Friday, November 18, 2022: Carole Mertz's "For Beloved Family Members Who Skate Around the Perimeter"

For Beloved Family Members Who Skate Around the Perimeter

For those who wake to make breakfast quietly for the rest of the family

For those who keep troubled thoughts to themselves

For those who desist before complaining about the job undone

There is something you’ve learned that I’ve yet to learn

For your patience in waiting

For studying and sometimes marking time while waiting

For those addressing difficult dilemmas

without condemnation, while searching difficult answers

For you, who have fallen many times, and still get up

and sometimes try a new road

For you, stumbling in a new career

For you, taking chances

For you, enduring loss

For you who charge, sail, and dive

into churning waters

For you who skate around the perimeter

searching for the center

tasking yourself to unravel your business acumen

and discover unknown strengths

For you who extend your hands to lift another up and work

on worldly matters that confound

For you who scatter and then gather, for you who dare

to share. For you who leave the perimeter to embrace the center

For you who sit in a room alone with ease

For you who rebut injustice

For you who strive, rest, and laugh

For you who wait for the sunrise peeking over the hill

© 2022 Carole Mertz

Bio: Carole Mertz writes prose and poetry in Parma, Ohio. She is the author of Color and Line (Kelsay Books, 2021), a poetry collection, and is book review editor at Dreamers Creative Writing. Carole is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has published poetry with Abandoned Mine, Eclectica, Poetry Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere.