I’m honored to be a part of this collection of poems edited by Gabriela Marie Milton. The anthology is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit and our ability to heal and create from our wounds. Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women has been release one day early and is now available on Amazon.
To tumble out of the unfolding draw in a breath
Remember who you are
Remember the child who knew how to dance with light
Your doorway to truth
Like Alice peering into the Looking Glass without fear
Grab ahold of wonder
Dive into the ripening
You the vine, but also the seed
Arising from the place of beginnings
Everything already coded
waiting to break open
To reach beyond the ground
draw down light and spread the tender vine
Rejoining the spiral dance
To expound upon beauty
Uniquely yours to release
Dive out of the covers
And breathe fresh
Life yours to define
Mold ripe potential
Defining the turn of lines
Washing the edges with color
Until you forget work
In favor of creation
There is no need to rise
Above or below
But inward
The extraordinary is spiral
You, reaching to discover
The ecstatic dance of joy
In your own rhythm
The steps lighten
Opening the beauty of you
Again
I have been missing Sue, I’m sure I always will. Some days the pull to feel her presence is stronger than others. The other day, a friend of mine asked if I had reached out to her across the veil. Deliberately parting the veil is not something I do often these days. I have grown weary of the numinous and perhaps a bit distrustful. So many conspiracies and lunacies are now attached to the spiritual communities, yet there are aspects of home that cannot be denied when one steps into the space of silence. I’d like to think I heard her voice, again, in these words who are not just for me, but for anyone who doubts who they are. I share them here with visuals from the wonderful photographers on Pexels, open to individual interpretation…
You are evergreen boughs seeking water
You are a child gliding on a silver kite into the wind, breathless in wonder
You are hope letting go of despair
The wild window of wonder beckoning us back to life
You are beautiful in the essence of self
You are one thousand moments waiting to occur
The slipstream in the current pulling into infinite possibilities
You are life. Precious and uniquely yours to define.
I’m going to imagine something different:
The beauty of the goddess unfolding
Light softening the edges of life
Years, a mold of becoming
The inner child emerging
and merging into the dance
of a perfection that is truth
This messy cohesion of unity
Something radiant called a Life
So many journeys to get to this place
Defining and refining
Breaking down to build
Whole
Like a chalice spilling over
to fill again, and again
Tireless infinity splitting open
the moment not like a wound
but like a lover seeking joy
This seed waiting to germinate
finding the sun was always there
in the full splendor of wonder
watching the budding of a radiance
thriving under the moon, night
as much a friend as day
the taste of sorrow becoming happiness
refined
I wrote this poem before drawing 12 tarot cards as a reflection upon this day. Forty-eight years ago I was born into this life. A life that seems, at times, difficult to define and accept. Birthdays have never been easy days for me, in large part because they have been days, like all the others, not wholly mine to embrace and be embraced by. I knew I would find the chalice in the cards, but I thought it would be The Queen of Cups, as this is how the “I” has reflected itself over the years, but 12 cards unfolding this journey brought The Ace. I had, after all, asked for something new...
I write erasure poetry (also known as found poetry) for my @truthheals Instagram account and thought I’d share today’s “Love” poem here. Perhaps today is a good day to remind ourselves that we are all, in essence, love ❤️
When mid-September arrives I feel the anxious pull of letting go. As autumn calls forth the fire of summer in one last quick burst of color, I can’t help but feel a tug of melancholy watching life give way to the elements of the season. Then winter plunges life into a deep freeze and somehow I relax into the slow pace of darkness. It is is the season of the writer and the poet. A time to give way completely to the magic of night and let the imagination travel where it will.
The inner fire kindles alongside the hearth fire, both ignited to keep the “home” warm. Outer distractions lessen their draw as the cold calls the body inside to keep warm. These days my daily walks with the dogs are brisk and quick, unless I give into their appetite for gnawing at “stick-sicles.”
A pause allows the sight to expand and sometimes eyes meet in acknowledgement.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in a place without clearly defined seasons. Perhaps I would get used to the extremes of a nearly endless summer or winter, but it is more likely I would feel restless with waiting for change. The body and mind get used to cycling and the ebb and flow it offers. Growth wants to circle back to decay before rebirth occurs. As a writer, I rely upon the seasons. Summer gives me permission to turn outward and enjoy life unconfined. To take a reprieve from the page waiting for words and give way to the sun’s joy. Fall, in turn, prepares the nest for the enveloped life.
