Category Archives: poetry

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Wings and fog ferry

Wings

I try out
for a solo
singing

my director
is pleased
I am growing

she says
I am beautiful

she says
I look like a different person

she knows
a little of what I have weathered

 
my patient
is 86

and her husband died
in December

she misses him so

as she comes into the room
one day

she says
you look as if you have wings
and are ready to take off

and I freeze
for a moment

in surprise

that she can see
my wings.

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Tree boat

A friend wrote a tune to my poem Tree boat.

 

Build me a boat to float in a tree
A boat of dreams and play there with me
Float in the sky in the leaves so green
Our hands together shaping a dream

Build me a boat to heal our wounds
Scarred hearts and muscles play out of tune
The world is fearsome, hold me soon
From the tree we watch the rising moon

Build me a boat to carry us far
A moon sextant to chart where we are
To Betelgeuse or another star
We are home wherever we are

Build me a boat to float in a tree
Or a lake or a stream or an ocean all three
I dream of a boat with joins so tight
Holding us safe to sleep all night

Build me a boat smooth and slow
The plans alone could take years you know
Smooth each plank with a hand plane slow
And tell me you love me soft and low

Written November 2015. I took the photograph one evening after chorus when the clouds looked like a Maxfield Parish painting….like a dream.

 

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Loved

It’s ok

I just want you to know

even if I never see you again
even if I never touch your hand
even if I never hug you again
even if you don’t answer
even if you don’t let me in
even if you are deaf to anything I say
even if you forget the moment you stop reading
even

I just want you to know

you are loved you are loved you are loved

always

even if

for my lost ones, living and dead 9/15/16

The photograph is from 2004, in the Hoh Rain Forest.

I am submitting this to the Friday Night Music Prompt #62 : Never too late for love & Keep me in your heart

 

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Choosing love

My sister and another writer posted essays under the title Choosing Love here: http://everything2.com/title/Choosing+Love. My sister’s was written in 2002. I posted mine there last November.

Choosing Love

I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
and hug you close if I can
and if you hurt me over and over
I can still love you
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
from far far extremely far away
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
I hug you from a safe distance
I choose love
I have no enemies
I hold you close in my heart
even if I will not allow contact again
I choose love

The photograph was on the beach. The gull and the crow were interacting. After I watched for a while it was clear that the gull was following the crow and trying to take things from the crow. They were not friends.

 

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Unconditional

You can love the whole person
all the angel bits the joy the laughter silliness hugs
all the devil bits the anger the grumpiness sulking whines

all the bits you have too

you do not always have to like their behavior

you do not have to tolerate abuse

you can say do not be mean, tease, gossip, steal, lie

trust yourself
and don’t give in to lies

you can love the whole person
you are wholly lovable

and you do not have to stay
for a moment even

if they abuse
if they won’t stop
walk away

and maybe they will change

 

another photograph that I took solstice morning

 

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Flowers

I want a love who loves me

bring me roses
write me notes

my mother-in-law’s husband
leaves a note on her pillow
with a kiss for each day
he’ll be gone

give me kisses
hold my hand
walk in the rain
in the sun
in the moonlight
on the beach
in the forest
under the stars

I want to love you

more than the rain
the sun
the moonlight
the beach
the forest
the stars

I want a love who loves me

I want a love who loves me
and I love

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label

Quick: label

It is because he was (label)
but he really was (label)
and hated himself
so he killedΒ  (label)

the labels
create a safe distance

we think
we are not in those (label)s

drop the labels

a person
was sad and lonely and grieving and enraged

he took a gun
he shot many other people

bow our heads

and grieve

 

I took the photograph with my phone last night on the beach.

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Y is for yearn

Y for yearn, in 7 sins and friends. What do you yearn for? Do you ever feel yearning and if so, are you ok with that feeling?

Rumi’s and Hafiz’s poems give me permission to feel and to long. They says that all longing and yearning is praise and prayer for reunion with the Beloved.

Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

Rumi (the rest here)

I Have Learned So Much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.

Hafiz

From: ‘The Gift’
Translated by Daniel Ladinsk, here.

There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.

– Rumi (From here)

I took the photograph in town….

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Q is for querulous

Welcome back to 7 sins and friends…. Have you ever felt querulous?

1. full of complaints; complaining.

2. characterized by or uttered in complaint; peevish:

a querulous tone; constant querulous reminders of things to be done.
Querulous is like a sophisticated version of whiny.
I used it in an alphabet poem, for querulous quail. And the truth is that I thought of myself and my sister as the quail. Right before that was One old orangutan’s pompous pronouncements were being ignored by many merry meercats. My sister and I and our cousins again… and the orangutan was my father. My mother did the illustration…. and it does look like my father when he was in THAT mood….
Alphabeasts

ambulating antelopes
bellies bearing beer
carrying cantelopes
deride damp deer

elegant elephants
feeling fitly fat
give generous gifts
handing hippos hats

ignorant iguanas
jealously jeer
keen kindly kites
lilting laughing leers

many merry meerkats
nearly never notice
one old orangutan’s
pompous pronouncements

querulous quail
reject reports regarding
shimmering snow snakes
tearing through tunnels

undulating ungulates
veer vivaciously
wondering why whales
xerox xylophones

yellow yaks yell
zip zap zoo!

Q

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sing for the girls

Sing for the girls who grow up in war zones.
Sing for the girls who grow up scared.
Sing for the girls who grow up abused.
Sing for the girls unprepared.

Sing for the girls who grow up with alcohol.
Sing for the girls who grow in broken homes.
Sing for the girls who don’t tell anyone.
Sing for the girls alone.

Sing for the girls who grow up beaten.
Sing for the girls who grow up raped.
Sing for the girls who care for siblings.
Sing for the girls who learn to hate.

Sing for the women who now look frozen.
Sing for the women who now look old.
Sing for the women who survived it anyway.
Sing for the women who told.

Sing for the girls who grow up broken.
Sing for the girls who break everything.
Sing for the girls who break the silence.
We are broken and breaking: sing.

I took the photograph at the US Synchronized Swimming Nationals in 2012.