02 Sunday Nov 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
bliss, breath, connection, destiny, dreams, fearless, grace, gravel roads, love, old maps, passion, poetry, relationship, sacred intimacy, spirit, strength, surrender, truth, understanding, unremembered, wonder
all
and for only
an eternity this
held to the warmth
of my heart
a poem to feel
as surrender
it seems
was somewhere intended
in living to go
what will
have I garnered
shall I witness anew
held to the flame
you are setting
me so
. . .
30 Thursday Oct 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
becoming, destiny, dreams, fearless, grace, gravel roads, kentucky, life, love, old maps, passion, reason, relationship, restless, sacred intimacy, spirit, truth, understanding, wandering
woodsmoke
and somewhere
cedar is burning
a waiting reminded
of all I have known
of paths
through the waking
of wilderness wandered
I still feel
the briars
kissing my bones
at the scent
of blackberries
warm woolen socks
a bed turned
to facing
the love of the sun
patches
laid bare
within this returning
stitched into pattern
my favorite
one
I remember the chill
your breath
was just catching
and I was a moment
held you
this way
. . .
21 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
bliss, connection, conscious consciousness, destiny, dreams, fearless, grace, gravel roads, life, living, love, memory, old maps, passion, reason, relationship, spirit, truth, understanding, value, wonder
lines –
no more
than a memory crossed
a moment made rare
by the living
the slightest allowance
of light touching light
eternity held
(a breath)
between sighs
offered
you back
as a gift
unexpected
a version of story
(was glory) divine
all I was meant
a place on your going
sweet mountain laurel
– soft southern
skies
. . .
07 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in a time for telling, Poetry
Tags
breath, conscious consciousness, destiny, dreams, faith, forgiveness, grace, gravel roads, home, knowledge, life, love, memory, old maps, passion, poetry, reason, relationship, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, value, wandering, wisdom
Not long ago, I was discussing attraction with a group of friends. It started as half-hearted commentary on couples we know that seemed ill-suited for each other, and others that appeared perfect for one another, but eventually weren’t.
That very weekend, I was reminded of a similar conversation years ago regarding students in my classes, and how it seemed pre-destined that some number in every class would be attracted to one another. The lady I was conversing with thought it related to the fact that they were participating in an in-house treatment and couldn’t leave; essentially taking on new family for a period of thirty days.
I thought, and I still think it’s something more. Surely, they have much in common, shared demons. But at my heart, I suspect it may be as simple as acceptance; acceptance of the messiest parts of the soul.
“If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled.”
I’m certain that this isn’t something unique to my students. In some ways, they are lucky to have both means and a circumstance where they can openly share the worst of who they are. Most don’t have the luxury, and go through life with the notion that no one could possibly understand, or worse.
Surely, if someone knew ‘the dirt’, they couldn’t possibly love me. There have been times when I pushed others away from me, absolute in my belief that I was saving them from a life of misery that could only be found in loving me.
We all seek out that acceptance, a camaraderie. You see it in cancer survivors and war veterans. Those who so seldom speak of their demons find a place where they can, where acceptance is understood.
For most of us, the uglies we struggle with are self-induced. A bad choice is carried long past its due such that it robs us of a sweeter life. Whether warranted or not, we allow our fear of rejection (or the fear of acceptance) to keep us from getting too close, from letting down our defenses, the obstacles that get between us and the life we truly deserve. It’s ironic. The thing we most despise in ourselves becomes the thing we give a place of honor. Perhaps love isn’t doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.
“People always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters. But that’s not true, is it? You know, and I know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more.”
Many years back, I learned to cross stitch, and most everyone in my family has at least one piece of my work. One of the first, a lighthouse stitched for my daddy. It has hung in my parent’s home ever since. And yet, because it was one of the first, I had not yet learned the importance of tying off my stitches (which takes much more time than simply stretching the thread across the empty canvas between). If you’re working with a light cloth, shadows of colored thread can be seen through. Though I realize it isn’t something most see, I can’t look at that lighthouse without seeing the shadows of the stiches that weren’t tied. Others may look at the piece and only see love, yet I see an error in choice.
“the people you love can surprise you every day… maybe who we are isn’t so much about what we do, but rather what we’re capable of when we least expect it.”
