Goodbye Cathy

[outsdr]

I know the older I get that this will happen with greater frequency. But accepting that it will happen does make it easy to go through.

Cathy was always a bright and friendly face for me, no matter what state I myself was in. The world is less without her. My condolences to her family, and to all the friends she's left behind. I hope that one day, I will be remembered just half as well as you will be.

Here's the pertinent info from the email I received earlier:

Dear Poets and Friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that Cathy McCracken has passed away. Cathy was a vibrant part of the poetry community for many years  and is the author of Earth Dreams by Blue Heron Press. She received her MFA in English from UNM. She will be remembered as a poet, mother, musician, gardener, massage therapist, mentor and many other things to the many people whose lives she touched.

 
Thank you,

Maresa T

On behalf of Cathy’s daughters

In remembrance, here’s a poem from Cathy’s book Earth Dreams:

Lady Jesus of the Aspens

entering and entered

in your wounded sap flows unfamiliar,

face set round with amber wings

the arms of solace

lady, hold the door to endings, 

close your reverential limbs,

be honest to the five

directions

robed in reddened hunger

heartwood held between a timid peace

and pagan wars of retribution

here you whisper, whisper round the leaves

as aspens mutter, weaving loss in motion

lady, Jesus, caught inside

the clutch of summer, dryad bound

beneath a cloth of gleaming bark

I see you bleeding where the stag

has stabbed, the flow in times

long past just pale, grows redder

with the years

I long for you,

who came before, who wounded once

and buried here, within new earth

can hold my voice inside of yours

can carry all my resined hopes

sister, enter:

in your body, I become a golden leaf 

of time and death which cannot die, nor

even stop remembering,

in arms, in sap, in blood which follows

down the furrows of these trees

you take me back: enjoin us now

places have these visitations

no surprise that beauty suffers

in the aspens as it did in Jesus’ time

and long before and will again

lady, enter:

Every way you show me

I will also follow

-Cathryn McCracken