When I go away from you, I leave you wholeheartedly and without reserve.
If we are destined to endure each other,
Distance will be required from time to time.
When I go away from you, know that it is for our own good.
Speaking my truth to deafened ears serves neither of us,
And trying only deepens a silenced wound.
When I go away from you, I will return to remind you
Of how dearly you are loved,
Just before I say farewell.
© 2017, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
The days between rain and intermittent deluges are increasing in duration.
My garden is thirsty, the palette is dry.
I cried you a river filled with sorrows, and was healed by the joyful release.
© 2017, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
While you were away, I struggled with my power and created dances for mad girls
singing love songs of despair.
Pablo Neruda would have been proud of my endeavor.
I have no photographic image to show you the grace with which I moved,
only nine words of encouragement that I utter upon awakening from the dream:
© 2016, Theresa Mae Funk. All Rights Reserved.
Sweet and delicate, Poppy,
I can’t find the words to tell you what you already know.
© 2016, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
While you were away, I went hiking in the Sierra Nevada’s and filled my lungs full of pure and fine air . I let my feet fall wherever my intuition led me, and took great care to tread lightly on the ancient sacred trails.
© 2016, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
While you were away, I traveled to Atlanta, Athens, Appling, and then home again by plane.
I snapped a passing shot of A mural in Athens, Georgia for you, and call it Untitled, painted by an artist un-named. A bride and groom were married later the same day.
Tall pines and the lush greenery of the landscape was my daily meditation on humidity.
I read pages from Basquiat’s Unknown Notebooks at the High Museum of Art in my own Neoexpressionist style, then hatch-marked my heart to Vik Muniz’s sleeve.
© 2016. Theresa Mae Funk, all rights reserved.
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
(Excerpt from the poem Tulips by Sylvia Plath )
This rain drenched tulip winters in the garden’s row of spinach and chard.
© 2016, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
It’s well known that he who returns never left…
(an excerpt from the Pablo Neruda poem Goodbyes)
After 37 days of self-imposed exile, I sit down at my desk in the day’s fading light to write these few lines,
taking pleasure in knowing that my quiet return has not disturbed your slumber.
I’ve been drifting on a river full of memories and dreams while casting off regrets and wonder,
If my absence went unnoticed, why is it that I care?
© Theresa Mae Funk, 2016. All rights reserved.
In colorful silence on a nameless boathouse wall, flightless birds of the Livermore Yacht Club artfully display their tempered rigid wings. Meanwhile, The Sparrows of Redhook, New York dream of flight in an endless sky, saving their voices for a reverberated cry of freedom.
© 2015, Theresa Mae Funk. All rights reserved.
THERESA MAE FUNK 