de profundis clamo

Someone is paying attention
Someone knows
And understands

My shadow scares me
I keep trying to die
But someone wants me alive
To torment
To love
I really don't know

How much pain
can a heart feel
and still pump blood?
                                   I heard that somewhere
                                                                        from someone.
Maybe my mother.

That poem...about car sitting...
That I wrote
On our anniversary last year
only a few days before the annulment was made final
                                                              when I decided to let go
And move on
                      and less than six months later
                                                                      he left....for good...or bad...
And I think about the car sitting now.
How I thought he would be the perfect father
for my children.
He would not yell at them
And he was really really REALLY smart
I pushed them together
every chance I could
He was better than me
                                   and I knew it
Learn from him
                                   not me

The December after the September
I gave my life away
I was standing in the living room
Of the house in Miami
On the Air Force base
                                   loving the sound
                                                              of jet engines
firing up and taking off
In the midst of all that noise
                                            there it was
The first kick from my daughter

I had life inside me
                              now it was real.

And today I grieve for the one who helped me create it.
He left
And all my thoughts of creating a
Happy Home Happy Family
were gone...with his suitcase.

Love Songs: Severe Thunderstorm Warning

(I began this poem about a year ago...I think. 
I have no clue what it meant then. 
But with all this pain
I must be moving on
To something new...)

"This is a love song
Made up of moments
we've never shared together."

                                                          I sang that song for two weeks
                                                          In a play
                                                         Kissing a boy
                                                         I can't remember his name
                                                         or his face

Love song

Lent begins on Wednesday
This is one of those big years
I have three days to decide
how to live it.

Last night's storm woke me
And I prayed...
the 22 carat gold rosary in my hand
And I wondered about the dream

Another friend, stage 4 cancer
Right now, I am wanting to distance myself
from all this
suffering

Still it is more than a year
and I have not left the suffering
of others
and I have discovered
my own.

Now is the season for poetry
The season for for dying to self
Yet self is all around me

I tell them
I am in pain
I hurt enough
to entertain death again,
cook it a meal,
serve my best wine,
and say,
"Let's be friends forever."

I tell it to my best friend
in the whole world
The one
whose brother
Hanged himself
on Mother's Day
when he got tired
of
remembering.

A good friend, I am.
                                      She stays even then.
I pick good ones.
                                      But I can't seem to heal.

Did I decide to live this way?
Or did it just happen?

Around again

The sun and the earth meet
In this same place every year
The moment begins here
Where there is more dark than light
The day I got married

I sat on the hood of the '64 Plymouth Fury
And talked with God

This is what I deserved
Playing with fire, not caring
who used by body
or why
Giving up on love so long ago
Now feeling anything was rare
And only a problem
to be endured

Why, God? Why this? Why now?
And I knew the answer
But I didn't want to hear it

or feel it

This was the best solution
To a young woman sliding quickly
into hell
A woman who ran out of options
because she would not stop staring at the wall

There was a door
There was a window
But she placed her nose close to the wall

The way the nuns made her do
when she asked too many questions

Why God? Why this? Why now?

Yet I marveled at the life growing inside me...
I would have preferred to walk the path alone
But like really living a life,
I was too scared
And I knew NORMAL people
got married

So I sat on the car
And considered my cage:
Could be worse, you know

I looked up at the sky, filled with the stars
of the atumnal equinox
and thought
I'll never be an astronaut,
a scientist, a lawyer,
or a movie star

I'll be a wife and a mother
It's what I deserve
A cage...no one will ever know I existed
Oh God...what have I done?
I have killed myself before I was even alive.

Such were the thoughts
of a selfish child
who never felt or knew love
whose life was determined without her consent
was it?

These thoughts would take years to forgive
and even more to understand

Cindy September 23 2012

Scary But True

"You will be a healer,"
God said, as He fashioned my body
From a lump of clay.

On this day, I formed you
Created you in your mother's womb

No, it was not in the union of man and wife
But in an act of passion
In an act of desire
And perhaps desperation
Between one who wanted a future
And one who simply wanted right now.
Humble beginnings

Hear that Ave Maria on the radio?
That's for you to remember
She had to endure a lot
To have her son
In a society that would rather kill off a life
or two
than let someone off the hook

She risked all to give life to a child
That somewhere in her heart
She knew he might just save the world. 

Such is a mother's love.