I’ve come to understand that our life is much the same way. We focus on the worst we are, rather than seeing the best. We assume a sweeter life is undeserved, never realizing that those who love us……….would and yet, love us still.
what way
was I to wander
would bring me near
to you
with tear-stained dreams
blood upon my hands
so fragile in my falling
stronger
in my will
betrayal of the hope
you’d understand
beneath
this tangled mess of scars
a map of miseries
a fortress built
of loneliness and pain
permission
has a silent voice
learned of lessons past
comfort found
in fears I know
by name
of things I cannot tell you
words I dare not say
a time before –
with nothing yet to lose
separates my longing
from truth you cannot see
a tenderness
much deeper
than the bruise
. . .
29 Monday Sep 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
becoming, conscious consciousness, destiny, dreams, faith, grace, gravel roads, knowledge, life, love, old maps, passion, relationship, spirit, spirituality, strength, understanding, value
before the dark
is pulled away –
a shelf of memories
is fastened to the wanting
of my soul
with dishes I was saving
linens I adore
they way they feel
as secrets
not yet told
awake the dawn
where sunday grieved
a path already gone
dusted by the leaving –
folded into vine
some memory
of almost was
I can scarce recall
the way your hands
became the same
as mine
. . .
26 Friday Sep 2014
Posted in a time for telling, Poetry
Tags
becoming, connection, destiny, faith, family, fearless, forgiveness, grace, knowledge, life, living, love, passion, reason, relationship, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, wisdom
It has been a long week, but still a blessing. God is good (all the time). Even when we are immersed in frustration, indecision and worry, the truth remains with us. The things that haunt us do so for a reason – so that we see them more clearly – so that we examine our own feelings, motives, and choices.
I believe that if we find ourselves in the same place time and again, there’s a reason. We need to pay attention. We are brought back there so that we can appreciate the lesson. Otherwise, we are much like a person lost in the woods….led by nothing more than the desire to be saved. Without direction (the compass of the soul), we wander again and again to the same sweet tree.
What I know. Adversity doesn’t build character; it reveals it. When we are faced with something we’d rather not, or we get something other than what we wanted, it becomes a point of strengthening – perhaps even a clarification of who we are (as opposed to who we wish to be or claim to be). It offers us a deeper understanding of what matters, what doesn’t, and all the mess that can get in between.
But sometimes (sweetly), the mess is a part of the blessing.
“The barn’s burned down; now I can see the moon.”
Within the devastation known as ruin, we find hope such that a clean slate doesn’t appear quite so empty. We look up, and for a moment, even the stars surprise us. The path glows brighter in the darkness.
beyond the night
a wiser sun
than e’er the dark
could claim
beyond the prayer
a blessing
we became
a song we knew
before the tunes
were found
in sweet refrain
beyond the light
eternal burns
our flame
. . .
24 Wednesday Sep 2014
Posted in a time for telling, Poetry
Tags
bliss, breath, connection, conscious consciousness, destiny, dreams, faith, family, forgiveness, grace, life, living, love, old maps, passion, reason, relationship, restless, resurrection, self, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, value, wisdom, wonder
Yesterday (Sunday), I listened to a message entitled ‘enough’. It spoke of a culture that seeks fulfillment in the physical accumulation of more and more stuff. Although I had never thought of it, we place our hopes and dreams in things that will ultimately end up in a landfill.
It was a message designed to motivate, at a time when most churches are looking for financial commitment. The minister spoke of tithing and ways of getting by on less. The ultimate question asked again and again, ‘how much is enough’…….
I was reminded of a conversation with my sister a few years back when
we talked about all we had, and how it was nothing more than on loan from a greater power. How many cell phones do we need? How big does a TV need to be in order to be enough?
Later, I was thinking back on this word – ‘enough’ and found it ironic that we live in a society that never seems to get enough, but has no concept of ‘enough’ as it relates to investment in those things we cannot hold anyway. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about love, forgiveness, compassion, and time. When we consciously give these, we find the greater wealth returned to us. Love should always result in more love; compassion, more compassion; and forgiveness, room for more.
“He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
When I wrote this on Sunday afternoon, I had no idea how the week might unravel, and yet last night as I reflected, all things seem to connect through this, to this notion of more.
I love the idea of grace and although Mr. Webster might describe it differently, I think of it as love undeserved. When someone says, “I love you”, it is the ‘more’ that matters – not that I love you more than you love me, but that I love you more than you might have felt you deserved. That’s grace, and it is (in my opinion) the divine within us. Certainly, life would be less messy if God had asked us simply to love those just like us, those who deserve it, those who make it easy.
We are better, or at least I believe we are.
And there’s that word – believe. There are the things I believe and the things I know.
