VJ – Page 117 – One Woman's Quest

A Mother’s Heart

A mother’s heart is the sun –
the rays of her love,
the beams upon which
a child learns the skills
necessary to navigate
life’s tightrope walks.

****

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

Aged

Even in the waning times –
memories of youth fading –
there are traces of a personality,
hints of the contours
of a life well-sculpted,
having weathered all that
the years dared challenge.

Winter Walk

Do you stroll here
on the winter walk,
use rain as light,
follow every wild bough,
beautiful blue bird?

Climb, live, see
how happy this forest,
verdant rock moral,
sun on water, green.

(Another poem from Magnetic poetry.)

Guilt’s Games

Guilt’s a child –
nonsensical in actions –
attempts to hide,
shame-faced, lies –

Guilt is but a child
holds me hostage –
adult self, emotionally
captive, plays along.

(For Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See – featured image)

On a Diet

I dined on your expectations,
enticed by the spice of your words –
insatiable this hunger for approval.

Mistook self-assuredness
for wisdom – how bitter
the aftertaste, how empty
the truth –

Learning to feed myself –
sustenance geared to fulfilling
personal dreams.

Needing a Sign

Restlessness accompanies me
on the sojourn today –
unfazed by ripe red
belly of robin,
or shimmering emerald
of breeding merganser’s crown.

My lens seeks out decay –
rotting wood, darkened cavities –
as if my soul craves reassurance
that life persists even where death
hovers – I need a sign.

Discontent, I move on –
drive the river road,
snail pace – praying for
something to shake
this malaise –
birds come and go,
trees radiate Spring green,
I pause, unmoved.

And then I spot it –
across the river, high up –
a massive hulk –
lens raises, adjusts, snaps –
the regal hunter turns towards me,
regards me with ferocious intensity,
does not falter on his perch –

All-seeing, fearless,
he is spirit-manifested,
a messenger, lifting me
from stagnation –
momentary redemption.

(Linking up with my weekly challenge: in-between.)

Discord

Does illness have a voice,
and if so; is it melancholy,
or dark and dank, divulging
deepest despair, or revealing
a vileness of nature?

Discord creeps along my veins,
disrupts muscles, systems failing
under the oppression –
“Stay strong,” friends counsel,
cannot hear the gathering storm,
feel the heaviness cloaking me.

I am not myself, but then;
who am I? Is disease a mutation
of the original sin – punishment
for fatal sins, or redemption
wrapped as trial – the whispers
gain clarity – I am faltering…

(Written for Reena’s Exploration challenge: featured image as prompt.)

Interaction

Curiosity, it seems,
flows both ways –
as I adjust focus
so too, do you –
can’t help but wonder
if the takeaway joy
also flows both ways.

(In response to Paul Vincent Cannon’s poem: Her Gift Remains.
V.J.’s weekly challenge is response. Image is from personal collection.)

Let Up Bug!

I throb,
belly a swill of green –
never smoked…

There is good air & trees,
and warming chards

Breathe out…and spit..

Only champagne cup
would wet and waken

Let up bug!

(Friday is Magnetic Poetry day for me. Coincidentally, I have been fighting a bacterial infection, so the words are fitting.)

Hauntings

The veil grows thin
past midnight, as
sensibility dares
to sleep – spirits,
restless, yearning,
drag me from dreams,
fill my thoughts –
messages from beyond –

I am but a simple
woman, hold no sway
in the physical realm,
send them back
to carry on
their haunt.