Deanne Patterson

“This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it!”
― Psalms 118:24

“Go, and be as the butterfly”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“The Background"

Everything is quiet since you're not around
And I live in the numbness now
In the background
I do the things we did before
I walk Haight Street to the store
And they say where's that crazy girl
You don't get drunk on red wine and fight no more
I don't see you anymore since the hospital
The plans I make still have you in them
Cause you come swimming into view
And I'm hanging on your words
Like I always used to do
The words they use so lightly
I only feel for you
I only know because I carry you around
In the background
I'm in the background
Words they come and memories all repeat
I lift your head while they change the hospital sheets
And I would never lie to you no
I would never lie to you no
I felt you long after we were through, we were through
The plans I make still have you in them
Cause you come swimming into view
And I'm hanging on your words
Like I always used to do
The words they use so lightly
I only feel for you
I only know because I carry you around
In the background
Cause I felt you long after we were through
Well you come swimming into view
And I'm hanging on your words
Like I always used to do
The words they use so lightly
I only feel to you
I only know because
I'm way I'm way in the background
I'm in the background

Third Eye Blind (1997)”
― Third Eye Blind

“The Black Snake"

When the black snake
flashed onto the morning road,
and the truck could not swerve--
death, that is how it happens.

Now he lies looped and useless
as an old bicycle tire.
I stop the car
and carry him into the bushes.

He is as cool and gleaming
as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and quiet
as a dead brother.
I leave him under the leaves

and drive on, thinking
about death: its suddenness,
its terrible weight,
its certain coming. Yet under

reason burns a brighter fire, which the bones
have always preferred.
It is the story of endless good fortune.
It says to oblivion: not me!

It is the light at the center of every cell.
It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward
happily all spring through the green leaves before
he came to the road.

Mary Oliver, Twelve Moons. (Back Bay Books August 30, 1979)”
― Mary Oliver, Twelve Moons