Sweet Anodyne

Sweet Anodyne

By: Lora Bayh

Living in a world, not allowed to feel, to express, to be….uninhibitedly….who I am at the deepest part of me. Walking through my days, fixed gaze, thoughts running wild….like a child…excitedly my imagination flares, in ways adults not dare. Love inside so strong, so deep, that runs so long….unendingly….the greatest part of me, yet alone I stay, hiding inner child away. Duality a whirl, a little girl, and grown-up, little girl won‘t shut up…fighting over me…and I’m rooting for the girl you see. Hold her hand tightly, beg her to behave politely, don’t make a fool of me, not how I’m supposed to be…almost parochially…but oh so secretly, wishing I could truly set her free. A din devil stole her wings, so she hides in pleasant things…capricious pondering….she’s the part I love the most and I’ll never let her go. She’s the secret, happy thought, she peeks through my eyes an awful lot….giggling wildly, never mildly, she lifts me up and sets my grown-up feet to dancing. Living in a world where I’m supposed to be climbing numbly through the years with a stoic pose…mature repose…shrouded in the black and white confinement of my age. But gleefully, wingless little sprite won’t let me be…sweet anodyne….leaving behind the traps that world I’m living in hides cleverly. It’s she, enticing me to skip when I should walk, to talk and talk and talk….voluminously…when my grown-up ears are more inclined for listening. My eyes glistening with her never-ending awe, seeing all the way she saw….venerable shell….but inside I’m playing house dressed up for wandering.

Locked Inside

Locked Inside
By: Lora Bayh

There are times when all that can’t be
Overshadows all that could be
Accentuated by all the need be’s
Making what could be out of grasp.
There are times when things we want
Lay out of reach, serve to taunt
Just a dream pushed back for ought
Making us sacrifice those secret things.
Then there are times inside we know
If we had the guts to go
And pursue what taunts us so
We’d find content.
But there are rules, that higher ground
That serves to force we lay dreams down
And find pleasure in what surrrounds
Making dreams a treasure locked inside.
And then the scope of all that could be
Interweaves itself in what’s uniquely
The DNA of personality
Making those dreams determine who we are.
For it’s the secret that we keep
It’s for the sacrifice we weep
That those who know us never see
What we give up to give ourselves to them.
That, for them, we lay down who we are
That we stop reaching for those secret stars
We place our lives behind surreptitious bars
And just be who we’re supposed to.
That’s the beauty of sacrifice
The laying down without thinking twice
For what’s right will itself suffice
If we let the dream light us up within
And illuminate the need be
By the surrender of the could be
Keeping us from drowning in the can’t be
Making us better in the end.

Happy, happy Mothers Day.

Happy, happy Mother’s Day.
By: Lora Bayh
May 9th, 2009


He brought me, what he explained was a turtle, painted partially green.
The cutest little abstract turtle my eyes have ever seen.
He brought me a little flower, in a tiny Dixie cup.
And a cookbook he’d designed himself,
With recipes “that will fill our tummies up.”
He brought me a masterpiece, he’d created for me in art.
A flower blooming, and written there, the contents of his heart.
It bestowed on me the honor of “Best Friend in the World.”,
Among it’s paper petals as if the words had just unfurled.
He brought me his excitement, that I should have a day,
When “Mommy” was a special word he loved so much to say.
He then ran off so quickly, and left me there to think,
With all those lovely treasures, he was gone before I blinked.
And as he flittered off, to adventures sure to be,
It occurred to me, how very much, he reminded me…of me.

And I thought….

A mother is a woman, who gives herself away
To the children God entrusts to her, as light to lead their way.
She’s a creature led by instinct, who acts by love alone.
She’s a once upon a time daughter with babies of her own.
She has questions, she has fears, she kisses boo-boo’s and smiles through tears.
She’s a anchor, she’s the hub, she tends to every need with love.
She had dreams, but can’t deny, her children’s victories quiet her sighs.
She gets so tired, at times confused, then she looks at them and can’t refuse.
She’s just a woman, yet in her hands, she holds the future by tiny hands
She’s nothing great, but nothing small, she’s the foundation, the wherewithal.
She is me, she’s is you, just women loving those we love with all we do.

And as I thought…

I saw through memories comforting view, my younger self with gifts that I’d made too.
And for a moment I was back, sitting so safely on her lap,
As together we discussed these gifts I brought, as if I were a gifted tot.
She smiled so lovely, my tears then grew, understanding exactly what she knew…
That a mother just needs a moment or two, when she knows that she has gotten through.
And the love she shares has been received, and is returned and valued endlessly.
The acknowledgement, the moment shared, the love that passes beyond compare
Undoubtedly enough to suffice, and so much greater than the sacrifice.
This Mother’s Day as twelve before, I’m a daughter who has a mother no more.
Yet with her love locked in my soul I’m a mother who is completely whole.
With a turtle, a flower, a cookbook and art, the best friend of the best boy with a great big heart.

If

IF
By Lora Bayh

If another finds me here, what would that mean to you.
If another see’s inside of me the way you do?
If another came along that wanted me, would you care?
If another had the strength in them to dare?
If another saw that I possessed real worth, would you agree?
If another‘s embrace could lift me up gently?
If another had the courage to pursue, would you envy?
If another got inside the place you possess in me?