You began in humility
You were asked to suffer
And in that suffering
You had a choice:

Be bitter. Be angry. Get even. Take all you can. Now is all you have.
Or
Be patient. Be compassionate. Be humble. Serve so that others might live.

Use your life, your pain, to heal

You have the choice to heal
Or to destroy
To love
Or to hate
To build plowhares into swords
Or swords into plowshares

To risk death: physical, emotional, spiritual...
To give life

Choose life.
Be a healer.

Ugly things

She said I wrote ugly things
But I didn't

I wrote what was going on
I wrote how I felt about it
And then I hid it
Little scraps of paper
Placed behind milk bottles
Inside statues
Behind pictures...

Often behind the monstrous picture of me
The one she had made
And had"doctored"
So I looked like what she wanted me to be
Instead of who I really was

Behind there I put my dark poetry
Not the kind words for Hallmark cards
Not the "You are such a wonderful mother"
Not the "I love you so much"

But the ones where I was being chased
The ones about how I was hiding
And some about how I gave in

Much, much later...
when I was a teacher
I found "ugly poetry"
on one of my students' desks

I read it...and understood it...
behind the obscenities and sexual suggestions
I heard the cry
And did something about it

A couple of years later
I saw the young girl in a movie theater
I just stood there
She saw me...and ran to me...and hugged my neck

She said, "I'm living with my grandmother now."
And she looked down at the carpet.
Then she looked up.
She hugged me again.
She said "Thank you."

Sometimes...we get lucky
Sometimes we don't

Cindy

I do not care for my bed

I do not care for my bed
You may buy me another if you wish
But this is my bed for now

I allow you to make love to me
I'll play Clare to your Francis
Or Teresa to your John
But quite frankly
This is my bed for now

I wait for you to want real things
And not plays or pretends
To see me as I really am
And love ME
Not the woman you want me to be
But the woman I am
I'll wait...
But not forever

What Love Does

What Love Does

40 years ago, I made a decision
To protect myself from a danger
In a manner quite unorthodox
With consequences I never could have imagined

40 years ago
I thought I could stop the violence
By building a wall
To stop feeling
To live
But to live on my terms
To keep all the power
To save the world
And little children
From the darkness
That I knew was there.

But the plans of a fifteen year old girl
Can hardly stand in the face
Of the plans of the world
Or of God

Sometimes
if we are lucky
We lose
And love wins
Anyway

Cindy
August 7, 2012

Ditto

Saying I love you seems easy enough
But what does it really mean? 
Does it take on the life of the Beloved
Or is it merely a dream
Of what I might think I want to have,
Of someone I'd like to see?
'Cause when I am with that someone I love
The person I see best is me.

In his eyes a beauty exists
of a woman I barely know
In his eyes I find a comfort
that only love can show
In his eyes I see a love for me
and that love by its perfect design
takes this broken old body
and transforms it into something divine.

Saying I love you is always a risk
It wounds as it heals the soul
It tells us, yes, we are beautiful
Yet reminds us of how far still to go
Before that love is perfected
In the Light of Perfect Love's face
He takes what we've given each other
And places upon it His grace

Dare to say I love you
Dare to open your heart
Dare to take on the wounds
Dare to play His part
True love is not in a movie
Is not in a book of rhyme
True love is saying daily
Make me, Lord, one of thine. 

I thank you, sweet man, for teaching me
How to risk my heart again
I thank you for loving me unconditionally
I thank you for being my friend
I thank you for showing me this truth
That light can still shine in this heart
I thank you for giving me hope
....

I love you, too.

Cindy
June 15, 2012

Fast Car

She didn't really tell me
That her parents were killed when she was seven years old
That she was in foster homes ever since then
That she got to see her brother every now and then
But that two months ago
He killed himself
And she was angry
And did something foolish
And now she's here
Waiting for a baby to be born in May

She didn't really tell me those things
Because those things don't really happen to people
God watches over
And when it gets really hard
We get a break
Only there is no break
It just stays hard

Had to unlock the gate
To let her go to meet her parole officer
Somewhere not near by
Leaving at dawn for a 10 o'clock appointment
Babies in the back seat
I wonder why they have to leave so early
Her husband has to restart the car several times
It sputters down the road
Yeah, it might take them three hours to get there...