We are warned time and again about judging others, and yet we do it. Everyone does it. I do it, because inherently, I feel an urge to judge those who judge. Twisted, I know! I try, but it is difficult not to. But judging is razor’s edge. It is not just about forming an opinion based on information or facts (or a lack of either). It’s about denying love, forgiveness and compassion based on our own ideas of whether or not someone deserves it. It is the thing that keeps love from being ‘more’. It keeps love from being grace (and it is surely by grace, we are saved).
Silly me, but I would argue that it’s not really love if it comes with the condition of being deserved. As Lyle Lovett penned it so well –
And who keeps on loving you
When you’ve been lying
Saying things ain’t what they seem
God does
But I don’t
God will
But I won’t
And that’s the difference
Between God and me
I don’t always get it right, but that’s okay. In my bones, I believe we are asked (blessed) to make a habit of giving ‘more’, of being ‘more’, of forgiving ‘more’. When I think of judgment, I think of something I once heard. God created us in His image, and in return (out of some crazy reasoning), we create Him in ours. We assume our 
logic of what is lovable and forgivable is the same as His.
I thank Him every day that it’s not.
When I fail to love, that isn’t about deserving. That isn’t even about the person I’m withholding my love and forgiveness from. It’s about me. When my life is over, I will not be asked what I kept for myself, but rather what I gave away. In giving of grace, I am hopeful to receive the same. I don’t know about you, but I was kinda counting on a little divine grace.
What I believe – a sweeter life awaits beyond what we could earn, beyond what we deserve.
What I know – we don’t have to wait.
of choices
only these
of what I give away
the last I knew
of promises
of debts I can’t repay
but let not
there be another
would wander to a place
where arms
are not yet opened –
love is not yet grace
break my heart again (again)
that I might learn to heal
that I might live
beyond this life
another truth revealed
of choices
might I gather –
as stones
along the road
and carry not their burden
to my soul
. . .
09 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in Poetry
Tags
becoming, bliss, connection, conscious consciousness, death, destiny, dreams, faith, fearless, grace, gravel roads, knowledge, life, love, old maps, passion, poetry, reason, relationship, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, value, wonder
how cool the hands
of early fall
the arms of winters yet
where promise keeps a bride
of snowy white
autumn grieves
the burning leaves
sheets to slumber pressed
as weary souls
remembered back
to light
beyond the fate
of silent lips
another sun is born
from ashes
how the wing’ed ones
do fly
up into the warm caress
foretold one summer night
when lovers cast their wishes
to the sky
. . .
04 Thursday Sep 2014
Posted in a time for telling, Poetry
Tags
becoming, breath, charity, compassion, connection, conscious consciousness, destiny, faith, fearless, grace, knowledge, life, living, love, memory, palms open, passion, poetry, reason, relationship, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, value, volunteer, woman, writing
The universe remembers.
So much of our disappointments are the result not being remembered – by a friend, a lover, a time. We wonder if (perhaps) we were alone in that place, in that ache.
But the universe remembers. It remembers the prayer, the writing down of every dream. It remembers the rhythm of your heart, for it is a shared beat.
Lately, I’ve been overwhelmed with my schedule. Teaching is so important to me, and yet, on more than one occasion, I’ve wondered about direction, resources, and a balancing of passion, desire, and grass too high.
But I wasn’t doing a lot with my worry, other than speaking aloud in my car, on the porch, and in the dark. It’s been almost four years since the non-profit I was working with lost their grant, and three since they stopped making copies, following-up, caring. The class continued because it mattered to me, and I was/am convinced it matters to my students (even if just one). Otherwise, it’s an extra 200 miles a month on my car. A proposed change to one Saturday a month had been accepted by the Director of the outreach facility, but I can’t help but feel for those who will miss the session due to their own recovery schedule. I even feel guilty for thinking that reaching some of them is better than none.
I felt selfish.
Last week, I updated my Linked-in profile and joined an HR group for purposes of sharing ideas on leadership, policy and emotional intelligence studies. That was Monday.
On Tuesday, I received an email from an organization with a message that my posts had been insightful, and further, that a volunteer opportunity had been identified that I might be interested in.
My immediate thought was to ignore it since I was already filled with angst over my schedule. And yet, the name of the organization grabbed me. The email came from a group by the name of Catchafire.
Names are my undoing. The paint in my bedroom will forever be the same for no other reason. It’s a soft grey – woodsmoke. I couldn’t delete and so I replied, ‘tell me more’.