If another came along, would I even notice him?
If another wasn’t everything you’ve been?
If another tried to take the blinders off my eyes,
If another did he’d see you in my eyes.
If another pushed so hard against these walls
If another pushed I wouldn’t feel at all.
If another didn’t look, sound, taste, and touch like you
If another couldn’t make me feel all that you do
Then "if" is just a useless word it seems, if you can never be mine, if love doesn’t mean thing.

When the Magnolias Bloom



When the Magnolias Bloom.
By: Lora Bayh

I was just a little girl, watching my mother, memorizing her every move.
Spring’s first hints excited her so, but none more than the Magnolias bloom.
Too young to understand the fuss, the love, the anticipation,
But enough to gasp at daddy , “Daddy, “Magmolyas” will be here soon!!!”

She’d take a moment daily, to check upon it’s progress
Gauging with elation the beautiful perfection of it’s immergence.
My mother was never more alive than… when the Magnolias bloomed.

There was something more to it all, just beneath the surface.
I can recall her standing by it’s side,
dark red bark, soft pink petals…her own beauty magnified
by the mystery of this scene.
I could have sworn a precious child, in mother’s hazel eyes
was peering back at me…as she explained their flowers die
then come alive as the grandest in God’s scheme.

The Magnolia tree in our front yard stood so many years in a place of reverence
Through those years I saw it’s beauty but never quite realized it’s greater purpose,
And why mother was never more alive than… when the Magnolias bloomed.

A spring some twenty five years later, from that earliest memory, marked the pinnacle of tragedy
Of many befalling our family.
She’d faced so much with courage, and stood her ground like steel, but when the tree was damaged
She grieved as much as heart could feel.
Still, I couldn’t see it, I just couldn’t comprehend, how a little tree had come to be
My mother’s dearest friend.
Or the sadness in her pondering, for the spring that was to come,
Or the ache her heart was feeling if it’s little blooms be done.



As spring approached she watched it close, even more closely than before,
And I noticed she stood lingering much longer at the door.
What would be to come… if our tree was done…when the Magnolias bloomed?

It took some extra time, but life did find a way, mother’s excitement couldn’t be contained
When a single bloom appeared one warm spring day.
Then another, and another, though it could just produce a few,
It might as well have been thirty feet tall, for it took up all her view.
She, though, seemed so different, like part of her was lost,
As if the tree took something with it, and she did pay the cost.

She seemed older, much more fragile, like the petals she loved so dear
And seemed to listen more to spring than what my ear could hear.
And her gentle beauty came more alive this time… when the Magnolias bloomed.

By August of that summer, mother’s time with us ended. Unexpectedly, she went on to her rest.
As I, in my own grief, sifted sweetly through her secrets, I found the answer to the mystery she had left.
A paper folded neatly, tucked in a yellowed journal, written by my mother’s younger hand…
Told with such emotion, of a daughter’s devotion, to her daddy who’d helped her to understand.


She had written him a love song, when he had passed away,
Vowing how she’d not forget the promises he’d made…
Of how life begins again, how she’d always remember him…when the Magnolias bloomed.

My minds eye recalled those many years, and all my wondering,
at the hope she grasped so fervently at the dawn of each new spring.
Tears were streaming down my face and my throat too choked to breath,
heart beating so inside my chest that I started to feel weak.
For years I’d been a witness to a miracle of love, enduring far beyond the bounds of earth and sky above.
She kept it to herself, yet shared it all the same, she honored all he’d shown her and turned, into joy, all her pain.

And now it’s been twelve years, and now it’s spring again,
and now my son stands with me as we take the beauty in.
As the blooms start to engage us, and their appearance weakens strife,
as my mother comes to me again, as I thank my God for eternal life…
Now my own son’s watching me, memorizing every move,
and I’m feeling so alive and very thankful too,
and I believe he thinks I’m beautiful…when the Magnolias bloom.

Fool

Fool
By Lora Bayh


Putting faith in wrong things,
Traveling dead end roads,
Holding things that can’t be,
Never more alone.
Touching fire
Self imposing pain
Breaking the umbrella
And drowning in the rain…

No blame…I did this to myself…

Opening heart and soul to be mishandled
Treading water with weights tied on my feet
Looking for crumbs on a gravel path
Tasting the sour after the sweet.
Closing eyes to my own actions.
Who’s that person in the mirror?
Surprised at my reaction.
Should have known I’d end up here.

Such shame…why’d I do this to myself?

First rule of want;
Don’t want what you can’t get.
First rule of heart;
Don’t choose the wrong outlet.
First rule of trust;
It’s something to be earned.
First rule of the fool;
It’s easy to get burned.

All in vain….and I did it to myself.

I Thought...

I Thought…
By: Lora Bayh

I thought of you today. I thought of the softest touch
Of a gentle smile, hidden so strategically.
I thought of a simple word or two, each to me a clue.
I thought of you with peace. I thought how safe it felt
In your embrace, your gentle face,
A tenderness intrinsically
Part of the chemistry, your voice still in my head
The things you said,
And the things you’ll never say.
I thought of all the miles
That obstruct my view, of lovely you
Of the time we’ll never spend
And the time we’ll steal away
Right or wrong
Still pressing here, then gone, that will always be this way.
I thought about my part
lonely girl, impending broken heart
And how I cannot turn and run
How long I’ve wished for one…like you
How that knowing has sentenced me to
The painful blade of knowledge.
Wasn’t ignorance bliss before your kiss,
Before I knew what was really missing.
Never to have missed who I wasn’t kissing.
My heart will want for more.
I thought of you, and I thought of me
I thought, “I’ll think these thoughts till the end of me.”