She feels like an endangered species,
While she waits, still believing in love,
She hides beneath the ordinary
Remaining the one who is always overlooked.
The well of love she holds is full,
Free for giving, free to be taken, to be emptied with limitless refills.
Yet still she waits, wanting to hope, yet not daring to,
Trying hard not to expect, knowing it may never be.
Loving yet never loved,
Loving alone,
Yet still believing.
Sweet Emptiness,
A welcomed contradiction of fullness.
But still the senses are dismayed at the longing, and
The heart is made sad by the absence.
It asks, where is the sunshine, the warmth, the passion?
No answer comes as it lays sleeping, dormant, alone and waiting.
Waiting, waiting,
Always waiting…
Gratitude for the smallest of things
Becomes gratitude for the eternal.
Because the eternal exists in even the smallest,
A baby’s laugh, a milkweed bloom, a crystal blue winter sky.
An autumn leaf, falls softly in silence,
Releasing its life with gratitude in a celebration of color.
It is the small things in my life that cover me in warmth and
Feed the fire of my gratitude with love.
I am thankful for sunrises and sunsets,
The defining moments of each day’s beginning and end.
I am grateful for my children and grandchildren –
All manifestations of God.
The life light in a newborn’s eye,
Holds the spirit of heaven and the knowledge of Krishna’s grace.
And when I am in danger of forgetting these things, I sit and go deep inside myself,
Inside to that point where I am connected directly to him and he brings me back to grace.
It is my gratefulness that fuels my passions for the loves in my life, from acorns to hummingbirds
Grasshoppers to lightning storms,
Soft kisses at midnight,
And sweet love in the morning.
I am grateful to exist in a flood of grace and love.
Grace that is endless and effortless, and love that is all encompassing.
My heart is full and soft and my smiles are because of him.
Hari Om
Evening shadows shift
Through broken windows.
Chimney bricks slide down the roof
Puddleing under the lilac bush.
Weeds spread into the driveway
Reclaiming it for themselves.
When was this house built?
Was it ever new?
The yard and doorframes bear witness
To the families who grew here.
Long forgotten toys and broken swings
Hide beneath the matted field grass.
A broken clothesline flaps in the gray autumn breeze and
Sprung clothespins mold and rot into the ground beneath the broken posts.
Feral cats are now the only life that calls this old farm home,
And birdsong still fills the rafters of the barn.
The barn that once held livestock
Sits shifted on its foundation,
Listing and leaning to the south,
Away from winter’s fierce winds.
The stately oak gracing the front yard is rotten and broken,
Its fingers through the house roof.
Where did they go, the people
Who called this place home?
When the last one left,
Why didn’t they clean out the house?
Why not take the toys?
Close the windows? Lock the doors?
Did they not know they were
Never coming back?
The windmill out back has long ago
Crashed into the apple orchard,
Breaking in to pieces as it fell
and crushing the trees it had stood watch over all these years.
But in man’s absence
The apple trees continue to produce.
The lilac bushes flower every spring in spite of
Not being “cared for” in over 40 years.
The forest is slowing creeping back in to fill the void
Left when the field was abandoned.
All that remains of the people who once called this spot of land home
Is the family graveyard,
Where stones are carved with love and care,
Preserving for all time the names and dates of those whose lives began and ended here.
But the lilacs don’t care about being preserved,
The Oak is beyond pride and the buildings are slowly returning to the soil,
Just like the bodies beneath the stones.
Another 40 years and the stones will be all that remains.
They will be all that is left to tell the story
Of a time gone by.
The story of a house built to last a lifetime, a barn crafted with pride,
The story of generations of a family who lived, worked and died on this land.
A story only the stones will remember.
It waits with patience hands
Outside our knowing, waiting to be let in.
Its story is always the same,
Its truth dependable but not always what we want to hear.
There is no hypocrisy, no deceit in its soul.
It is the soul that fills the void, that encompasses the eternal.
It exists in rhythms of time, tides of dependability,
Cycles of freedom and seasons of hope.
It can be ignored, but never escaped and so it waits,
In beauty and joy, in bliss and acceptance, in love and peace,
For us to wake up and realize it is but a mirror of ourselves,
The face of our existence, the light in our souls,
The essence of our being
Before we were born.
I sit on the stage.
Darkness surrounds me.
The audience, if there is one,
Is silent.
There are no props on the stage
Only layers of black curtains.
I don’t remember auditioning for a play,
But here I am.
It’s odd there is no music or
Other players.
I sit in my darkness for what seems like forever
But there is still no sound, no movement, no life.
