Weight

The reason

_we have lost track_

to run a lean life muscular slim

is that when it is time to move on

you don't need it all that girth

the weight the accumulation holding you down

because you will always have to move on

again

 

It has little to do with what you thought it did

attracting other insecure people with your absence of flesh

playing the game, of being not-you.

It has something to do with you though the actual you:

 

who would you be without the stuff

the flesh, the power you deny, all the busy

that keeps you afloat free from thinking,

That holding on is keeping you from moving on

from learning painful learning

 

Do you ever ask

 

04.15.2025

Home

Is it the place you left behind

or the place where you are going,

Is it the place you chose

or just where you happened to land,

Do you see it with your eyes open

or only ever with your eyes closed?

How far back do you have go

or how far forward,

To get to

the place in your

mind

where you feel well?

Can

you

get

there

from
here?

Does your home have a name

an address with a yard

signs to point the way,

Or, is it a path

The road itself the only constant

That keeps you moving on …

@2016 Donna Jo Wallace

Travelers' Sun

There is something in the setting sun

that can be seen 
only Days from home.

Mile after mile, the sky reveals itself
kisses the horizon, caresses its curves.

Cloud and color dance in Earth's rhythm,
creating a light show for my eyes
that I could easily have missed.

I let my mind play
at the edges of thought.

Slowly, the tightly wound ball of twine
that lives at the back of my head,
the base of my spine

begins to loosen.
I am breathing.

Home
is more vast and welcoming

than I had ever thought.

Mom, the way she used to be, appears beside me

Do you see the sun? she would say

and we would Ah,

and see 
what we had not seen

before.

©2004 Donna Jo Wallace

Go

if we knew what we were seeking

we wouldn’t need to go.

fragile travelers

vulnerable to change

young before experience

dare to go, return, and go again

enter the void

our eyes search

and discover humans

just other humans

in the great kaleidoscope of life

going, then coming, then going again.

©2008 Donna Jo Wallace.

Almost Hope

Cardboard towers gather around me

like stone giants of old, and I seek their wisdom.

Perhaps if I learn life’s lessons well enough

I might yet be rewarded with the right to stop in one place.

The voice of the box tape, raw and demanding,

punctuates my comings and goings,

All evidence of life’s messy work,

contained and taped and moved on again.

I seek the Zen of reaching and not grasping

Knowing and not knowing

Having and not having.

The disappointment

I feel is almost

like hope

These boxes are just little Christmas presents to myself --

Time capsules to be opened

in another reality.

Far away from here.

My exhaustion keeps me company,

and I feel consumed and happy

in a frenzy of activity

which seems like progress.

I will it to replace this hole inside of me,

as I close this box and that,

erasing each one from my memory,

relinquishing it to the future.

©2006 Donna Jo Wallace.