This blog includes essays about life, aging, humor, inspiration and creativity. These things capture my attention and I hope are worthy of yours. Sandra Enos.
Looking at the weather forecast at the end of a very long winter, I wondered what the predictions would look like if they were written by a poet. Here is my three-day forecast in mid-March, New England, 2026.
An early dawn, an undistinguished sunrise
Muted by damp rain burdened clouds
All day they linger threatening
Finally, rain near the end of day
Puddling and freezing overnight
Black ice warnings called out.
Over that dark and troubled night
The rhododendron leaves curl like tight fists
The moon seeks protection behind blue clouds.
The new day
Pale pink bands gather at the horizon
Sun rising lifting into the light
Before the parade float of brilliant sunrise
Sailing like a kite into the chilly deepest blue air
The arc clear all day
Till we huddle under the shade of that favorite forest
The sun setting just before the soup is served
Quietly, maybe exhausted by the show this morning.
And the final tomorrow
Snow blows in like an invading force
The trees howl with resistance
Our windows fill with images of frozen landscape
A tundra oH course, like a lost bird.We fragile creatures take our blankets
Protecting ourselves even inside our warm homes
Night arrives in quiet still
Dark blue
Silver starlight rests on the trees
The storm fades in force and even memory
Leaving us wondering if that glimpse of spring was an illusion.
I hate the way our language dodges talking about death
As if it were contagious or the words carried evil spells.
For example, I despise the term pre-deceased.
Aren’t we this very minute, all of us pre-deceased?
So, my final plans.
After I get rid of my worldly possessions
I need to attend to my final disposal.
What to do with me?
I’m thinking of maybe donating my body to the local medical school.
And my brain to the College Arts and Sciences at the local university
I’m hoping they can find a poet to do a humanities autopsy
That would reveal if all the poetry and the beautiful things I’ve seen and read,
Has fashioned a brain worth passing along.
No coffin or burial for me. No cemetery.
Except that I would love to have a headstone that reads
Current resident.
And no cremation, either. That’s way too energy intensive.
Hell, I don’t even like fireplaces.
No human composting.
I’m way too full of microplastics and forever chemicals.
Planting me in the ground under a magnificent oak tree
In a beautiful national forest is just not fair to the worms and the bacteria
That work the earth to keep those forests healthy.
Nope none of that.
So, I’ve finally settled on being a ghost that inhabits Narragansett Beach.
I’ll join all the other ghosts I met there for the decades.
Dottie, that 85-year-old woman, now three years dead who used to racewalk the beach.
Arms pumping, stopping for a round of push-ups to show off her good health.
And, Bill, ten years gone, hunting for sea glass and taking care of his wife
Suffering from a wretched disease.
He hoped he could bring her to the beach one last time before she passed away.
And Kenneth, who sat cross-legged in a yoga pose while the fraternity boys played football around him — never breaking his meditative state. He died just this year.
And that ghost of a house that sat up on the dune
Washed away by a winter storm
Was that two years ago now?
I’ll stand there up on that little rise and watch the beach walkers and join them
As my dead father and my dead mother and my best friend the dead poet
have walked with me any thoughts all these years.
I’ll rescue some toddlers who’ve gone rushing into the waves
Just out of the parents’ careful watch
And whisk the sand from their eyes.
And help the elderly steady themselves in the waves feeling
that lovely cool water around their ankles.
Maybe for the last time
Remembering all those summers before.
Their lovers and children and grandchildren – all of them happy and laughing.
And I’ll point out the treasure in every sunrise and sunset
Those who are moving too fast, deep in thought on the beach.
I posted this on Instagram and received several comments about the poem being “touching” and “lovely” and “heartwarming.” This little poem is meant to be funny and goofy. Could I have missed the mark? Maybe, no one really reads a poem on Instagram. In any case, this poem is best read aloud.
Across a crowded Zoom
I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places
Because now that I’m older, I can’t remember faces
Which causes a problem in communication and connection.
I’m just looking for nice. I don’t need perfection.
I’ve tried going to church and meeting the congregation
I tried traveling the world on expensive vacations
I even ventured into learning ballroom dances
Maybe, I’ll meet someone, what are the chances?
Desperately, I tipped my toes into internet dating
But that feels like shopping, not at all like mating
So, I took an online course in romantic poetry
Thinking that certainly my love would there be.
I signed into the class, with twenty other students
Many speaking loudly, others simply muted
And I saw you in your square, your grace filling the room
And, all of a sudden, I fell in love on Zoom.
You looked so happy and pleased to be there
You sent us a chat message just to show how much you care
I was smitten and enchanted, just by your smile
And wondered how long I’ve waited to be so beguiled.
The class began with hellos and intros of all
You were a poet (I knew it) living in Sioux Falls.
With me here in Boston, our romance may be doomed
But if we really fell in love, we could zoom and zoom and zoom.
You were brilliant and insightful but when I tried to speak
I kept muting myself, like a clumsy teenage Geek
I scanned your screen background to learn a little more
And on your bookshelf, what do I see? Is that Mary Olivore?
Please, please don’t turn off your screen, we’ve only just met
Would I be too forward, to call you, My Pet?
I could send you a zoom invite for just we two
Gosh, I’d upgrade to premium just to spend more time with you.
Or should I go on looking for somebody special for me
Delight/ Awe and other things 