park, Utah, United States of America

Hours Before the Dawn, the Sun Rises

Sky and lake
Rippled with moonlight
Clouds a veil
Drawn over coy constellations

On the shore
She stands
In a susurrus of near silence
But for the lap of wavelets
On salt crusted sand

Intent on the texts
Passed between friends
“I am free” she writes
“Good” comes the reply
A pause, and then, “Be safe!”
“I will” she taps out
Adds “I don’t know how long
I’ll be AWOL”
A long wait before
“Your leave is authorized” and
“Take all the time you need”
“I will” she repeats

She smiles
Throws the phone into the lake
Where concentric ripples
Interrupt the linear
Gradually diminishing
Until they disappear altogether

She stands a good while longer
Content
Relieved
If a little anxious
About what the coming daylight will bring
Then shrugs it off

“Fuck him”

Hours before the dawn
The darkness has already ended