And I think life just stays hard
For some
That gospel verse
"To those who have much
More will be given
And to those who have little
Even that will be taken away"
And I don't think about how we are being told
To make good use of our gifts
But rather
How those who have much always know how to get more
And those who have so little
Have their little bit taken away from them
Because the poor steal from the poor
As quickly as they steal from the rich
And the rich,
well, sometimes they steal,
but they never get caught.

I sat there, looking at the little girl
thinking how much I had suffered
and survived
and just listening to her
Beginning her journey
Figuring it out
Deciding not to feel

I remember those days of not feeling
And those days when the feelings began
And how deeply it wounded me
So much so that I thought
It might be better to be dead

But I pressed on
Yet never alone
And I found the other side
The side with the light
The side where I could smile again
And mean it

And I decided
When the time comes for her to feel
I think she will make it
After it hurts a lot
She find herself on the side of the light
And she'll be okay

Yes, this one will be okay
Yet still, to think of her, I cry

He who laughs last...

...Thinks slowest.

I have people in my life who love me...But I don't know it
I have people who I love deeply...But I don't show it.

She wanders up and down the halls
Dreaming of perfect bliss
She can't see the heaven before her
The kindness she'll often miss

Caught in the webs of could-have-beens
Should-have-beens, might-have-done-thats
When the tree of life before her
Stands, his hands open, laid flat

"Climb my branches, swing from them
Tell me your stories and wishes to be
Build within me your house
Stay connected to me."

But her head wanders elsewhere
Her eyes look down the street
Her heart plays games with memories
Of when two lovers meet

Touches gentle and sometimes harsh
Lovers remembered then forgot
Waiting always waiting
For something that was not...

"He's waiting for my yes
He's waiting for me to see
All I ever needed
Was right in front of me"

Like Dorothy, over the rainbow
Like Blynken, sailing starry seas
Tin man, scarecrow and lion
Guard her until she sees

What she wanted she always had
Given to her before birth
Life and longing for love
While waiting here on the earth

The gift was first a man
And then the little boy
Hands to hold and trails to walk
And tales of endless joy

He wrote to her He sang to her
He played her a little tune
He romanced her in the garden
Under a half-crescent moon

She bent her head and laughed a bit
Under the starry sea
"How do I say yes to you
When you've already said yes to me?"

"Open your self to the world
Love them with all your heart
By loving them, you love me
From you I shall never part"


She closed her eyes and finally saw
The Love that held her tight
Bigger and stronger, bolder and longer
And she knew she lost the fight

Looking over the fence was over
Waiting for doors to unlock was done
She found her perfect love
In the gift from the Father and the Son

Cindy
July 5,.2011
going to keep working on it...

Someday

Someday
A man will stand behind me
Put his arms around me
And tell me that he loves me
And I will lean back and smile
And remember
That it doesn't have to be hard
It doesn't have to be an uphill climb
It doesn't have to be perfect
I don't always have to be afraid
Or in charge
I can just lean back and rest
And know the only thing expected of me
Is to be there
And open to his arms

Someday
I'll realize
That love is not about
Who you are
Or what you do
Or what you might do

Someday I'll realize that
Love is not about tomorrow
It is about today
And today
I lean back
I rest in his arms
I hear his heartbeat
Fully human
Fully Divine
And completely  totally
Body Blood Soul Divinity
Mine

Someday is today
And the ring He gave me
Is a rainbow so big
It encircles the entire world

I can love you because He loved me first.

Cindy Johnson
May 12. 2011
7:56 a.m.

Never quite turns out as you expect it to...

Needing an Annie Dillard fix?Pop Tart? Extra pair of glasses
*****************************************
Sitting on the steps
Wind blowing through my hair
I remember when
I didn't have a care
Just sitting on the steps
With my mind open wide
Waiting for real life to happen
Waiting on the slide
Touch it with my hand
Oh! Too hot to handle!
Yet shiny silver so seduces
Burns my backside like a candle
Should have stayed up high
Should have stepped back down
But instead I took the leap of faith
And went flying into the ground.
**************************

