Little bee
you came out
almost
too soon,
winter’s trickster feintBut sun is warm
bones thaw
you move again with grace
about your daily choresYour wings loose
and stretch
ready for flightViolas call
You cleaveAnd I ride your back
honeymeade our drink
eternity our design
In balance
I step hoop’s thin path
like a circus act
only there is no net
only balance
around I spiral
from center to
eternity
held safely
in our parity
Day 23: Peace Poetry Postcard Month
In winter’s forest room
light streams down
from eternity’s birth,
moss unfurls where
no sun alights,
vines yaw, rocks
linger in peace.Noiselessness drums
a tattoo of suspension,
clemency, tolerance.In the forest room
we rest to wonder,
breathe to embrace,
slumber our transfiguration.
Day 6: Peace Poetry Postcard Month
Voices thread in and out of
music wandering through
the cafe. Attorneys. Students.
Loner. More.We are brought together,
not for the same reason.
We eat or sip or chuckle,
wonder as sun sets behind the sign
announcing the daily special.Yet, we are here for the same,
a peace we hold together.
Strangers with only this place to be,
present in eternity.
I wanted to steal the day,
roll it up tight and tie it with greed
so no one else would have it.My desire to place it in the bottom of my bag
where dark resides with trinkets of past,
forgotten and tarnished from scraping
and jostling against one another.I didn’t want to surrender soft fog falling across
my path haloing tree, a thin veil guise with
glistening eyes following my travel.This day sun rose bereaved by thick grey clouds,
my face moist, not from exertion but
gentle mist kissing as I passed through her kingdom.This day I wanted to last forever, her dense quiet,
my steps not hollow or clicking down the walk,
but a fluid drift naive to sleeping souls
behind shuttered doors or under dense bush,
along sullen stream, or within towering aspen.My selfish heart,
slivered by that which I did not call to,
that which came without invocation,
ached to impound this treasured day,
safely kept from ruin.Instead,
this day I stopped, not to rob
but embrace that which opened
before my eyes,
a fullness unfurled to the unknown,
a place to slow and rest,
a place to be and take with me
memory to last through eternity.
.
.
.
Author’s Note:
A blessed Samhain. A holy All Saint’s Day. Feliz Dia de los Muertos.
Day Twenty Two
Big Blue Bear
Sunday worship, a custom
child with hat and white gloves, black patent shoes
kneeling, hands folded, head bowed in supplicationguitars, women nearer the altar, kiss of peace
a pause, a long time gone
new words for old prayers, re-imaging Christ
no longer defined by Sunday or its tired form
In reverence of Redwood architecture
joining air to earth to that which lies beneath
I stand in awe of your strength
pay homage to your constancyThree minutes down the city banded
alleyway, a wall to halt my vagrancy,
you press me to change my viewpoint,
look up instead of down, past high rise windows
my eyes ascend to glimpse a peek of sky where
buildings join air to earth
to that which lies beneath
In observance I discover
You are also hereOutside my glazed glass frame
a tree bows in reverence under snow,
crow, owl and squirrel, bees and spiders
await their spring ritual
Tree, oh Tree, you brush my face
in morning hello
tap my window in icy storm
wear that which I cannot control,
innocent release to what Is,
you welcome me to journey
enraptured I bow to YouLilacs, lavender, iris
purple flora scenting air
fill my lungs with song
I chant Your beingIn weep of rain,
I receive your indulgence
wash away quotidian dust
rain, oh, rain
a baptism of comfort issued
Your lullaby and caressI fear of being homeless,
without a house to cover my form.
But You are home within my being,
a house not of cards to collapse
with slightest breath
but Spirit filled dwelling
where I rest and cry, sleep and love,
You place yourself within
to walk with me in holy sanctuary
all the days of my lifeLeo was there to welcome him home,
a scrap from a letter, condolences from Pam
angel doggie card in remembrance of Bremen
canidae, anubis, golden wolf,
protector of graves and cemeteries
I celebrate your unwavering devotion
Dog and GodMagdalene, a most notable person,
not whore who washed his feet,
that image only for those who boast
of saving souls, condemning sinners,
I know you as woman of understanding
the one who saw, the one who loved
the one who believed
I praise your graceI am not the Big Blue Bear
peering into the great glass cave
hoping to be welcomed into
a walled-in temple, a postcard
perfect invitation to entice me
into a rigid model of salvation,
I choose to step aside,
turn around to join those in dance
under clear blue sky, each a unique
expression of You reveling in
your liturgy welcoming to all,
your holy sacrament to make us OneThere is no conspiracy to
make me think I am Beloved,
I am
It is maitri,
through my bewilderment,
I find compassion
In disorientation, harmony,
with my befuddlement,
I am re-written, turned,
and in gratitude I accept me
I am Yours eternally
.
