Ill Winds Blew: Nature's Beauty Didn't Save Me

By Nina Joan Rosen

started writing poetry
when life seemed
to call for poetry writing

many zoeypoems
about dog love
and devastating loss
(then Zoey's book:
Unbearable Loss:
The Traumatic Death
of My Soulmate Dog Zoey

starting with loss
reaching an endpoint
with the last deep griefs
in my life
my second beloved dog Jena
Mom, then Dad
gone

and so, in 2012
the next-to-last last poem
A Black Horse Comes
13 days after my dad's death
then silence on paper
a new word-quiet
oddly yoked
to relentless images, emotions, voices
I carry daily
and dream nightly
but do not write

until June 27, 2013
when I was felled
deeply
by the death of NOVA
extraordinarily loved
and powerfully bonded
cat companion of 18 years

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493105618

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Copyright © 2014 by Nina Joan Rosen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/16/2015

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THE POEMS

RIGHT WHERE I LEFT IT

Alone, as always

now without Jena.

I struggle up

the well-known road.

Starting out

the medieval-like torture

already in my body,

the struggle of forcing myself

in the face of whip-like change

that may shift the torture

so I am felled.

Any moment,

the torment

may worsen,

may shift

to anywhere it pleases

to down me.

I leave late,

later than past times.

Late enough to be solitary

on the road,

at trailhead,

on the trail.

The venture alone

in oncoming darkness

is the adventure

I try to possess,

as I face down the pain and fear.

Nature did not disappoint,

this mid-August night.

Private and amazing.

I saw the fog swells as I drove

toward them and into it all.

Layered for warmth,

supplied with meds

and tissues

and wristwatch,

my customized kit

paltry I know

if the worst comes for me.

The weeping hit me hard

coming in swells

like the fog.

No Jena.

No Zoey.

I could see,

I could feel,

I could smell

them,

as if I had walked into

a day of yesterday.

This two-dog-specific loneliness

it overpowers me.

The fog played in the trail,

thick and gray here,

held at the edge or in canyon there,

and overcome in stunning display

where the sun staked a claim still.

The rutted dust-gray trail

turned sandy-colored underfoot

and then shone

beautifully in a patch