Nature's Holy Plan
from Push Mountain Road by Pat Durmon
​
In autumn
I am brought to my knees
by fiery wonders—
a canopy of lush crowns
burning in low valleys
and upon the mountains overhead.
In winter
winds speak in riddles,
blowing leaves and sweeping sky
clean of clouds. I hold everything up
to the light. I am a deer peering through
a ragged curtain of trees.
In spring
I become a voyeur, looking at
a hundred shades of green.
Everything slows for me
to plant seeds, smell the rain,
watch bluebirds work a house.
In summer
the sun dawns shell pink in a cloudless sky.
I am stunned to stillness
by a mist whispering up
the river bank to nestle
against the earth’s wet breast.
An Abiding Place
from Push Mountain Road by Pat Durmon
​
on this Sabbath Day
I search for love lavished
within walls where stained glass
reigns high,
and there,
I listen hard
for broken bread
and poured-out wine
while
a white-haired old man
faces a sermon
and droops his head
as if inviting a brighter light
to take him over
like wafting gardenias
make sure
nothing else
exists
Lost
from Lights and Shadows in a Nursing Home
by Pat Durmon
After her six-week stay in the hospital,
I drive my mother to a nursing home
ten miles away from her perennials
and her rain gauge. She and I stare
straight ahead like two shipwrecked
survivors. A muted sort of grief.
A nurse wheelchairs Mother
through wide doors of an outstretched
buff brick building. I follow
while sorrow wells in my throat.
Today, two weeks later, I come and go
like fog. Brief visits, long visits.
Each trip connecting me to her and others
in rooms linked like a bracelet. She
talks about the cold and asks for a sweater.
An ice sculpture grows
in the center of my chest.
Her fast eyes know I too am lost.
My dull brain wonders about a manual.
Where is it? The manual telling me
what to say and what not say,
how to respond to tender moments,
what to do when her mind flames.
I need the big map showing
the dark narrow roads,
not just the interstates.
Pat Durmon remembers the experience in the poem: This poem is an early scene of the last decade of my mother’s life. She and I are in it together. The book explores the thought that life in the nursing home has lights and shadows. Many of the poems focus on moments in ordinary days. The poems purposefully tell about real things that happen to real people in nursing homes. Moments of joy can be created in a nursing home, and the family member can learn to see the light if he searches for it. This book helps the family member looking for the light with eyes and heart.