Second Wind by Terry Jude Miller

 

Second Wind
by Terry Jude Miller

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." - Ecclesiastes 3:1

I went fifteen years
without breathing:

oh, I did inhale--
took everything in--
in a one-way fluster

I let the world enter me,
gave liberty to tides
and gravity, which tossed me
from job to job, from one

calamity to the next without
grasping at the sides for a moment
to repair my substratum

I fell face up,
at the end of my intake capacity

I caught my second wind
a first day in January
when my full and heavy heart
picked up a pen


and exhaled

 

Letters To The Dead 

I am east and you are as west as the sun will go. It is April, the

month of your birth. The mornings have learned to sing again

with the trembling voice of first light. I find it easier to talk to

you when I write down what I have to say. There are volumes on

my bookshelf gathering dust and sadness. Reflection is thin stem

ware that breaks at the least provocation; but if I fill it just right

and stroke it lightly with my tear-moistened finger, it sings just

what I desire to hear. Much forgiveness rolled between us in your

final years, followed by acceptance of never being able to change

what sets fast in early days. I imagine standing in your shadow,

then you stepping aside to let the sun reach me, as it does this

April morning when I wish you were here to share one more day's

unfolding.

 

~Terry Jude Miller

Terry Jude Miller is a published and award winning poet from Fort Bend County, Texas.  A Juried Poet of the 2011 Houston Poetry Festival, his work has been published in dozens of print and online publications.  His poem, "The Diagnosis", appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal. He has read his poetry at venues throughout the United States and the United Kingdom.  Miller has just published his third book titled "The Butterfly Canonical." His two previous books of poetry are titled "The Day I Killed Superman" and "What If I Find Only Moonlight?" He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Gulf Coast Poets Society. Terry is a retired professor of eMarketing and held an Innovation Fellowship at Kaplan University.

 

Terry Miller, John Gorman, and Vanessa Zimmer-Powell will read their work at the Friendswood Public Library on Wednesday, November 6 at 7pm.