Late Winter: Poem #1

POEM #1

INTRODUCTION
When I felt alone and conflicted while taking care of my mom before cancer took her life, she insisted I take up painting. That was almost 40 years ago. After my own diagnosis of crippling Rheumatoid Arthritis almost 7 years years ago, I turned to writing essays after regaining some use of my hands and fingers. The disease predictably betrays. My pained wrists and hands haven't done much serious writing since my flare ups in late 2019 and early 2020.

I changed that today on February 16, 2020 by writing my first poem in ages. It is sobering to accept that even when I am loved by many, one is still alone in this challenging disease. Remembering that courage may not always sustain one makes me dizzy at times.

After decades of dry spell, my muse moistened my appetite for poetry. This curiously meddlesome muse drove me to write my own verses at the very moment when feeling such deep sadness from an unexplainable fright which gripped my insides in mid-February.

Instead of wallowing in the feeling, I took photos of the sun coming down. Then, words flowed next. And I have not been able to drive away my muse since.

Sunset in Late Winter 2020. ©Lu Sobredo.

LATE WINTER

Bare trees,
Outstretched limbs
Surrender to the melancholy.

The sun, reluctant to leave,
Senses all.
The angst burdens the heart
Already embroiled
In more questions than answers.

Melancholy sky
Doubts the sun would stay.
The sun, resolute to set
While trees naked in the cold cry out
This late winter.

Poem & Photo ©Lu Sobredo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2020

About the Author
Lu Sobredo is writer/publisher at Lu Travels Abroad, a blog dedicated to folks whose limitations do not hamper them from traveling. A year into early retirement her world collapsed from the diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Her total life changed, but she did not let RA define her. With love from family, friends and an awesome doctor, she regained some functionality--her new normal. She will have RA all her life. And she now writes about life and travel with RA. During the pandemic of 2020, she stays put and writes poetry and a first novel, a travel of sorts but in the heart and mind.

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