Catchafire is a ‘match-maker service’ of sorts, hooking up volunteers with non-profit organizations.
The opportunity is for a storyteller.
Of course, I was interested and on Thursday, I spoke with the president of the non-profit. In the meantime, they had a few questions. At the time, I wondered if maybe I should take more time with my answers. But ultimately, our answers are our answers. How much time did I need to tell how I feel about story?
The founder of this non-profit is in her nineties. Though she participates (still) with various conventions, etc., her endurance suffers, even as a new younger audience emerges, thirsty for her story. It is a pressing concern for the organization. And there, my job – to tell. From audio interviews, videos, and phone calls, I will do my best to capture the history of this amazing woman.
This doesn’t change the ache I feel for my students, but it gives me a new love which buffers the longing a bit. With time to pause, reflect, and regroup, it is a much needed breath in which to decide where I bloom next. In the slower pace, I can formulate a plan, apply for funding, and reach out to other organizations with similar passions. For certain, I won’t forget.
Which reminds me….
https://www.catchafire.org/opportunities/
The universe calls (the universe listens).
. . .
of moments so fragile
they’re lost to the rhyme
crowded together
as birds on the line
were freedom
a place
we left long ago
where they whisper
of heaven –
above and below
. . .
22 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in a time for telling, Poetry
Tags
bliss, connection, conscious consciousness, destiny, dreams, faith, family, fearless, grace, gravel roads, knowledge, life, living, love, memory, old maps, passion, poetry, reason, relationship, spirit, strength, truth, understanding, value, wandering, wonder
Not long ago, while visiting my parents, my mother and I were discussing a much needed painting as part of home renovations. We talked about the wallpaper I recently got rid of, and some she has hopes of retiring soon
Then, as now, I am reminded of the things that matter – that which we keep. I believe I commented, ‘the wallpaper isn’t bad but I’m not so endeared to it that I’d be hurt if you painted over’.
And yet, in retrospect, I realize there are other ‘things’ that I’ve been sentimental over at times, though the sentiment was tied to an associated memory rather than the physical. You’re probably struggling to understand, so let me give you some examples.
Easterners worn us of attachment, and I realize how easy it is to get tied into things that don’t matter, like the wallpaper design or whether you have the latest trend in ovens. For years, I bought clothes at upscale places. Now, I shop Goodwill, and savor the bargains. But deeper, I feel another association. My childhood is peppered with memories of trips to the ‘rag store’ (as my grandmother would call them), hiding under tables whenever she would cry out, ‘Bobbie, I found you some panties.’
That which we keep is that which becomes a part of us. It’s not a thing, and it’s not even a time. It’s a moment that exists still, as close as the scent of an orange honeysuckle, or in the feel of tags against my fingers.
It’s a favorite pair of earrings and words nearly worn thru.
When I started this piece, I thought on time. There are those who claim that I spend too much on the past. And yet, I would disagree. I spend my time (now) living and part of the joy in living is a love for how I got to this place. You see, despite what they say, time isn’t a thief. Time is your constant companion. When you are broken, it reminds you of the need to move forward. The real thieves are hatred, bitterness, resentment, and regret. They take all you’ll give – health, relationships, and every bit of your joy they can get.
I’d make a lousy Buddhist. I suspect part of the reason is that I’m a poet, and a keeper of stories (of the old ways). It’s not about ‘things’, but about everything, everything come of love. Nothing matters; everything matters.
Someone near and dear reminds me that enlightenment is seeing things as they really are. With time, I’ve come to revel in my wilderness….to linger softly with my tears, to see with eyes (but more, with my soul).
May you cling warmly to the tender hands of time.
of another place
become of me –
has taken me to learn
e’en now my heart
grows full
beneath the weight
of blessings found
where I begin
to find my joys earned
a field beyond
my reaching
for the gate
. . .
Starry-eyed Writer, Cautious Philosopher, Hopeful Romantic
A daily selection of the best content published on WordPress, collected for you by humans who love to read.
Poetry about Life, Love, Music by Walt Page, The Tennessee Poet
~ journey of a rose scented ink ~
Just a little poetry...
View my worlds
The fears of a girl, the heart of a woman, and everything inbetween...
Flared and prepared.
Just a cup of poetry and cookies
A Discovery of Enlightening Insights, Information, Humor, Writings and Musings
Motivate | Inspire | Uplift
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou
Thoughts and feelings made into words about the world and times in which we live ...
Making a connection when everything is connected
tornadoday 