SUZANNE S. EATON - POEMS

Suzanne S. Eaton is an author and marketing consultant. She has written many corporate stories and magazines. She authored the book “Chinese Herbs,” which was reprinted seven times. She has written for various publications and anthologies. Most recently, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Writer Shed Stories, Seaborne Magazine, The Purpled Nail, The Silent World in Her Vase (TSWHV), and Scarlet Leaf Review have selected her work for publication. 

Pain-Sighted
​

​She stood in front with the black refuge of the back row all over her.
Spoke braids of truth wound up in a feverish ball.
Hit the surface darkly with words that corrupted the shine of the cause. 
Momentum gathered like logs thrown at a fire until it suffocates.
What happens when the glitz of it all outplays the inmost wrath? 
A fire too hot—more heat than light, exhausted.
 
He stood as white as an achromatic rose, albino eyes—wildly blind, 
saw every soul, a part of the whole—didn’t pretend to sort veracity. 
She warned him of the lusty agitation that would deride his context,  
tried to proffer him the outrage and subversion below it all.
But, he knew—born in pain and despair—he sensed injury wherever it was,
soaked up the hurt, the slights, the harassment and the spite.
 
The more he spoke, the more they saw him—the most grievous victim. 
“All are oppressed in different ways,” he said. “But here is anguish we can heal.”
A conflux of cannabis-like conciliation settled over the populous room.
The vagary stood on the head of a pin as the mass chanted, then debated,
and fell into vacuous silence as he turned again to speak.
“We must be colorblind,” he said, “but always be pain-sighted!”
 

Color
​

​Wild combinations of color
Make the eye dance from left to right,
Across a spectrum, from black to white.
 
Green ruffles against big blue skies
Make the heart breathe new life,
Obscuring the color of strife.
 
Overlapping bands of merging color
Arch together to gracefully ply
The multicolored bow in the sky.
 
Bright crayons and wet paints
Touch the canvass anew,
—The color of me, the color of you.
 
What is color if not a gift
To the mind, to the eye and the soul.
Embrace each hue—color us whole!
 

His Stride
​

​Huge hands lifted a fair-haired child, suddenly
within his sight.
 
Blue eyes danced as he teased and swooped
an airplane-child in flight.
 
Two tiny feet perched atop his well-worn shoe.
Pretending not to see--
 
He’d walk away in robust stride with flailing arms
grasping at his knee.
 
Another child giggled and ran to ride, to swing
with grandpa’s gait.
 
Then forward and back and left to right he’d sail
he’d skip, he’d alternate.
 
Even now, a backward glance evokes a childish grin
from deep inside.
 
Knowing how his eyes must dance as we, his posterity,
still reach to match his stride.
 
 

Her Quiet Touch
​

​Knees thick from kneeling
   to rid a patch of earth of weeds and briar,
   to ease soft berries from a thorny vine,
   to lift new potatoes from earth’s embrace
   with measured care.
 
Hands lean from continual crafting
   to warm the house with baking bread,
   to lay in place her polished wares,
   and set a heavy table with a stranger’s welcome
   --a humble feast.
 
Home warm with simple memories,
   a front porch collection of music and games,
   hallways that echo cedar-chest stories,
   paperdolls trimmed on a braided rug
   at the hearth.
 
Eyes closed, I breathe a sigh and reach to feel
   Her quiet touch.
 

Persistence
​

​Tasting of life’s injustices
  Feeling spent on labors lost
    —Defeated and despairing?
 
            Hold on.
 
      Watching your dreams
        Get realigned by someone
          Who never caught their vision?
 
                   Hold on.
 
            Not every seed that’s sown
             Will show above the ground,
               But spring returns, plant again.
 
                         Hold on.
 
                   For, around life’s corner
                    As seasons change
                     Your dreams will fall to richer soil.
 
                                           Hold on.
 
                         Then watch as opposition
                           Gives way to persistence,
                           And cultivate a blessed opportunity.
 
 
 

Pavement
​

​There is an avenue of the mind
Paved with simple attitude.
 
We grade the road with faith and hope
Or spread and fill with graveled doubt.
           
A simple choice, laid flat in thought
One takes the edge and holds the road
 
It’s faith or doubt, and left unchecked
One will destroy the other.
 
Like pavement mixed with too much lye
An ever-crumbling useless path.
 
Attitude will mix right in, to map the mind
The net result--a life defined.          
 
 

Rainbow
​

​Small storms
             brewing between us.
 
Thunder,
            lightening, endless rain.
 
Bitter cold
            and gusty winds
 
Blowing
            to and fro in vain.
 
But there
            inside the darkness
 
A rainbow
            spreads its glow;
 
A promise
            that this storm will pass
 
And softer
            winds will blow.
 
Sunshine
            follows the rainbow
 
Its warmth
            begins to fill
 
Oh rainbow
            of such fervent hope
 
Restore
           our umbrella of loving will.