Surrounded by Tombstones… by Toni L.A. Cross

Surrounded by tombstones

I’m claustrophobic

Within the walls

Of this confining minute

Tomorrow dies

While I breathe

The stale air of Today

Yesterday seems so dear

With its familiar expanse

Wooing me backward

Into the graveyard

Of my mind’s idyllic perfection

And the clock

Pounds out seconds

With slow precision

Melting into a lullaby

As I slip inward

And farther from

The Now

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From home to Home by Toni Cross

Right now, my husband and I are in the process of watching his beloved Grandmother slowly slip from this world into the next. The night before last, as I sat up in her hospital room, listening to her labored breathing, the following words came to me.

 

As the space between breaths lengthens

So the space to eternity shrinks

Here death does not steal or stalk

But waits as a plain and welcome bridge

Love dwells both here and there

A shining figure silently beckons

The journey is but from home to Home

Text Message… By Toni Cross

she glanced down just for a second
to peek at her cellphone screen
long enough the death angel reckoned
and skidding tires started to scream
he was on the way to his wedding
their colors were scarlet and cream
the rubber was smoking and shredding
he said this must be a dream
in an instant it was all done
not possible or so it would seem
twisted metal under glinting sun
the wedding march as a requiem

the passage of life… by Toni L.A. Cross

when the seasons begin to blend

and the years start to run together

like wet paint left vertical

 

then age creeps upon you

 

like a heavy cloak

 

and moments flee into hours

 

which melt into days

 

and the weight drags you downward

 

to a royal stately bed

 

the chamber of passage

 

into the land without time

 

you begin to hear a music unearthly to the core

 

that makes you want to shed

 

everything you have ever known

 

to be free

 

open

 

bare

 

just as you were

 

before your birth

 

squeezed and compressed your being

 

into the confines of oxygen and clocks

 

 

endless delight… Toni L.A. Cross

 

soft footsteps

tentative echo

of a sojourner’s soul

finally home to stay

tired eyes raise

hands lift

as if on their own

such wordless delight

this ending

is no ending

but a beginning

no-

an endlessness

of bliss

and completeness

true reality

at last