A Full Heart Can Hold More!

I'm in the present, looking over this 50+ years span of my life. Can somebody say  "O-MAZING!"? The sum of my experiences thus far is nothing, if not rich! Not the money-rich, mind you. But a sista can't complain. When I think about the hills, valleys, and then the MOUNTAINS - the ones that seemed hard to climb, and those same ones that afforded me victorious panoramic views from their peaks once  I reached the top - all I can say is "THANK YOU, LORD!"

People have said many things to me in this first year of my "widowhood". They've been encouraging, and some well-meaning, have said some ill-thought things. I've understood and I understand. It's difficult to know what to say when someone has lost a loved one. 

One of the first pieces of well meaning counsel I received, within weeks after my husband's death, was that God would provide me with another precious love....not to worry. They had no idea that I had no worries about that, nor did I foresee ever having a worry/need. My heart was full. And as I have explained to a few of my sista/friends - I still felt very married, and satisfied.

I am still satisfied. However, I was recently in conversation with some women co-workers about having children. And I heard a couple of them relate their reasons for only having one child..."because I didn't think I could love another child as much as my baby." That struck me, because I, too, remembered having that same thought. Almost in a panic, some 23 years ago - because I was already pregnant with my second daughter. And I worried about being able to give this new child the love she would require..."how can I love this one when I love my  firstborn baby so much?" 

All my fears disappeared the moment I held my newborn in my arms. She was mine, she was beautiful, and she had all of my love, immediately and meted out especially for her. My love for the second child in no way subtracted from the love I had for my first child. And I experienced this miracle one more time when my only son was born. Each love is unique - each heartbeat, a different cadence that matches your own in distinct variations of the theme.  

These thoughts played back the scenes from my past, and how I learned the capacity of the heart to love deeply, and differently, and specially, on levels beyond our imagination and sometimes our understanding.  And those well meaning friends who assured me that God would bring me another precious love were not wrong. 


Happily, I find that the blessing of a willing, giving heart, confident, in faith and filled to overflowing, is more....

Dissociative Disorder

I/we birth poems enriched by
multi-faceted
seeds sown

the dreams come,
but the fabric
is ofttimes
misshapen
and torn
 

some waking hours bring
no reason
& even less rhyme

and secrets beget

secrets of their own

in the recesses of my mind...

I/we fashion words
to soothe hurt 
ease pain
make love

to curse

then bless
start over

begin again 

I/we see
with the eye of fingertips
sounds we utter
don't come from lips

we stitch pictures together
from the silhouette
of souls
against the wall
above a feather
bed

making manifest
past-present
future
of all the things we

ever heard/said

I/we blend/spin

thoughts
on a 3-dimensional wheel
whirling
elliptical orbits 
round
my selves
creating
tapestries

surreal
 

please don't wake us

there's nothing to fear
it's the sanity
of a poet

we love it here

Bridgette Alyce Wynn © 2005

The Gloaming...(and all through the night)

  there is one moment
     when the eyelids
     of day flicker
     like the gentlest
     breeze upon your lashes

     there is just one moment
     of all the hours
     and minutes in each
     God given day
     when the shadows
     of evening
     climb over the
     eastern hills
     and half of the sky
     is an amazing
     burnished
     array of twilight
     melding into
     star bursts

     the cover
     of night is upon us,
     my love

     touch/feel me
     darkly beneath
     you & our shimmering
     blanket
     all through this
     magnificent
     night

Bridgette Alyce Wynn © 2003

In Our Luminous Bed

*in loving memory of the late, great, R. Lamont Wynn, my husband  of 31 years, and father of all my children*

I remember

six goose down pillows, plumped
and strewn carelessly
about the platform bed with
layers of quilted comforters
piled in pleasant disarray
over flat and fitted flannel
sheets threatening to
pull away from their neatly
tucked corners

as we romped, jumped & fell
like naughty children,
dangerously close to the edge
wearing nothing but
our socks

laughing in semi-mock-adoration
at the way
you still defy gravity (beautifully)

... hysterical, in
feigned sorrow
because my breasts are
slowly giving in...

so happy to be home alone
remembering the way
it was before 1986...b.c.

before children...
 

we lay, head to feet
engaged in serious finger/hand~play

quietly reminiscing on
how many beds ago
since we first conceived

and how many beds from now
till death do us part

Bridgette Alyce Wynn © 2003

 *I wrote this in 2001, of a moment we shared that same year*

RIP Monty.... June 26, 1954-May 8, 2010

I Am My Sister's Keeper

Based on a true story...a vignette in its entirety, Part 1 of a trilogy from my unfinished manuscript This October.


It was 1:30 a.m. and the lingering affects of caffeine found Eileen still wide-awake and restless in her bed. The TV was glaring back at her, making ugly faces with every click of the remote. Earlier that evening, she’d settled in with a pot of coffee, essays to read and papers to grade – yet another uneventful night in her apartment since Ellis died in Iraq two years ago. Eileen never dreamed she’d be a widow at 48, and the single life was a whole nother kind of animal in the year 2006. The jury was still out, but Eileen preferred the state of a-l-o-n-e at the moment.