Digging into the folds of darkness is much easier in winter. One must welcome the night or perhaps go mad trying to ward it off. Then spring arrives just in time to awaken the sluggish body back to life. Winter is long here, but not quite too long.
It begins for us with my daughter’s birthday, which falls in early December. Soon after, we set up the Dicken’s village and fairy lights are lit inside and outside the house. Even though my children are no longer tiny, the season still feels magical.
Although I do miss traveling, the colder weather offers an excuse to hunker down and stay put. Most days I’m content to sit beside the fire and create even when it’s not always in the form intended. I seem to be at another impasse with the WIP, not quite sure how the protagonists are going to cross their paths again and when. As I wait for them to tell me, I turn to other endeavors.
I have friend, a fellow Indie author, who is encouraging me to grow my Instagram presence. She tells me I can’t simply post pretty photos without relevance and so I am urging the muse to try new directions. In the process, I’m finding short poems through erasure to post. The eye searches for words that pull while the hand blackens newsprint. It offers a strangely satisfying means to create something new out of what already exists. Rebirthing text in new form, I often find myself inside the process.
I saw you in the moors today
your hair wild like milkweed
blown free with she who waits
standing in the valley between
The wind, beckoning a caress
two faces turned upward in joy
Water, cleaving the breasts of the goddess
your feet streaming the memory of stars
The renewal of spring lapping the hillside
like a newborn lamb, and you standing
beside her remembering it all
hands clasped in reunion
opening the womb. The body
becoming formless, ripe, orange
walls pulsing the mother-beat
winged emergence breaking
through stone. Guardians
fortifying the chamber vibrating
your song as you become the light
of rainbows, again. Isis
enfolding and opening
lifts the veil to the path of stars
spiraling to welcome the dragon
descending, running the water
gold
For Sue
The opened body becomes the vessel
of healer and also receiver
I find her in the Seer’s Circle
cloaked in the feathers of owl, anointing
those who come to give also receive
in her beloved place of heather and stone
time and space unfold into the opening
I feel the press of her lips between the brow
🐉
Seven days brings us back to her circle
to witness the winged soul ever-giving
feathers of bird become the butterfly
“Look closely,” she tells me. “See.”
I watch membranes divide
into notes. Hear the music of cells
holding the song that is life
Enraptured until form turns slug-like
and I question the pull back to density
reluctant to notice what is soft is also strong
vulnerable, yeilding
the snail enters the body’s chariot
A tiny spiral opens
into infinity
and suddenly we are in the place of stars. Vast
limitless
the serpent pulls us into its arbor
to understand rebirth
above a farmer’s field
density becomes a head of stone
fixed as though immobile
“Each is a piece of Her. A brain’s repository.”
I nod, understanding distance to be a ruse and watch
wisdom circle the mound in the body of the serpent
collapsing time’s hold while the clock splits open
rising sinuous into the darkness
the serpent swallows the sun, transforming
into dragon. Now winged
returning to seed the waiting womb below
light splits the body’s veins
finding the path once again
Once again Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt photo has mirrored my dreams. It’s been a challenging two weeks. My computer died, again, and the resuscitation of it was more laborious and disruptive than I had hoped it would be. Breathing into the letting go what may be lost, and what may take monumental efforts to fully restore, has been a call to open the heart.
Lavender Dream
I dreamt of the self starved
my body yielding to others, breathing
out instead of in. I will be there
for you, she knows the whisper as rote
memory so deep the threads bind her own
love. You can see it in her narrowed hips
breasts, almost pre-pubescent. As though
the body learned before it could fully grow
to turn inward upon itself. Preservation
in the outer yielding. I will be there for you
too, her voice echoes outside its walls
He brought the amethyst cracked open. Primal
rocks forged by the Mother’s fire
bumpy and dulled gray on the outside
Broken by will. He placed them around my neck
A lei of love. Her lavender heart
revealed itself in a field of green
Love
returned
to love
The Light Behind the Story 