Parking Lot at Night

Large lightning bugs sit suspended

Mid quiet crack of illumination 

Shining out over empty white lines. 

People sit cocooned in metal 

Faces turned down

Necks craning over 

The pooling blue light 

In their lap. 

Looking for something inside of themselves reflected back.

Motors idle 

Like minds. 

The only sign of life -

Tap -tap - tap - tap

Next - next - next - next 

Like an irregular heartbeat 

On a cardiac arrest patient 

Brief moments of life pass every few seconds between taps 

None worthy of more attention, not even their own. 

This. This is the great withdrawal. 

Playing out in cars, on ships, at desks, on couches, in airplanes.

The only light (taking life) 

Is the square (endless night)

When will

The great squares of lightning come down upon our common chest 

To shock our eyes open 

To force us to look up

At the light of the moon 

And gasp 

BREATHE 

BREATHE

BREATHE 

did you know. (another take on the "did you know" prompt)

 did you know

that you'd sit 

spiraling 

over the past

like an ice fisherman 

perched atop a bucket

overlooking a small hole 

you carved into the ice 

peering into what's turned to ice

to see what life 

might still exist beneath. 

no fishing pole insight. 

you'd hate for the world 

to know

you're still here 

curious what you might catch 

looking back, looking down. 

except, when they say, look within, 

they don't specify, always, do they? 

sometimes within can mean without

to a mind not ready to move on. 

maybe the lake never thaws. 

maybe the ice always stays. 

maybe you learn to accept 

when you're searching for something to quench the longing 

of how things used to be,

when you ask for water, sometimes you get ice. 

and you laugh, 

when they say, 

be like water. 

because you know what they mean, 

be fluid, keep moving, 

but did you know, 

sometimes, 

before we are water, 

we are ice. 

did you know.

did you know

the bird would build its nest 

on the wreath of our front door 

again and again 

each spring?

deciding each march 

that the circle of bent wood and fake yellow flowers 

hanging 

against the bright red of our front door

 

would be the place 

she would continue to call home 

and raise her young from tiny eggs.

tempting us to crane our necks 

and bend our ears towards the 

carefully closed door

listening for tiny bird song each morning 

listening for life on the other side of our own. 

- Katie Riedel 

A poem inspired during Bets' writing circle <3

Remembering Jason.

 A kind man died recently. He was a dad, an athlete, a colleague, a farmer, a student of life. He was a friend that I hadn't spoken to in years. He knew his time was soon and he somehow had the capacity in his heart to reach out and let friends throughout his forty years of life know. Maybe to offer us a chance to say something, because in his final message to me, he communicated his deep peace with his timeline. A peace that rattled me, because I hate the randomness of cancer, the cruelty of a father missing his children's lives. The sudden reconnection and passing of this friend barely a week later rattled me in a way I wasn't expecting. We hadn't talked in years. And frankly, I hadn't thought to reach out. Maybe it was how peaceful he was in his final message to me, a peace I still ponder. It led me to consider the idea of closure. This is a poem in the works on closure, because goodness I hope we never settle on a final thought on a life, on a friend on a memory, I hope they continue to live, (even if!) only in the vaulted chambers of our memories. 

This one is for Jason. 

Closure. 

Closure is such a strange word

when we use it as a tether between humans 

to latch the covers of our books in common closure. 

Closure is such a strange word

when we use it as a thing we are in search of 

longing for 

hoping to find. 

As if we boarded the ship of sorrow and sailed out into open seas 

in search of the siren song of closure 

the mythical idea of ... 

of what? 

What closes? 

off?

within? 

without? 

between?

What is closure to a heart 

when everything has become memory 

when only one mind remains to remember. 

What is that neat fold in time we hunt for? 

the bridging of two ends of a napkin, the start and the end of an experience, a moment, a friendship,

the folds pressed down into each other and placed into your lap, 

palms resting heavy, holding on,

a heart not ready to leave the table. 

a prompt.

A poetry prompt to use these words in a short poem: whisper, mirror, flame, secret, sky. 

Your eyes, my secret sky. 

My thunderous heartbeat, a stampede of desire. 

Your smile mirrors mine, 

cracking wide like a lightning strike, 

cheeks erupting in flame. 

 -Katie Riedel