Creativity is a jungle –
unharnessed overgrowth
threatens the light –
chaotic madness ensuing
Genius enters the chaos –
culls the extraneous –
captures the message
and with elegance,
delivers.
(Written for Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See? Image supplied by Hélène V.)
Day, no more than a sliver, casts a subtle glow on the path. A small bird tap-tapping on windowpane has awakened me, invited me out. I follow it now, as it flits from tree to bush along the way. We come to a stream, whose waters swirl in a nearby eddy then rush over the rocks, merrily singing Earth’s praises. Seventy-eight acres of untouched land surround me. Birch, oak, and willow among the giants that offer shelter. I have come on retreat. A chance to regroup and recharge.
This bird is not the first to rouse me in the early hours; it had been happening for days leading up to this journey. I take it as an omen: be awake, pay attention.
I feel the presence immediately. I am not alone at the water’s edge this crisp, cool spring morning. Although I cannot see her, I know her at once – an essence I have not felt since I was child. Mother Earth. I begin to cry.
“Why did you abandon me?” The words tumble, unexpectedly.
How long has it been since I’d felt her reassurance, the protective shield of her patient strength? I remember how as a child, locked out of home, she walked with me, whispered to me through the subtleties of the wind, and taught me the rhythms of life.
“It was you who abandoned me.” The knowing hits me, like a punch to the stomach. It is so true. I turned my back on her, adopted the ways of civilization – embracing education and busyness as a means to happiness, forgetting the promise of inner peace she offers.
‘Can you forgive me? ‘ I cry. The sorrow of our separation now hitting me in waves of grief – a torrent of shame and blame, and guilt. How I have lost touch with so much in the years since she and I passed the days in innocence.
“There is nothing to forgive. I am always here, whenever you need me.”
The thing is, I tell myself, as day’s light obliterates dawn’s encounter; allergies keep me indoors, and as a mother of three, I spend my days chauffeuring. What time do I have for Nature, for daydreaming?
I will not find her again, for many years, when sickness closes the door on accepted life practices and forces me into isolation, desolation. It doesn’t happen all at once, but gradually, over time, starting with a little bird’s tap-tapping on my windowpane, inviting me to look outside. Inside.
(Written for Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See? Image supplied as part of the challenge.)
Mermaids have the best of life,
she’d tell anyone who’d listen –
castles deep on ocean’s floor,
and watery skies that glisten
I’d give up all my earthly wealth
for a lifetime of Poseidon’s riches –
swap my legs for fins, if I could be
a royal princess among the fishes.
Once upon a moonbeam
her simple wish took hold
climbed up to the milky way
and watched the stars unfold
She wants to be immortal,
Night whispered to the Moon,
to live a fairytale existence,
without suffering or gloom.
The Great Orb nodded in consent
and turned her face upon the asker –
granted her gills, tiara and jewels,
then encapsulated her in plaster.
(Lillian is hosting at dVerse tonight and asks us to start a poem with “Once upon a…”. I have to confess I had no luck starting that way, but I did put it in the middle. I’m also linking up with Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See?
Photo courtesy of Hélène from Willow Poetry.)
Like fisherman throwing their lines,
she casts her spells…imagines
the universe as an ocean,
conceives of elementals, hungry
for bait, waiting to nibble at her intentions –
as if words hold sway –
thinks patience is her key,
believes that with just the right lure,
she can reel in destiny,
determine fate.
(This piece is inspired by the combined prompts of Willow Poetry’s What Do You See? and Twenty Four’s 50 word Thursday – image below.)
Ancestral circles
steeped in lore – symbolism
lost, and imminent –
Geometric rhythms play
with destiny, ascribe fates.
(For Willow Poetry’s What Do You See? Image supplied by Hélène.)
Rock solid,
biding time,
fixated on
a future
born of
movement.
Frozen –
iced snapshots
of possibility,
immobilized by
misperceptions
Role-playing
expectations
carved from
generations
of staging.
One falters
all tumble,
lives shatter,
sink, lies
bottom out
sediment
disintegrates,
settles –
strength emerges
resurrecting
rock by rock,
precarious at first,
then gradually
re-building,
balance restored.
(Submitted for Willow Poetry’s challenge: What Do You See, based on featured image.)
Winged things
are meant to fly,
like birds, and planes,
and dragonflies…
angels…
I had dreams once –
winged creatures
who soared
limitless skies…
free…
Until fear –
a cruel master –
caged my heart,
clipped my spirit…
broken…
Age and loss
turned the page,
locks illusions
unravelled…
escape…
Vulnerable,
I walk, remember
wings, lift my face
to inclement weather…
fly…
(Written in response to Willow Poetry’s weekly challenge: What do you See?)
The sky donned a mask today –
clouds contriving a hoax –
like a great, feathered beast
emerging from the heavens,
bearing down on me –
Silly, this trepidation, this
superstitious sentimentality –
both clouds and I know
this is only illusion – sun
still rules the skies…
(Willow Poetry poses the weekly challenge: What Do You See? based on the featured image.)
Laid out, in a tapestry,
I suppose the overriding
message would be inconsistency –
a montage of seemingly unrelated
images, the blatant disconnection
offending to the eye, and yet…
closer inspection might reveal
a thread of commonality –
the presence of orange,
in its many incarnations,
woven into each tableau…
a hint of the woman whose
wanderlust has driven her
in so many directions
a passion, that like the sun
cannot contain its rays –
a willingness to embrace
the unknown, acceptant of
endings and beginnings.
I regard myself as inquisitor,
charged with assessing motivations
of crimes, turning over choices,
looking under rocks for disclosure
of weaknesses and fallacies,
questioning the what ifs and whys,
as if life could be rewritten –
the interrogator has no appreciation
for colour, does not allow credit
for tinges of orange, judges only
in terms of black and white…
lacks the empathy to behold wonder
in a life, that despite its incoherence,
depicts a tapestry of survival:
a testimony to the art
of a creative soul’s passage.
(Written originally as way of self-introduction for my writing circle, submitted here in response to Willow Poetry’s challenge: What do you See?)
Photo courtesy of Willow Poetry.
The force that corrupts
also invokes – strength rising –
a warrior’s shield.
(Written for What Do You See, and Ronovan Writes Haiku challenge: steam (force) & cover (shield). )
One Woman's Quest 