The moment before, he knew.
She knew it, too—but she didn’t know
What it meant.
He had spent all he had in love
And in time—
For time is all we have to spend—
Not knowing that one second would turn into
Years.
The moment before, he felt.
She felt it, too, but it was in her mind—
What it meant.
Dripping with memories, mundane,
Like coffee brewing slowly—
For love steeps one drop at a time—
Her daydreams were painted in
Love.
The moment before, he released.
She released, too, but she didn’t expect
What it meant.
Embracing and letting go, to embrace again,
Was like brushing her teeth—
For some rituals cleanse even as they return—
He knew her expectation and knew he would
Fail.
In the moment, he could smell her.
She could smell her, too—and she knew
What it meant.
He started a fire between his head
And his heart—
For the heart stokes the kindling the mind provides—
But the embers burned deeper than he
Expected.
In the moment, he could see the glow.
She could see it, too, and she knew
What it meant.
The lingering warmth of his hand on her back
Felt like ice—
For ice signals death—
The frigidity was new but not exactly
New.
In the moment, his conscience writhed.
She writhed a little, too, and she knew
What it meant.
His goodbye lingered near,
Like a rattling snake—
For snakes wait, and then they strike—
And she stiffened her heart, bracing for
The end.
The moment was gone. The seconds counted
And done.
The hem of her gown swished away;
His countenance melted
Like fire melts ice,
And ice turns to water,
And fire boils it all to steam.
The end was the beginning.
The beginning was now.
He sat on the ground.
He looked to the sky.
The moon turned out its lamp—
And he knew what it meant.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Tag: Modern Poetry
Poem: Stillness
I stood beside the ocean once
And dared the waves to drown my breath
Toes nestled below the sand
Sinking further with the tide
I did not move
But the world moved around me.
The swells and crashes
Just beyond my reach
Roared against the sky in a game
I could not understand
And did not dare to join
But the world spun around me.
Nearly invisible spheres of water
Jumped from the fray
To cover my face one lick at a time
Until drenched my eyes and hair
Pulled me closer to the earth
But the world danced around me.
Foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog
Salt-filled gifts from places
Dark and rolling with darker tones
Stumbled toward my knees
And buckled me into the shore
But the world pushed around me.
Without becoming any more fierce
And not with a call to war or anger
The ocean pushed closer
Like a drowning man clawing toward
The horizon and I waited
But the world melted around me.
It meant me no harm
I was a stranger to the swells
And standing small before the darkness
I asked, “Why haven’t you heard me?”
The ocean smiled and I stood still
But the world leapt around me.
I fought a war inside my mind
And all the soldiers writhed in sweat
The battles long with rising smoke
Unseen and big but small
I sat instead of dying, marveling at the moon
And the world breathed around me.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025
Poem: Order From Chaos
Long ago two young men drew a map of the sky
Laying on their backs, perhaps,
Like children in tents with holes in the tops
They counted and connected the stars.
Order from chaos was formed in their eyes
Squinting into darkness
Blinded not by light but by enormity
And mysteries invisibly connected.
They traced routes with their fingers, point A to B,
Like homemade kites pursuing the way
With windy anticipation and
Lines to find what was or was not connected.
As the men grew beards, their love of the sky
Fell to the earth and to pieces.
Shatters of themselves were given away
To money, ambition, and work: disconnected.
One of the two held hands with success
Palms sweaty together and traveling
With compass pointed away from the heavens
And down to notifications and contacts: connected?
The other man poured his life slowly
Like a cup spilling over his family—a wife and two kids—
He drained all he had, a deluge of hope
And then gurgled and gasped as the woman fled: disconnected.
Alone—surprised by aloneness—
The un-wifed man lifted the tips of his naked fingers to the sky.
Suspended in air his hand wished to feel
To touch, to reach, to caress, to connect.
No alien hand reached with fingers to intertwine
So the man looked down, instead.
A tear dripped from his eye and onto his future:
Two children—looking up from the ground—
Counting and connecting the stars.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2015
Poem: God of the Street
What if God was as close as
The domed ceiling of an antiquated church—
Walls lines with stained glass
Depictions of before and after
Christ invaded the story
The history of man
A broader narration
An epic
A comedy
A tragedy
A lineage of life and death
And birth and
Resurrection.
The grandiose nature of
The Alpha and Omega—
The beginning and the end—
Could not be contained
The stained glass rattles
The musty, dusty wood
That used to be trees stretching
Tall in majestic places
Now bowing to parishioners
Waiting for
Waiting for
The release of weight
When men and women
Stand to their feet
Applaud and proclaim
Praise to the One that lives
Beyond the dome—
Outside the temple erected
His focus directed on each one
Who walks the streets
Umbrellas and tissue
And glasses and backpacks
Catering to their earthly needs
All the while moving inside
An invisible song
Pervasive notes swirling
In the air
The breath of God in the wind
His playfulness in
The wings of fluttering birds
His rejuvenation in colorful promises
Of spring
His love in the eyes of those
Who hold hands
His peace in the frogs croaking
Their midnight serenades.
He whose visage
Hangs in the churches
Broke through the walls to
Walk side by side
No dome
No tomb
No misunderstanding
No doubt
No running
No running
Can hold the God of
Everywhere
Prostrate
To our wood and plaster and
Ornately
Drawn windows:
It is we whose frames are weak
It is we whose knees
Must bend
Whose heads must bow—
It is our shatters
Our shards that the
Incense picks up and carries
Into the atmosphere
Palpable with life
And into the nostrils of He
Who broke through the dome.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2016
Poem: Slowness
There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. A man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down.
Milan Kundera, Slowness
Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time.
In existential mathematics that experience takes the form of two basic equations: The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.
Kundera, man. This guy just knows how to pierce into and extend a metaphor.
The question his thoughts inspire in me today is this: when we travel from the present moment to our memories–or an imagined future–does the speed of life around us change? How do we move from our imaginations to our current surroundings? Slowly or with speed?
Slowness
By Jill Szoo Wilson
A breeze blows through my window
proclaims,
"I wants to write,"
as it lifts the pages of my notepad–
the crinkling sound of paper–
no–
the sound of pages running across a sidewalk
though no footsteps follow behind.
Free, the pages tumble
twist into a roll–
double back salto tucked with a triple twist–
a pigeon holds up a sign,
"7 out of 10."
It had to be the pigeon.
No one else was paying attention.
The fluttering of the notebook page
pulls me back into the moment–
how many sounds have I forgotten to hear?
Do I hear the past
more loudly than today?
How many hours echo through a chamber of disparate chatter?
A dog is barking,
a squirrel's claws are tapping the inside of my ceramic pot,
I'm humming a song that was sung to me once,
the pigeon is bored–
he flys away.
©Jill Szoo Wilson, 2023
Necessary Whispers 