Category: change

Path of Manifestation

Hunger churning,
excitement building,
heart expanding…

Breathing the thrill,
opening to possibility,
Spirit revealing…

Receiving blessings,
clarifying vision
will engaging

Trusting process
believing in self
creativity soaring

Grounding in reality
feeling the stir-
change is happening.

(Path of Manifestation first appeared November, 2017, edited for this edition.  Image from personal collection.)

Even Ghosts Yearn

Natural light preferable
to artificial – not the harsh
fullness of noonday sun
but softly filtered rays –
luxurious, inviting.

Love too, should be subdued,
gentle as a zephyr, not mythical
but yielding, mindful;
not worshipful nor boastful,
but comforting, warm

I am waning light,
the mistral wind wafting,
no longer a force of nature –
but smoke, spiralling,
vanishing into non-existence

And yet, even as shadows
spread, I yearn –
heart beating true,
not lost, not forgotten,
but withdrawn, humbled

passion mellowed
by toil of constructing walls –
grit and tar – scar’s long buried,
save the limping gait
of a ghost.

(Poem first appeared here July, 2018.  I am resubmitting for Ragtag Community’s prompt: humble.  Image from personal collection.)

Once a Mermaid

Impulse once drove my plunges –
glorious confidence propelling
fortuitous dives – unknown waters
an adventure to be conquered.

Even with onset of anxiety
I’d stalk shorelines, ignore
whispering of  catastrophe,
hold my breath and submerge.

Doubt would follow determination,
but buoyed by adversity, I’d swim,
force commanding adaptation –
I’d find my mermaid’s breath.

Motherhood introduced constraint
called forth sensibility and caution –
whimsy replacing practicality,
a shedding of iridescent tail.

I only dig in dirt now –
ground my offspring to earthly
forays, forbid capriciousness,
convince myself I’m solid.

Absentminded burrowing –
(corners of compulsion)
reveal abandoned passages –
old waterways exhumed.

Proclaimed pragmatism falters,
spontaneity takes hold, transforms
I am nymph again – free floating
Neptune’s daughter resuscitated.

(This poem, originally entitled Chasing Mermaids, first appeared in September, 2015.  It has been edited.  Image is my own.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Distorted Lenses

My memory of you –
distorted by childish exuberance –
distant and disinterested

Translated vacant eyes
through the lens of my needs
child that I was.

Failed to notice
the aura of defeat,
the battered heart

the robotic responses
masking unbelievable sorrow
missed it all

till death knocked
and I saw you anew –
adult lenses now fully secured.

wonder at the fortitude
that kept you upright,
the love that served us both.

No fault here –
on either side –
just a bittersweet understanding.

(Life, in retrospect, offers new revelations.  Poem inspired by Reena’s Exploration challenge – image as prompt.)

Watery Stagnation

Knee-deep wading
in electric yellow waters
of mud-laden stream

the coveted prize –
a mutated version –
Christ’s fish hovers

arms reach away –
have touched it –
recoiled out of fear.

Status is stagnation –
movement stymied
current lacking

Only the constant
thrum of winged
pests belligerence

punctures stillness,
irritates – its hard
shelled turquoise

body reminiscent
of Halcyon days,
Caribbean sunsets.

What evil virus has
cemented me here,
strangled nomadic

dreams, mired me
in polluted waters
imbued with cruel

uncertainty, faith-
less, immobilized
by incomprehensible?

(Watery Stagnation first appeared in August, 2016, and is edited here.