In the midst of the droning noise from the blue screen, the phone rang. Startled, Eileen squinted at the phone to see her caller ID – it was Veronica. “Hey girl, what’s up, why you up so late?” Eileen yawned as she sat up and plumped her pillows behind her back.

“Leenie, my car is at a Motel 6 in Hollywood, and I need a ride to go get my car back!” Veronica exclaimed.

“Excuse me? What did you say? Your…car…is…WHERE?” Eileen said, grabbing her glasses off the nightstand and turning on the lamp.

“Girl, he took my car saying he was going to drop something off over a friend’s house. Said he’d be back in 30 minutes – THAT WAS AT EIGHT O’CLOCK!! Girl…I…”

“Ronnie, go slow. So Bernard borrowed your car and said he’d be back in 30 minutes?”

“Umhm..”

“And that was at 8:00 p.m.?”

“Yep.”

“Now, how do you know where the car is?”

“Girl, the Internet! I was lying on the couch watching TV and realized how late it was. No call from Bernard, so I called his cell. No answer. It wasn’t turned off; he just let it keep ringing! I was worried at first. Then something told me to get on the Internet and check his credit card account-“

“Shut up girl! What?”

“Yeah I did, girl! And come to find out that he bought some chewing gum at a liquor store on Main Street at midnight, and then he checked into a Motel 6 on Sixth Avenue at 12:30 –I got the address and the directions on Mapquest, girl. I need a ride! It ain’t goin down like that!”

Eileen’s thoughts raced as she held onto the phone and Veronica’s words. It had been eight years ago when she and Veronica became friends at work. They’d hit it off immediately – another blessed addition to Eileen’s circle of women friends. Veronica was sweet, sincere, caring. She came with no hidden agendas, and the only problem with Veronica as far as Eileen could tell was her obsession with Bernard. They were living together again. Once married, then divorced, they had an on-again-off-again relationship that pre-dated Eileen by some eleven years. And Bernard had been abusive both physically and emotionally. However, by the time Eileen came on the scene, Bernard had calmed down quite a bit and had stopped the physical violence against Veronica. He’d had some anger management classes, but Eileen always attributed his newfound sanity to the fact that Veronica’s two grown sons from a previous marriage swore to kill him if he ever laid a hand on their mother again, and told him so. But his carousing and drug abuse did not cease. It seemed to get worse.

There was no doubt that Veronica’s love and devotion to her man was true, but Eileen’s impatience with that style of living always made her seem harsh and critical of Veronica. Most of the sista/friends of the circle saw Veronica as a foolish, desperate woman. But they loved her. Eileen came to realize that she had to change her attitude about Veronica’s life – it was Veronica’s life after all. So, as long as Bernard wasn’t beating on Veronica, Eileen stayed out of the mix and made herself available to hang out whenever Veronica was free, and only gave her opinion when she was asked. There was too much good in Veronica to let their friendship drift away. She was the genuine article in Eileen’s definition of a friend.

“Did you hear me, Leenie? I need a ride to go get my car back!” Veronica’s voice was breaking as she gave way to tears. Eileen snapped back into the present, looked at the clock, it was almost 2:00 a.m.

“It will take us an hour to get there. We have to move fast!” Eileen spat out as she jumped out of bed, pulled her nightshirt over her head and rushed into the bathroom. “You be ready to walk out when I pull up, ok?”

“Ok, girl…thanks” Veronica sighed.

“And you best be thinking about what you’re going to do after he finds out the car is gone. You know once he realizes what really happened to your car, his ego won't stand for it. We gotta make sure you’re safe!”

“I know, girl, I already thought about that. I have an idea…”

“We’ll talk about it on the way there… see you in 10…”

“Love you Leenie girl…”

“Love you, Ronnie…”



Bridgette Alyce Wynn, © 2006

For the third time

Hello all!

I'm back here in the vast blogosphere (I heard a radio personality call it that - it should be in the dictionary by now!), and hopefully, this time I'll stay.  Why "the woman in my attic"? Ok, I'll bite. About 11 years ago, while I was part of a few online poetry sites, this "woman" began to emerge inside my head, whispering things into my inner ear. (uh oh!) Of course, I exaggerate (slightly), but I did become aware of other voices that seemed to need their own avenues of expression. The online writing and poetry clubs/lounges/gatherings served as a wonderful classroom filled with writers and published authors from all over the world who shared their words and ideas freely with one another. I was hopelessly hooked. Daily I'd go online to draw from their ink wells. I was inspired, challenged, and my writing was sharpened. That was when I discovered someone else, inside my "house" was present. And when I sat still and all was quiet, I could "hear" her.

Every now and then she shares a word. She is far wiser than I, and this is why I know her presence is a pure gift. This page is my homage to her, and my hope that she visits me more often. Of course, there are pages and pages of poetry that I've written about her, and I will post some of them in time.

In the meantime, and for the third time, I'm awaiting inspiration, and I'm back!