Tag: poem

Age’s Rant

What if days were berries
growing bright, whose sumptuous
juices blossomed only in Summer?

How sad it would be –
such limitations, disrespectful
of the creator to surmise
an inevitability of dormancy –

I will not believe it!
Our days are like seasons –
motivations and movement
fluctuating, weaving into
a tapestry of greater glory

There is no single season
of bloom – even berries resurrect.
 

Rapture

It’s odd, this gift of solitude.  Perched beside the canal that runs behind our site, I affirm my connection to the earth, give thanks for this place and moment, and acknowledge that I am a part of all that surrounds me.   The late afternoon sun casts a glow on the foliage across the way lighting up the mirror-still water with vibrant reflections.

Two winters ago, I was fighting to breathe as temperatures dropped below zero. Trapped inside my home by impassible walkways, I was desperately trying to stave off depression.  It’s hard to be hopeful when isolation is imposed.

“There are no absolutes in life,” a professor once told me, and I think of that now – how just when we think our sentence has been handed down and sealed, an opening appears.  I have been most fortunate.  I savour each moment this current state of solitude offers.

Heron’s watchful stride
invites reflection, respect –
winter’s solitude.

(Kim is hosting in the dVerse pub tonight with solitude being the prompt for our haibun.)

Close Call

In dreamtime, he comes,
my eclectic animus –
sometimes raven,
often tree,
he seduces –
first in conversation
then in arousing flesh –

Spellbound, witless,
my edges soften, melt,
and just at the moment
of near surrender,
lucidity knocks,
yanks me from watery
depths – sets me back
on conscious soil –

Anchored anew,
I shake off the lingering
tingle, brain abuzz,
reconnect with aged
limbs, mundane ills
and skedaddle.

(Catching up with Reena’s Exploration challenge – image provided; and linking up with Manic Mondays 3 Way Challenge – anchored; and Ragtag Community’s – skedaddle; and Fandango’s – eclectic.)

Hungering

How can we speak of desire when needs, unmet
ravage our sense of survival – we’ll regret
this wanton display – flames subside but hunger
remains – the body’s priorities reset.

Perhaps it’s the soul that stirs when you are near –
Spirit longing to overcome mundane fear –
as if the intertwining of flesh equates
with mortal release – quick come to me, my dear.

(Written for dVerse poetics, where we are examining poetic forms.  This week, hosted by Frank, we are challenged to write a Rubaiyat.  To find out more, click on the link.)

Maybe

Maybe I just needed a new perspective –
like the famed Hanged Man of tarot –
committed to some deep, internal need,
willed a horizontal shift, landed with intent.

Maybe it is not my legs that are disabled,
but a soul longing to escape the continual
discord of perpetual motion, a never-ending
to-do list of the success driven persona.

Maybe there is a greater purpose for being
that is not encompassed by outer drive –
a mysterious meaning that is revealed only
in the quiet stillness in which I now dwell.

Maybe I have been called to a personal
pilgrimage – a Camino of sorts, a crusade
of spirit designed to cleanse and enlighten –
the journey is certainly arduous enough.

Maybe it is through acceptance, finally
having released  a need to control, move,
achieve, accomplish that I am able to
embrace the true lessons of suffering.

Maybe this cocooning is an act of Grace
demanding surrender before the actual
transformation occurs, and I will emerge
legless or not, winged and ready to soar.

Maybe, just maybe, this stripped down,
barren existence is not a penance for
shameful living, but a desert crossing,
offering re-alignment, hard-fought peace.

(Maybe first appeared here in February of 2017, three years into my journey with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.  I am posting it today as it fits with this week’s theme: upside-down.  Image is the mirror reflection of trees across the canal – from personal collection)

Frost Bitten

Gnarly, these withered limbs,
this vessel more rigidity than flow,
winter upon me, a permanent clouding,
sunnier days passed – oh how vivid
the imagination when blue skies
met green grass, no hindrances

Old dreams hover, tethered to fences –
defences to camouflage vulnerability,
offences to keep my paths cleared

Find balance in isolation –
an old tree, past her prime –

Would cut loose this precarious
hold on all things fantastical,
but fear the act a harbinger –

So, I bide my days in this
frigid limbo, and hold on.

(Today’s poem is inspired by the image from Willow Poetry’s challenge:  What Do You See?  I am also linking up to dVerse’s pub night, where Sarah is hosting with the prompt: harbinger.  Ragtag Community provided balance, and Fandango’s word is tree.)