Category: spirituality

Finding Home

Do we have to be away
to find home?

Not the mortgaged
two cars in the driveway
double-income kind of dwelling

I’m talking peace
in the heart, comfort
in the soul, blessed home

I have felt Presence
in nature, witnessed Spirit
in a newborn’s eyes

beheld reverence in a dying
sister’s final breath – fleeting
glimpses, nothing solid

I seek an eternal sense
of belonging, of atonement
to radiate a knowing, holy calm

Don’t speak to me of books
or passages, or a brother
with the voice of God

The home I seek is
an inner sanctum
a whisper, a cry

a longing answered
only in moments of pure
simplicity, in stillness

this noise we create
this distancing, is only fear
and forgetting: products

of original separation
a projection of abandonment
remembering, experiencing

the numinous, the sacred other
brings me back home
and I am no longer lost.

(Finding Home was first published here in February of 2017. I resubmit an edited version for Reena’s Xploration challenge: sacred space. Image my own.)

Talk To Me of Horses

Talk to me of horses
the young man says
thin locks of blonde matted
on a sweaty brow, flashes of blue
that fade as eyes succumb
to weariness, the constant
whoosh, whoosh of respirator.

Talk to me of horses:
the world is losing its grip
and I care not about
the weather or car mechanics,
but I dream of horses
and I am feeling so emotional –
help me understand.

So, I come daily to his bedside
wait for moments of lucidity
ponder the implications
of his questions, wrestle with
my own inadequacies –
I am merely student here.

We discuss horses –
the power of their bodies
their beauty and grace
their role throughout history –
decide they are ferrymen
transporting souls across worlds –
an explanation that satisfies, then…

I am seeing things, he strains
embarrassed even in these final hours
to describe what seems inconceivable,
between sleep and awake, figures
grey and frightening hover over
my bed like body snatchers….

A chill runs over me, as if icy
fingers have caressed my skin
and I shudder despite myself
scramble to maintain calm
wonder aloud if it is not just fear
projecting grey into light
clouding his vision.

I missed his passing the next day
arriving to find his mother waiting
“He left you a message,” her eyes
quizzical, “says that you were right
about the visions; there was nothing to fear”

I smile through the grief –
ever the teacher that one
now dead at twenty-one

“Oh, and one more thing”, she adds “
“Could you talk to me of horses?”

(Talk to Me of Horses first appeared her in April 2018. This version has been edited slightly. Image my own.)

Sustenance Rekindled

It wasn’t the knowledge of stability –
chaos had the upper hand back then.
It wasn’t even that love was expressed –
unconditional an unheard of concept

It was an unspoken presence
the reassurance of rocks
the irrepressible allure
of a freshwater stream

How a child’s heart
found encouragement
in the whispering wind
solace in arbored shelter

Naturally the din of home life
overpowered this self-assured
passage, disrupted kinship
and shattered childish faith

But all that is behind now
and when I clear cluttering
thoughts, disperse static
emotions, still the heart

The rhythms are still there –
presence offering sustenance…


(Image my own)