Dove’s mournful cry
spotlights Nature’s calling –
Let us find a harmonic note
sing along for conservation,
for preservation, for a strong
tomorrow – find our voices
and join the chorus.
(A New Year’s resolution for the world. Image mine)
Staging
To orchestrate
harmony of the whole
banish dysphoric memories
Salvage unraveled bits,
extinguish sulphur stench
of failed flames
The show is underway:
banish past to backstage,
future is in the audience.
(Image my own)
Making of a Woman
I know that abyss –
swallowed up as I was
punch-drunk on darkness
Bled as I emerged,
each reach a scrape –
there was release too
Revived now, I honour
that passage, recognize
the making of a woman.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknuton. Image my own.)
Glorious
How a single ray of light
slips through a thicket
setting a leafy row ablaze
How the Kingfisher’s trill
echoes off silken waters
How our love remains despite
the ills that pursue us …
Glorious mystery.
(Glorious first appeared here December, 2019. Edited here. Image my own)
Miscommunication
Air is laden with toxins
of which we do not speak
You have deemed me evil
and I wear garlic to mock
your vampire ways –
Both missing the essence –
that our souls are indigo –
deep and true, yearning
for a rich connection.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
The Same, But Broken
Fragility blindsides me –
I am a strong woman,
not courageous
but accepting
in face of pain,
grief,
illness.
Fragility is pervasive –
body fibres stretched
and torn, on brink
of brokenness;
mind overwhelmed,
obsesses, unable to organize
or let go…
If only I could let go.
I am weeping and not –
weeping from frustration
of immediate impossibility;
unwilling to weep, for totality
of loss is beyond me.
Outside these walls,
life continues,
regards me with disgust/
indifference/repulsion –
equality ignores the ailing.
And, yet…
in this state of rawness,
stripped of busy-ness,
I am as any other –
Just a soul seeking
a meaningful existence.
(The Same, But Broken first appeared here December, 2014. This edition has been revised. Art my own.)
Robin’s Absence
Robin is absent
Winter’s silence
inviting retreat
Children embrace
snow-filled adventures
while I evade spills
Window watching
fluctuations, waiting
for the harbinger’s return.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
Birthmark
Shunned for her sin
a young figure
rubs her swelling belly
compulsion driven by fear
Tremors from within
stunt her movement
uncertainty paralyzing
her words…
She is unwed,
repulsive to a society
reeking with ineptitude –
righteousness negating action
Unsuspecting, the baby arrives
emits a scratchy cry –
filling her lungs with hope
and anticipation, trusting
Does not know
in her stark nakedness
that her tragedy is set,
life will not embrace and provide
Poverty has marked her
for a life of hardship –
the pious turn their backs
she is, after all, born of sin.
(Image my own)
Blessings to All
On doctor’s orders, I will be taking things easy for a bit. Have a few posts scheduled here, and will check in when I can.
Wishing you all a blessed holiday season. I hope you know how much you mean to me.
Take care.
VJ
Prayer Unanswered
Calm, the morning air,
mind lost in reflection,
mirror-still waters
Raise my eyes skyward,
pray for release, an end
to Mother’s suffering.
Nothing. Death
has its own rhythm –
emotions mud.
(I wrote this poem a year ago, when my Mother was in and out of hospital with heart failure and pneumonia. Now, a year later, she continues to struggle. “We live too long,” she says. “Pray for my release.” Photo: Mom at 94, courtesy of my son.)
One Woman's Quest 