Monthly Archives: December 2013

Hildegard I: Little Gem

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Starling Mumuration: Photo re-posted from Enchanted Nature Facebook page

Starling Mumuration: Photo re-posted from Enchanted Nature Facebook page

“Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.” – Hildegard Von Bingen

Silent Revolution

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Image and quote re-posted from Meditation Masters Facebook page

Image and quote re-posted from Meditation Masters Facebook page

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.” ~ Jim Morrison

Enough

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The Hog Backs: Photo by Noelle

The Hog Backs: Photo by Noelle

I am enough. Who I am today – light or shadow – is enough. There is no other “me” skin hanging, neatly and stylishly pressed in the closet for me to don. There is no other moment than this one either. Thus, it too, must be enough. My past has already caught the noon bus, and, as is its habit, my future is fashionably late.

I am enough and my time is now.

Poor Man’s Shadow

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Life in Concrete: Photo by Noelle

Life in Concrete: Photo by Noelle

She asks what I want. Such a loaded question. No exit. I want, I want many things but purse strings wrap at my knees and I feel myself falling into her question. I look up. She wants to please me. Her love a warm blanket, tattered but whole. That moneyless handbag dangles off her arm and it’s not the elephant in the room, but rather the herd. I don’t know why she’s asking when there is no way to fill my hunger. I want to tell her not to ask me anymore for my insides she can’t fill. Best not to ask and let me gnaw on my own wants as dog bones left on the floor.

Still, she waits and there’s the tension. The longing to be true and answer with my greatest heart’s desire, because her love deserves that much. Yet to answer is to darken her eyes with that poor man’s shadow. He lingers with his empty pockets in the hallway jingling keys to fool you it was money. I hear him louder sometimes than I hear her. Still, she’s waiting.

I want to love her with an answer she can meet, but all my small hopes are used up. I got nothing but big heart yearnings left and I feel like she can see them straight up, though I’ve worked hard to hide them in the wood pile. “What do you want,” she asks now exasperated. I shove my hands in my pockets, “Nothin’, mama. I’m good.”

I see her sorrow and I eat it whole, like her biscuits. It’s all that’s on the table.

Work in progress from “The Writer’s Church” writing group, Boulder, CO. Hosted by Marj Hahne

Let Go: A Little Gem

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The Violin: A study in the formation of frost: Photo by Noelle

The Violin: A study in the formation of frost: Photo by Noelle

“Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you’re striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You’re already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go.”
~ John Welwood

Dead

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Winter Sun: Photo by Noelle

Winter Sun: Photo by Noelle

Dead is the soup, no more potatoes on the board
Dead is the Shalimar soaked scarves on the door
Dead comes the memory of smashed pots on walls
And broken eggs still in cracked dishes on the floor

Dead giggles down hallways where she chased
Little girl hiding in winter boots and grandma’s lace
Dead comes the warm paper skinned hands
That kneaded the bread and rolled pie dough with cans

Dead are the winter nights as black as coal
Christmas light watching sipping her coffee cold
Dead are the secrets each of us carried
Dead is the garden of our arguments parried

Dead am I as cherished daughter
Dead is the place called home by lake water
Dead comes her call from decades now past
Dead are my longings for safe sail and mast

An anaphora (repetition of phrase). A work in progress from The Writer’s Church, Boulder, CO. Hosted by Marj Hahne