Poetry from SUSAN ELIZABETH REYNOLDS

OMIE November 1983

Her face
A mass of wrinkles
A tear or two
Would have eased
The creases
Her bones
Crumbling Beneath
Navigating by the light
Of her eyes
Youth focused within
Her hand
Parts the clutter
On the table
Stays in the house
Poor health, she says
Her words
A jumble of sounds
So heavy
They tumble to the floor
Ready to be
Swept away
Her day
Too many thoughts
Spoil the senses, she knows
Sipping coffee
A brew stiff enough
To dull the wind
Waiting for 
Each day to become
Tomorrow

LIKENESS 1986

Possum you have stolen my heart
Scampering into my den of thoughts
Galumphing like the Jabberwock
Tail held high you have 
Befriended me
Ever so polite encounters are brief
Rustling with a tail flick

Innocence intact
Your attraction to me is as it should

Orange peelings, old rice, burnt toast
And the like
Tossed forth with a strong
Flick of the Wrist
Final offering to the
Goddess of waste
Friendship based on the 
finest of stuff

Moonlight chases you 
Down to the creek
Flickers of the dust fly in your wake
Bristles your belly slung so low
Rotund like an orb afloat
In the sky
An image cone-like waddles in haste

Becoming dew you settle to a 
Comfortable spot
The opening of time slivered in a breast
Telling tales of ancient pantomime
You remember
Grey breath gone into mist

With the mist I shall join you
Someday
Quicksilver friend
Coming into mist
Someday
I shall join you 

ENIGMA November 1983

Intrigue
Worthy of Doyle
As morbid as
Dickinson
Calder blushes
in his largesse
Van Gogh
Appears sane
Einstein knew
Then enlightened
The world
Vonnegut slips
Into sweet sarcasm
While Davinci
Flies high
Yet the witness
Shifts in her seat
Waiting for a show
Already started

MISS ARTICULATION February 1984

Lisa was omission city
Sibilants
Come out her nose
If you listen to the empty spaces
In her speech
You can understand her
She doesn’t believe in substituting
one sound for another
Truncated speech like a
Stut  ter  er
Only worse
She doesn’t notice or appear to
She smiles, shrugs, repeats
When you apologize for being
Completely 
Lost

POEM
1984

Cultivate life
A harvest of blossoms
Will be your bounty
Enfolding yourself
Petal by petal

All images and poetry ©2021 
THE REYNOLDS FAMILY

Susan Elizabeth Reynolds (1954 – 2018), a Rochester native, was the third child with two brothers, Bill and Jim, and an older sister, Pat. She was “constantly in the process of becoming,” and over the years she accomplished a B.S. in Education, an M.S. in School Counseling, and an M.S. W. in Mental Health. She worked as a School Social Worker, a Child and Family Counselor, and a Speech-Language Clinician. While on her life’s journey, she lived for a while on a farm commune in the Missouri Ozarks, with no electricity or running water. Her life was peppered with physical struggles. She survived ovarian cancer, brain surgery, and bouts of depression. Through it all, those of us who knew her were always inspired by her dedication to improving the lives of others, through her deep understanding of their own struggles and need for validation. Her friends and family never knew that through it all, she was writing poetry, not only as a means of coping with life’s unexpected turns, but also to express the joy she found in every day. 

Poems of Survival
Reasons Not to Kill Yourself by Susan Elizabeth Reynolds
is available for purchase for $20 
(includes postage)

Send a check or money order to:
Pat Gawlick
3117 Krueger Road
North Tonawanda, NY 14120
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716-998-2677