Monday Mourning Chores

Cleaned behind the refridgerator
Cut hair
Washed clothes
Went to Mass
Picked up pager
Told the truth

~~~~~~~~~~<><><><><><>~~~~~~~~~~

Here is my beloved servant

My chosen one

A bruised reed she will not break

"Coh ahmer Adonai"

A light to the blind

I came back to you
I remembered how you made me feel
When you believed me
Believed in me
I washed your feet with my tears
And dried them with my hair
Now lying in a pile on the ground
Soon to be swept away
The hair from a different time and purpose
I cut off for you

I told the truth for you
When it would have been easier to lie
To tell you what you wanted to hear
To make you feel good
I told the truth
And he told you to throw me back
Out in the streets
To earn my living again
In ways only the darkness understands

He will sell you for thirty pieces of silver
But I will buy you back with my tears
Stand beside you

Let my eyes shelter you when you cry out
That your Father is not here
I am here
Look at me
We will get through this
Together

Palm Sunday

Hands outstretched
Wanting more
Eyes blind to the price
Of what wanting more
really means

You tell me you love me
But that's a lie
I see your eyes
Your hands
Your heart
There is no remnant of me in any of them
But the words keep coming out of your mouth
well planned, well trained
But just words

April 17, 2011
Copyright April 2011

November 20, 1992

Poetry journal started back then.   "...if I don't pay attention to my existence, no one else will.  It is a cool., overcast November afternoon. I am anxiously awaiting for the return of my son from Camp Goddard in Oklahoma. I hope he will bounce off the bus with tales that will make him smile. His happiness found means I am a successful mother, not that I am completely responsible for his happiness, but rather, his laughter tells me that I did a good thing in creating him. I look around and see all the other parents and they all look so old, like they are MY parents, not the parents of small children. And then I realize, "Cindy, you will be 36 in December. You are not so young..."
My poetry had a very different flavor then:

I: Awakening

Debussy make the best kind of lover
He kisses your fingers and toes
And works his way to the middle
Where the chords fit snuggly
Weaving their way through you
To explode out your fingers and toes
And when the piece is complete
And air flows back inside
And your heart starts to beat again
With new life
All the transgressions committed by life
Pale to the feeling of music
That now flows in your veins.

When I think of all the pianists I've met
who aren't married...
We don't realize what it means to
devote oneself completely to the art
like a priest...one cannot be burdened
with things other than music
things that interfere with the art
But the irony is
that to truly express life
one has to live it
otherwise the expression is a fantasy
and quite frankly, some of us prefer the fantasy

II: Discovery

Tempermental musician
How do you see me?
Do I move you enough to write for me?
Or am I not even a whisper in your thoughts after our meeting?

I desperately need a legacy
different from the life I live.

Can you create for me that fantasy
from golden trees and green
of water white against sky blue
with notes that sing in yellow and violet hues?
Will you transform the memory of me
into pretended passion made real in the melody?
Or am I not even the blank page on which you write?
24 June 94

 III:  Truth?

Calmness upsets me
under the guise of reality
I play with the cards dealt
Never completely relinquishing my soul
to mediocrity
Always in pain holding back this soul
Slowly dying in the repression of expression
The air grows thinner in my cage
"Time to change the paper!"
Yet I don't
To change it...to obey
is to admit defeat.
9 August 94

Eucharistic Prayer

In the woods, long ago

I carried my Bible

Sat on a log

And read the Gospel of John

To the birds and squirrels and skies

Hoping maybe God would hear

And remember me

Take kindly my thanksgiving prayer

And rescue me from...

From what was I running?

I can't remember.

Lord you are holy indeed

( Lord, Make me holy)

The fountain of all holiness

(Will you share it with me?)

Let your Spirit come upon these gifts of bread and wine

(And on me, let me be your gift...please)

Let them become

(Let me become)

The Body and Blood

(Your Body and Blood)

Of your Son, Our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ

(Of your Son, Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ

In this world today)

Time is a human construct

Because we are mortal

But He is not mortal

He was there then, with them

He is here now, with us now

All of time disappears in the prayer

The Thanksgiving prayer

The Eucharistic prayer

In the prayer, we have our first taste of immortality

On the night he was betrayed

(I was betrayed...I will be betrayed, handed over)

He took the bread, broke it and said

(He took me, broke me and said)

This is my Body

(We are His Body, we share in the gift)

This is my Blood

(We are His Blood, we share in the suffering)

Do this in remembrance of Me.

