Cousins

Doolin, County Clare, Ireland

This poem was written in response to a prompt in How to Write Poetry: A Guided Journal with Prompts to Ignite Your Imagination related to imagery. The recommendation was to make a list of images conveying grief, anger and love ( I added delight since that is what I happened to be feeling a the time), and then exploring what they have in common.

Cousins
 
I grieve
with a deep ache
a longing for something lost;
I hold an emptiness
as thick as a 500-year old tree.
 
I delight
with a child’s joy
a spontaneous spirit;
an unbound energy
as light as the free-flowing air we breathe.
 
I anger
filled with fear
a disconnect with my Self;
an instant reaction
as sharp as the blade of the kitchen knife.
 
I love
my heart wide open
a need to touch something true;
feeling for solid ground
as real as the earth below my two feet.
 
In life’s vast field,
grief and delight, anger and love
play like cousins
in the grass of spring.

This poem is part of an online collection I call Meditative Blossoms.

the peace of wild things

The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

This is a beautiful poem that invites me to shift when I am filled with fear and want o find my way to grace and freedom. I hope you like it, too. I don’t remember now where I first read it, although its special touch continues to linger.

 

* I took this photo in Verbania Italy of Lake Maggiore at sunset and chose to include it in this post because I find the light mysterious and soothing.

on the other side of fear

As with last week’s post, this week’s post is in celebration of the 7-year anniversary of my mastectomy. I wrote the poem below for my husband, Jim, after my surgery. He is an amazing partner who loves me completely, for all that I am, however imperfect that might be – and who I love more than anything.

So much became possible as I leaned into my vulnerability. I found my way to the other side fear. The possibilities that awaited me were moments of deep love, interpersonal connection, immense peace and contentment, and even joy and gratitude.

Do You Know

Do you know
what it meant to me
to have you there in my most vulnerable moments
when I was afraid and uncertain about what I would see?

Do you know
what it meant to me
to hear you tell me I was beautiful
when I sat on the chair with the bandages removed?

Do you know
what it meant to me
to have you tenderly touch me
when I was so fragile and exposed?

Do you know
what it meant to me
for you to see me as pretty
when in front of me were wounds and scars?

Do you know
how truly important
your love was
to bringing me to the other side?

 

 

* We took the selfies in the opening photo collage during our 2018 summer vacation to Sicily Italy (Catania, Ortygia, Vendicari, Cava d’Ispica, Ragusa, Caltigirone, Cala Scibetta).

* I first posted this poem on my Mostly My Heart Sings blog