25 Comments
User's avatar
Virginia Curtis's avatar

These are both wonderful. The second one makes me feel I should start getting up earlier to greet the day. Love, Virg

James (HVR)'s avatar

I guess the son did leave us yesterday. Jerk.

Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

“Morning, mourning” is the little blade here. Both poems feel like weather doing emotional labor, which is frankly very on brand for weather. Snow makes the world quiet enough for red birds and bent spines to become revelations. Morning is less polite. It arrives viscous, insistent, dragging us out of dreams whether grief is finished with us or not. The sun does not ask if we are ready to rise. Rude little star. Holy little tyrant. Still, we rise.

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Hi! Thanks for stopping by. I truly appreciate the comment.

williamphaynes/elliott's avatar

A wondrous bit of writing

Brandi Lynn's avatar

That final shift from "morning" to "mourning" completely recontextualizes the whole piece, it captures that heavy, aching feeling where the world forces you to wake up but your heart is still stuck in the past ✨

AsukaHotaru's avatar

The cardinals becoming just red birds~ Snow can cancel the whole day and still have the nerve to place little red witnesses in the yard, like evidence with feathers. XD

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

...like evidence with feathers. There's a poem in that phrase. You should write it.

Libra's avatar

Beautifully written.

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Thank you, and thanks for stopping by.

Meridith Garbutt's avatar

hahah are they "really unrelated?" can anything truly be "separate" are we "completely independent?" what was in you when these poems arose? YOU are the link between these 2 apparently "unrelated things" lol looooveeee youuuu!!! aho mitakusyin! to all my relations!!!

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Fair. Fair. Certainly related to me!

Enayat's avatar

Awesome

Monica A Leyva's avatar

Kim, these poems feel like two different windows into the same house of memory. Snowed carries a quiet simplicity that transforms ordinary winter images into something luminous, while Morning unfolds with a dreamlike cadence that gradually reveals its grief. The final turn..."Everything aches, still / in this insistent morning, mourning lands with remarkable force. Such a small phrase, yet it holds an entire history of loss.

Beautiful work. Monica

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Thank you for reading and commenting so thoughtfully, Monica.

Monica A Leyva's avatar

It is always a pleasure to read your work.

Travis Lowe's avatar

"You left me yesterday. Or was it the year before?" oof. That one hits. Thank you.

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Grief hits like that, sometimes, yes?

Marco's avatar

Verses and pic: devastating good.

Kasu (small wounds)'s avatar

How beautiful. This line

eyes refusing daylight

Touched something deep inside me.

Thank you.

Kim Williams, M.Div.'s avatar

Your reading and comments always mean a lot. Thanks for stopping by.