.
.
Author’s Note:
Click for how this poem came to be!
What I’ve used to create this piece:
Almanac Questionnaire
Weather: rain
Flora: lilacs, lavender, iris
Architecture: Redwoods
Customs: Sunday Worship
Mammals/reptiles/fish:
Childhood dream:
Found on the Street:
Export:
Graffiti:
Lover:
Conspiracy: not being beloved
Dress:
Hometown memory:
Notable person: Mary Magdalene
Outside your window, you find: my Tree
Today’s news headline:
Scrap from a letter: Condolence card for Bremen from Pam
Animal from a myth:
Story read to children at night:
You walk three minutes down an alley and you find: Wall
You walk to the border and hear:
What you fear: Being houseless
Picture on your city’s postcard: Big Blue Bear
When ghostlike fog wraps
itself around your arms,
be wary if you stay.
There is temptation
to welcome softness, allow
a mantling about and through
palms outstretched,
fingers sans raiment.
But its demands are fierce.There is impregnable beauty
if you do pause as cold
descends stilling fog’s path.
Majesty in each mounded
crystal cling, appendages
knitted one to another,
a new glove and cloak.
Astonishment in delicacy,
an artistry in lethal cold.I reach to you,
as trees on winter mornings,
undone. My once summer
facade laid bare,
a deathly inevitability.
No longer hiding my array,
I am yours to draw,
an artist’s form
for you to mold and pattern me,
a remarkable fragment of
your bewildering eternity.
.
.
.
It’s not always easy to see grace.
It is in letting go of what we think we are that we become what we must be.
You see, sometimes the Divine is not warm and fuzzy. Sometimes our Holy One comes through cold and harsh demands that make it difficult to realize the beauty unless we still ourselves and take the time to acknowledge it and experience it for what it is.
Nature is a threshold into the Divine. The snow crystals on tree limbs in early January were astounding. Fog hung thick as the bitter cold arrived. The fog, no longer able to stay afloat, settled on trees and turned into new forms of winter wonder. Many photos of this found their way into my life. My friend, Dorothea Madry, graciously allowed me to use her photo to pair with today’s poem.
Enjoy the cold. The barren trees. The icy mounds. You never know what gifts they bring.
Lexanne
Click here if you would like to receive this as a weekly newsletter, Journey/lex. It arrives either Friday or Saturday each week. I would love to have you join me along my journey.
I.
The moon hung, a bittersweet glow
cupped against midnight blue behind
boney arms of our grande dame maple,
whose leaves never turn red in fall,
only yellow then brown on fallow grass.As I watched,
just past a new day’s first hour,
I could almost see her luminous
crescent rock back and forth drawing
my eye upward, higher, a need to tilt
my head back and forth to discern
Your gift through lacy silhouette
branches standing guard between
me and Eternity.But she pointed me to it,
to a god always present,
maybe in a conflicting place
from one night to the next,
but always there, Jupiter,
a thunderbolt-bright comfort
knowing once and again
he would meet me.I am created no more
or less perfect than these.
I hold within myself the same
wonder of stars and moon
and trees rooted deeply into earth.
I grow and change, not staying
in one place, although I have lived
in this same place all my life.II.
When the world groans
under sorrow made
by hands of stone…Not stone that changes
the course of rivers.
Not stone that greets
a wanderer along her craggy pass.
These stones are as Spirit filled
as every heart that beats…But when the world groans
from counterfeit hands
made of false stone that cannot see
within themselves the utter sweetness
of the Beloved, nor the Beloved’s
consummate sweetness in souls
they stone, I feel pieces explode until
all that is left is blackness, a dark hole
so profound not even Jupiter
could spark a flame.From where I stand
I must be what I am first made,
gentle light, devoted lover,
precious consecration of You.My hands, made of Your passion,
must open
to each integer of Creation.I cry out like thunder in the desert,
groan and writhe,
but know You will hear my prayer
and open our eyes
to our manmade
stone hands of annihilation.May our prayers transfigure
our false hands
back into cupped hands
ready to receive Your timber.
.
.
.
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Thank you,
Lexanne
How do I settle myself into one way of being
where answers come from eyes that see through
one prism, many sides and angles sparkling
in rainbow light, but still within one way of being.I walk with many, who through compassion weave
their way from one point to the next not so concerned
of the correct way, the one way, but know the only way
will unfold by staying true, moving gently as One.I walk my path with my words freely given
patterning the road, trimming clouds, embellishing
trees, ornaments delicately suspended on branches,
perched on stems, fields baptized with me.I am free of musts and dos, onlys that try
to explain what something doesn’t mean.
I rest under wide sky berth of Eternity
mantling every being, not just a chosen few.
.
.
.
For more on this poem, visit Journey/lex, my weekly reflection.
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