IBD Creative Outlet

Inside My Head by Sue Hobbs

Inside my head.
You climbed inside my head
But it's my head
And I don't have to let you stay
Even though I asked you in.
An out-stayed welcome
Is a heavy thing to bear
Inside my head.
Neck bent under
The strain
Of indications
That all is not
All it was
And I don't want it
As it is.
You may climb out now
And if you return
I may let you in
If you're not too heavy
Inside my head.

Do People Die of This? by Sue Hobbs

Do people die of this?
Do people die of the truth?
Do people die of the truths that
     lie buried and rotting
          Until some word
          Some sound
          some smell
               trowels them up,
               reeking,
               into the autumn air?

I know the dying days of autumn feed the birth of spring.
It is that sweet assurance that keeps me troweling.
But with each pungent unearthing
of something dark and secret
The spores of life consuming death
are scattered for my breathing.

Taking in these bits of hostile hidden moments,
I sneeze and cough for their expulsion
And see them lying in my palm
After demurely keeping them from spraying forth
On you and you and you.

If I but pause for a moment
To recall that which I covered
Long ago, with soft brown blanket --
Crumbling peat and dung
And -- my! whatever else was handy
I might see them in new light
Through older eyes
And properly replace the face of shame
With that of indignance.

Oh, I tire of this dance
I've done, unending, five long years
Of troweling garden grunge --
Yes tired, though
The flowers grow much
higher, taller, brighter
in this new light I bring.

There are two flowers here that concern me most.
One a lily, the other a bud of something I know not.
They grow here, side by side,
     in the loamy, moldy, wormy ground
Laid down by countless generations of gardeners,
Tilling, toiling, freezing in the
     winter grip of death awaiting life,
Boiling in the summer sear of hell on Earth.
We know it well, we each do, you know,
     however much denied.

In piles of Autumn leaves I see the feet of children
Plunging, laughing, in without care
for what might lurk there, underneath.
Even if I fail to rake the flings of fall away
The spring will find a foothold, sing and dance renewed.

It is in constant search of spring that I dig still here in this plot,
Sighing over each new shovel full of --
what was it?
-- truth?

Do people die of this?

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