(Zachar Adonai...Zacharu, Adonai, Elohim...can't remember my Hebrew

Of course he did it in Aramaic...why, O Lord, don't I know?

Why can't I remember? Forgive me, O Lord, I have sinned.)

Look around the church. See the faces, remember the faces. The room begins to spin. I see so many hands clasped in prayer. Why do we come here? Why this place? Why today?

Here is the church

Here is the steeple

Open the doors 

And see all the people

See all the people. Heads bowed. 

They believe...or they want to believe...

Let us become one

As the Father and I are One

Let them know

All that we know

Remind them, remind us, remind me

We are not alone. 

Love, Cindy

Seeing into the Weave

12:39 a.m. April 5, 2011.
Woke and the feeling still won't go away.
Yesterday, my life made more sense than it ever has...ever
Yesterday, time stood still, and time stood together
*******

Yesterday, God said
You are not dead
Today you will know why
You were born blind
You will see well beyond them
Into the weave
You will see me
Into eternity

Why is today not like other days?
Because it is holy, set apart
Designed to heal
your inmost heart
Designed to stay
Inside God's way
Designed to heal
Those nerves of steel
Built to protect
An internal defect
A violation of the soul
From times of old

Today the miracle
Has been made clear
Through loving eyes
And listening ear
What once was lost
Now is found
You've made your way
To higher ground

Wounds that once crippled
Now can hardly be seen
Kissed back to living
Far away from the dream
That once killed you each night
On your pillow of tears
You've been given now back
The gift of those years
Lost to sorrow and pain
And wondering why
Now at last making sense
No reason to die
But to live now for Him
Who died there for you
And pass unto others
That love given you
Love, Cindy
Copyright April 5, 2011 @1:05 a.m.

Wind

Wind blows
God knows
Leaves bend
Showers end
Bodies rise
Beneath skies
Arms greet
Daybreak sweet
Teeth brushed
Hair hushed
Coffee made
Breakfast laid
Keys found
Heart pounds
Open door
Waits for more...

Cindy Johnson
copyright April 2011

Ashes to...

Within the Stravinsky motif

A curious child tests her limits

Plays with fire

And burns brightly

Til she burns out

Enter the stag

Symbol of strength and trust

Pulls her broken body from the ashes

Nudges her back into action

She has only the strength to cry

And her tears bring life

To all that was dead inside her

**************************

I have been commissioned to sing my note

Inside this creation

Only pleasing to God and a few well trained ears

Yet sing it, I must

I stand both inside and out

Not yet knowing whether I belong inside

Or out

What I thought was true

Is illusion

What I thought was illusion

Is true

 *****************************

"Authority rests in Me," He tells me,

"I give to you the gift to heal.

No one on earth can take that from you.

What I bind on earth stays bound to me.

Do not doubt your gift."

"But how? I am just a woman." I tell Him.

"Do not say to Me, 'I am just a woman.'

I will show you the path to walk.

I pulled you out of the ashes

And breathed life into you.

It is okay to cry. Your woman tears

Will breathe life into the dead

And give hope to the discouraged.

Your woman tears are your greatest gift.

They, more than anything else you offer Me,

Pleases Me the most.

They cleanse you

They bathe you

They make you holy

And give you great power.

Do not be afraid of them.

I gave them to you.

Each tear brings life anew

Feeds the earth again

Your special rain creates life

Because you believe in Me.

Because you love Me.

Because I loved you first."

Cindy

copyright April 1, 2011

Fitting In

The dog went to the head of the line
And asked for directions
And was told
"We'll be lining up in two rows on the sidewalk
And we will enter the gates together"

So the dog tried to find a place in the line
The other dogs all had uniforms
She looked down
Her coat was matted
And she needed a bath
She was ashamed and took a step back
Wanting to be in the other line
But then the other line filled up quickly
and pushed her away

And they all marched in through the gates
She watched them
They looked pretty
Being all alike
And they barked so beautifully in unison
Like one giant dog with many parts

She heard the gate clank shut
And she watched all the dogs laughing and running and playing
From outside the gate

But behind her she heard a sound
Another dog arrived
Older, larger...a bit scruffy...like her
And asked her if she wanted to walk with him for a while

They walked and talked about God and things
The choices they made
The dreams they had
The way they thought the world should be, could be
If we all just loved each other a little bit more

The dog felt a little better
Didn't mind her scruffy coat so much
And placed her head under the chin of the the big dog
I will remember you, she told him.
And he left.

Then the dog lay down on the sidewalk before the big gates
The laughter and barking had grown faint
But she could smell the flowers as the wind blew across her nose

Maybe tomorrow, she thought
Maybe tomorrow they'll let me in.

Love, Cindy
copyright March 2011