Turning by Lucille Clifton

turning into my own 

turning on in 

to my own self 

at last

turning out of the 

white cage, turning out of the 

lady cage 

turning at last 

on a stem like a black fruit 

in my own season 

at last

April is National Child Abuse Awareness Month

On the Anniversary of my Sister's Death - April 1, 2009

                           Janeen Veronica Kavaney (1954-2009)

(As reprinted from my March 31, 2010 blog.)                                                                                                          
My dear sister, It was one year ago that you silently slipped off this planet. There was no plaintive death rattle, only a soft, faint exhale and you were gone. I had sat vigil for nine days and nights holding your hand, always surveying your semi-comatose face for the occassional, precious sign that you were still there. It had been the middle of the night when I arrived at your bedside and you were still seizing repeatedly. Yet I saw you try to focus with all your strength as you attemped to say my name but all you could manage to say was "mo...mo...mo...mo." I knew then you were still there.

Years before I had become helplessly co-dependent on you as I tried everything I could think of to save you. But I couldn't. Only you could do that. But you never did. Sobriety terrified you. Over the years you had lost so much of yourself and your life in your freefall that I could not leave you too. Along the way I had to accept that addiction was going to be your life, and I would love you in spite of it. But I also had to distance myself enough so as not to lose myself too. But we stayed in regular contact and I followed the tragic path of your life.

In the end, the doctors kept saying you would only survive another day or two, but after a while they stopped trying to predict the hour of your departure. They were repeatedly surprised by your tenacity, but I wasn't. You always were the most stubborn one of all of us. You had to be, that's how you survived - that's how we all survived. And I saw it in the end from you too with the frequent periods of agonizing frustration like a maddeningly redundant silent scream, realizing all you wanted to do was to get out of that bed and leave to resume your dying in a place of your own choosing - but you couldn't. So I would request more frequent medication to ease your agitation knowing with each added dose you were leaving me more and more. But it would be selfish to try to hold on to you. The last few mornings I was awakening always at 4:30 AM in the chair beside your bed from the few hours of sleep I would take. As I did so on that last day I knew things were different; the feverishness was gone, your skin felt cooler already and your breathing was barely perceptible. At 5:00 AM you slipped quietly away as I held your hand. Incredibly, you had survived 12 days without any nourishment or IV fluids. You did not want to go but you could no longer stay. As the sun rose, a slight whisper of a breath was your last farewell. I realized long ago I could not save you, but in the end I discovered I could help you in the leaving of this life. I did the best I could. I made many mistakes along the way, but I think I got it right in the end. Your death changed my life. I will always miss you my little sister. Love, Maureen

A Dryad for St. Paddy's Day!

My latest digital art piece stirs deep ancestral memories of an earlier time and place. A celebration of green just in time for St. Paddy's Day! Happy St. Patrick's Day! Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!

Come Hither Child by Emily Jane Bronte

Come hither, child--who gifted thee
With power to touch that string so well?
How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me,
Thoughts that I would--but cannot quell?

Nay, chide not, lady; long ago
I heard those notes in Ula's hall,
And had I known they'd waken woe
I'd weep their music to recall.

But thus it was: one festal night
When I was hardly six years old
I stole away from crowds and light
And sought a chamber dark and cold.

I had no one to love me there,
I knew no comrade and no friend;
And so I went to sorrow where
Heaven, only heaven saw me bend.

Loud blew the wind; 'twas sad to stay
From all that splendour barred away.
I imaged in the lonely room
A thousand forms of fearful gloom.

And with my wet eyes raised on high
I prayed to God that I might die.
Suddenly in that silence drear
A sound of music reached my ear,

And then a note, I hear it yet,
So full of soul, so deeply sweet,
I thought that Gabriel's self had come
To take me to thy father's home.

Three times it rose, that seraph strain,
Then died, nor breathed again;
But still the words and still the tone
Dwell round my heart when all alone. 

My Latest Collage Listings on ETSY!

Collage artwork as seen in my ETSY art shop at:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MaureenTillman?ref=si_shop

I Am by John Clare

I am! yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! and live with shadows tost Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life nor joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest—that I loved the best— Are strange—nay, rather stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below—above the vaulted sky. (copyright Maureen Kavaney Tillman 2013)