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 ❤️
Category: Poems
Long Nights Feed the Muse #writing #foundpoetry
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 lesson 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 new growth 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.
What I saw this morning #poetry
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
upon two faced turned upward in joy
Water, cleaving the breasts of the goddess
at 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
Two 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
Healing Gifts
For Sue
The opened body becomes the vessel
of healer and also receiver
And so I find her in the Seer’s circle
cloaked in owl’s feathers, anointing
those who come to give
Here, in her beloved place of heather and stone
time and space unfold into the opening
and I can 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
Suddenly, the serpent appears
pulling us into its arbor
above the farmer’s field to understand rebirth
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
Lavender Dream #Dream #Writephoto #poetry
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, 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
#Soar #writephoto
Soar
I dreamt of the voice shuttered
tight against the storm. Words
held behind the clouded window, urgent
We are here!
Blue feathers lined in black resting
in sunlit trees. Impossibly large
No, they cannot be mine
I doubted the impossible
stroking the membrane of the quill
so many gathered stories filling
the space beneath, calling
through the echo of time
wondering why the throat
is like a storm cloud waiting to break
open to the sun. Wondering why
space needs to be confined and the bird
of truth lies in wait
for permission to soar
Once again, I had a feeling that Sue’s photo would echo my dreams. For Sue’s #writephoto writing prompt,#Soar.
Imagining A World Made New #poetry
I’m trying to imagine a world made new
A riptide of dis(ease) softening into rebirth as seven
billion people grow golden filaments
around the darkness of our womb. At night
I claw dirt back into Her body
to know the heartbeat wrapped inside the winged
Release the tired shoulders, She whispers, you
who have learned to wear blades
seeking to stretch beyond the chrysalis
To Breathe Whole
Arms, ready to release
the heavy weight of fight, trap
the body collecting pain without permission
You wounded warriors of the light
stamp identity across the heart
pressing the false hold into a battle cry
lodged inside the forgotten throat
Open
the portal to the heart and allow the soul
to shout victory
Darkness is a demon
only if left unexplored. Let the cry loose
Let it soar through the shadowland inside
until it ignites the joy
that is life. Real life
Release those golden threads and weave
the memory
of unity
whole
#Together #writephoto
Together
At the edge of land the sand releases
back to the sea to be reborn
Oh to be one tiny grain tumbling into endless re-
union, pulled effortlessly back into the tide
waiting to let go. To feel a full surrender
to trust knowing unity awaits
after the pure ecstatic rush of release
Oh to be birthed, over and over
by love as day melts into night
For Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt #together
The Global Heart #poetry
I cannot help thinking of the heart
and life’s breath held in separation
A viral wrap, searching for community
opening the return of the forgotten
goddess. She peers green eyes of the forest
through locks of fire. An earthen trunk
rooted to the life lines. Horns tuned
to the stars, bridging the divide
How everyone is feeling
the broken as fear’s seize spreads dis-
ease. Time, collapsing and morphing
twisting minutes too surreal to be real
Too real to be false. Lies breaking the voice
gasping for air through constricted lungs
while she breathes her return, softly beckoning
from the shadows. Can you see me now?
she asks. The key is held in your heart
and all
#Torrent #Writephoto #poetry
The water cleaves the heart of the forest
opening the wound. Forcing its way to freedom
it pours the mud of civilization into her gaping chest
beating a rhythm faster than nature
We have forgotten how to move
with her river. How to beat the heart in time
with the flow and not race
speed. We, hasty creatures of greed defined as progress
lament the loss of the free soul. It cries through the open wound
A torrent of tears falling on deafened ears. Angry men,
too white to remember the goddess inside
stand at the point of the sun and shout anger. Feeble
hands grasping power that was never theirs to hold
while she waits in the shadows, her breast
splaying wide their wound, dripping pain
The drain of life force unstopped
becomes the torrent of fear
and we, its helpless child
grasping to hold
love
For Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt, #torrent