The Stones Will Remember (March, 2017)

 

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,

But 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.
 

Of Love and Light

Nostalgia weighs heavy on my heart tonight, 

And I long for what could have been.

 

But then I remember why it wasn’t but what makes me the most sad is that I also remember 

That it almost was.

 

So wanting and loving, I sit alone in this night of late winter cold as the music of piano and cello drifts through my head.

  The sound of the cello speaks to my soul and caresses my heart.

 

In the melody, I hear two hands playing together in perfect union and feel that

I am as one of those hands, looking for the familiar accompaniment of the other.

 

And so in the depths of this late winter evening I am lost in

Remembering what never was, feeling what didn’t exist,

 

Loving what could have been  

In this time of warm darkness, candle light and winter solitude.

 

Now there exists only a memory of he and I, together yet alone,

Forever wrapped in the spirit of love and light.

 

Wisdom at Midnight

 

Last night, at midnight, an Owl spoke in the forest,

And I understood.

Listening I realized how a perpetual misunderstanding was coloring my thoughts,

But not the owl’s as her knowledge is deep and colored by nothing but the truth.

As I lay alone in my bed, I felt the darkness soothe the forest’s heart and hoped, but

It could not touch my disturbed soul.

I couldn’t see, I didn’t know what was next,

I felt suffocated by the inky blackness while

The forest mother was at peace and

Sighed in contentment.

My only peace now will come from learning from her.

To accept her invitation to  surrender my will and lay down in her gentle softness,

To use a layer of her leaves as my bed while

Her twinkly night sky becomes my pillow.

I will trust her to protect me, to hold me close and

Put me to sleep with her lullaby of star-shine.

I know its the only way as Her wisdom is deeper than mine, dependable,

Greater than me, and more than just a beacon in this perpetual darkness.

Tell me, did you hear the owl’s wisdom at midnight too?

From The Inside Out

 

When I take the time to look inside, instead of outside,

I find miraculous things.  Things I never have seen before,

Feelings I never have noticed and rules I never have followed.

Oftentimes they are the feelings and rules I have imposed on others but never followed myself.

Others whom I say I know well and in my arrogance convince myself that I know how they think,

And feel but in reality, my assumptions are baseless and I realize

That it is only me who I can ever know…

But only from the inside out.

Moments In Waiting

Moments spent waiting with stillness, inactivity, and

Ticking time are the smoothness in the silence and perfection of waiting.

Is it an interruption of love,

A collective ending or …

Maybe just a pause in time,

A stopping of existence which becomes an eternity in thought.

Is time spent waiting, wasted?

  Only the end will tell.

A longing to hold, a missed kiss, an emptying of soul

Fill the moments spent

Waiting.

The Single Second of Midnight

The Deep primal sounds at midnight are

A gathering of voices in the dark.

The language is unknown

But the meaning is understood.

Darkness hides the players

But not the play

As it is a script followed

Since the beginning of time.

The cast of characters remains the same with only

The players changing.

The truth of the story portrayed is undeniable, and

Is perfected in the casting of souls when the sounds of their voices gather and

Eternity resides in the single second of Midnight.

3/1/18

Heart Echo

That which I love the most has turned to

The very heart of disappointment.

 

My feelings won’t leave me alone, they float through my heart

Like ripples in a tidal pool driven by the winds of chance and change.

 

The ripples in the pool run together, sometimes increasing their strength and depth and

Other times cancelling each other out in a wash of sadness.

 

It is in these flat times, these times of cancellation,

That my heart is empty and alone.

 

It hears the sound of the ocean echoing against its walls but …

 

There are no answering beats.

I Am Here

 

I am finally, totally, here and I will never leave you.

You don’t ever have to be lonely or afraid again.

 

I am here.

 

Through the years I have come and gone.

Sometimes stayed close, sometimes far away.

 

At times lost to you in this secular world,

Tied up by thoughts and indifference.

 

But now, a change has come, an awakening. 

It has happened slowing, in subtle ways and small steps.

 

I am here.

 

I will hold you while you sleep.

I will witness your dreams and shoo away your nightmares.

 

I will hold your heart and put its broken pieces back together.

You will never be away from me again.

 

I am here.

 

It will be just you and me now, you and me forever.

There is duality but no separation as I have come home to the place I never left.

 

Back to the heart that has been the same

Throughout time.

 

I am here.

 

I will finally step into the job that was mine

All along.

 

I will be your protector, your biggest fan, your patient teacher

And, most of all, your greatest love.

 

I am here.

 

I am sorry you have suffered, have been abused,

Unloved and broken.

 

I am here.

 

You are defenseless against the world without me, but now,

 

I am here.

 

Here with clarity, purpose, vision, emptiness, power

And love.  Never to leave you again.

 

To do so would be impossible because I now see that I am you, I am your heart and soul, your “I Am” with no beginning and no end, and

 

You are my vehicle for experiencing the world, for sensing and knowing the manifested from the un-manifested.  You are my beating heart, my body friend and my charge to protect.  You are my very own

 

human—being.

 

My Mind

 

My mind has become my enemy,

One that shares this space inside of me but cares not for my well-being.

It turns night into day, lust into love, wants into envy,

Truth – my truth – into lies.

It whispers in my left ear, words

My right side, it knows, will reject.

In the beginning, my human beginning, my mind

Was my friend, my ally, my confidant, but no more.

 

So I spend my time sitting and focusing on my

Return to that initial, eternal being,

 

And when that process is complete,

My mind will return to its natural state as my life navigator and soul companion.

Its taunting will stop, its search for drama will cease,

Its creation of a hundred hurtful scenarios a day will end,

And once again, as it was in the beginning,

It will become my friend.