Just stillness and a mild sense of confusion.
I feel the space in front of me more than see it.
I sense it is there, curtains in a circular shape
A boundary perhaps but between what and where?
The other side is unknown and unknowable
Until the show begins.
But will it begin? Still no script or players,
No music or lights.
I run my hand through my hair to prove to myself that
I am still real in this sensory deprived place.
But what is real about an empty stage, a wordless play,
A playerless story?
I begin to realize that
None of those things matter.
All is stillness and non-separate.
The “show” never begins and never ends.
The circular curtain and empty stage contain eternity
And this space is an empty place within me.
There will be no play, no script,
No lights, no audience.
This story is mine, the darkness my stillness,
The only witness, me.
Just me as part of the universal consciousness
Acting out a play of well-rehearsed lines without ever saying a word.
Each player a part of the whole
Never separate from the others.
All joined in the cosmic drama
Of existence.
The curtain rises on one story, one actor, one consciousness
In an act that never ends.
Coastal dunes slide and slip into the sea
As the storm rolls on to the north.
Gulls scurry to grab unfortunate crabs washed ashore by the crashing waves.
Seaweed floats and ripples with the waves like grass in the wind and
Salty sea spray coats the disinterested windows of empty houses on the shore.
The tourists have all left for the season
Leaving the ocean and beach to carry on with their lover’s dance
Un-witnessed and unashamed, with freedom and reckless abandon.
Revelations come to me when I least expect them unwanted, but insistent that I listen.
They are the kind I don’t want to know and don’t want to hear.
But they come anyway . Maybe to clear the way,
To open my heart and eyes and speak the truth to my soul.
But they are hard truths to take.
My heart says no, but my head and soul say “Yes, listen and know”.
My heart is a child, trusting , self-deluding and innocent.
My soul aches for her in her time of pain and sorrow.
Love is not only felt by my heart, my soul loves too.
But my soul is blessed with a stronger constitution, a greater consciousness, a better understanding.
It is older and wants to protect my heart, wants to spare her from pain but knows it can’t.
So it warps itself around my heart and holds her while she weeps and sleeps. It knows that time will heal her and is patient in the waiting time.
My soul knows my heart is good and kind and that she loves unconditionally and breaks because of it.
My soul knows that my heart knows no other way to love so it waits and loves and holds and protects with gentle hands and the love of God.
Together, in time, we will love again, all three of us,
I’m sure of it, my soul told me so.
Gratitude for the smallest
Becomes gratitude for the eternal,
Because the eternal exists in even the smallest of things,
Like a baby’s smile, a milkweed bloom, and crystal blue winter skies.
An autumn leaf, falling softly and quietly,
Releases its life full of gratitude willingly in a celebration of color, it knows.
It is the smallest of things in my life that cover me in warmth and
Feed the fire of my gratitude with love.
I am thankful for sunrises and sunsets,
The defining moments of each day’s beginning and end.
I am grateful for my children and grandchildren and friends –
All manifestations of God.
Even the light in the eyes of the the wild ones of my forest home
Shines with the spirit of the heavens and the intimate knowledge of Krishna’s grace.
And when I am in danger of forgetting these things, these perfect and beautiful things,
something as simple as seeing my clear glass canning jars, standing in a sparkling row,
Can bring me back to myself, to my home,
The home I hold deep within, the one that holds the essence of me.
It is my gratefulness that fuels my passions for the loves in my life, from acorns to hummingbirds
Grasshoppers to lightning storms,
Soft kisses at midnight,
And sweet love in the morning.
I am grateful to exist in a flood of grace and love.
Grace that is endless and effortless, and love that is freeing and all encompassing.
My heart is full and my smiles are because of him.
Hari Om
A field of brown grass,
A drop of chilly dew,
A morning kissed ripe apple, and
A bursting milkweed pod…
Signs of the change of seasons and an
Elevation of my consciousness.
Summer has ended.
It has shed its past and faded into isness
But it’s an isness that is charged with the now.
At the change of seasons, there is a new definition of me.
One that shifts with the sun angles and holds my spirit in kindness.
It is a newness in me that ebbs and flows with the tides and moon cycles.
That builds on the new life essence that captures my attention
That fills my heart and soul.
An essence of change, of new life, of new beginnings from old endings.
It is a change that envelopes my being and carries me along with it.
A flood of truth and trust, a deluge of emotions and warmth.
My heart misses the summer season but my soul is alive with the contentment of the coming winter.
A sheltered silence in seasonal separateness
But all together just the same…
In shared seclusion.
heartwordsforpoetry 