100 Days
by Tina Kelley
“Tha mi tinn leis a'ghaol (My Heart’s Weary)”
- Scottish aire by Fraser, 11/9
I used to read the news to find some hope.
We could solve problems, slow work, but forward.
Then we gave a fragile, complex, handmade
heirloom - and our children’s future - to one
tantruming toddler. We’re getting older,
our scars fade. It’s the last landscape, honor
gone. Lately I’ve loved twilight best. As Mom
died, Kath described the stillness of it all.
It’s peaceful and deafening all at once.
Help us survive the night, kindness intact.
- Scottish aire by Fraser, 11/9
I used to read the news to find some hope.
We could solve problems, slow work, but forward.
Then we gave a fragile, complex, handmade
heirloom - and our children’s future - to one
tantruming toddler. We’re getting older,
our scars fade. It’s the last landscape, honor
gone. Lately I’ve loved twilight best. As Mom
died, Kath described the stillness of it all.
It’s peaceful and deafening all at once.
Help us survive the night, kindness intact.
Tina Kelley’s third poetry collection, Abloom and Awry, came out in April from CavanKerry Press, joining Precise (Word Press), and The Gospel of Galore, winner of a 2003 Washington State Book Award. She co-authored Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope, and reported for The New York Times for ten years, sharing in a staff Pulitzer for 9/11 coverage. She wrote 121 “Portraits of Grief,” short descriptions of the victims. Her writing has appeared in Poetry East, Southwest Review, Prairie Schooner, The Best American Poetry 2009, and on the buses of Seattle, Washington. She lives in New Jersey.
