The Life I Still Dream of Living

The Home I Long to Return to

was re-discovered
today in the pages torn
from Architectural Digest – glossy
photographs of room, after room, after room

and a Mediterranean
light through blue-white
curtains that swayed in the morning
breeze like Edelweiss or chiffon kites

blown onto the veranda
(also white and aged with salt water).
Bedroom, livingroom, kitchen, garden, bath,
photographs, patched together into a home, torn

from a magazine
during stolen moments
when we dreamed of the life we
wanted to live if we were not living

this life, with
only a trail of sweetpeas
and philodendron to remind us
of sea-green fantasies in the south

of France,
where lemons roll
in cobblestone streets
below lavender scented Alps,

while you
stack Caprese, fresh
basil always lazily in reach
from our rustic kitchen window.

Two glasses
of Bordeaux on granite
countertop, your bright camellia
lips, outside the photographer’s frame,

in the white space
for me to imagine: this house,
this life, this scrapbook of our future,
now sepia-toned with age and neglect,

these pages
of the house that never
lived, but for in our dreams,
these pages fold in on themselves today.

Rhythm & rhyme of healing

Recently I attended a song writing workshop (http://www.bravevoice.com/), not really sure that my poetry would translate into song because I rarely use rhymes. I did manage to get a spoken word piece put together with an amazing R&B artist, Kelley Hunt (http://www.kelleyhunt.com/). She was graciously open and generously found a hook line and a gospel rhythm for me to sing my poetry to. Kelley and Kansas poet laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (http://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/) have co-created some brilliant work on the CD Mercy. And some of the lyrics don't rhyme.

This weekend, as I dug away at the neglected dirt in my garden and reflected on the Law of Attraction, I listened to Jewel. Many of her songs stand alone, without the music, as poignant poems. There's a place for me, I thought. My poems do have a musicality to them that I'm certain reflects my former career as a modern dancer. One of the reasons I took this workshop was to be able to move and sing with my poems. Rhythm and rhyme help to make words stick with us (as in mnemonic devices, nursery rhymes, and hymns).

In my morning meditation, I challenged myself to write at least three rhyming poems that I could remember and repeat throughout the day like an affirmation. I've been working hard to shift my thought patterns from depressed and negative to positive, hopeful, affirming, with a desire to attract more positive into my life. Most of my spiritual lessons I learn from nature, so I decided to write short "songs" about the seeds I had planted the previous weekend. I'll refrain from over editing and intellectualizing. Below are three simple poems:

Portulaca Portulaca
What a funny, sunny name.
Portulaca Portulaca
will you join me in a game?

I planted you three days ago ~
how about we make a bet?
By the time I see your tender stems,
a gentle lover I will get.


Once upon a time
I planted Columbine ~
tiny seeds hidden in my hand.
Life line creases
palmed possibility,
sifted through fingertips to the land.



I asked the impatiens seeds, "What will it take
to release me fully from this sorrow-filled wake?"

Sunshine and soil, sweat of the brow
Tend to your needs, water us now.

Time is all, let the wait be your bliss.
Be patient my friend and you'll be kissed

by joy as verdant as my sprouting leaf.
It took so little, less than a week

for me to reveal what's been seeding underground ~
new life, new life, this morning you found.

To Mina Loy~

just for fun, across time and space, through my acclivity

...for a declivity
into depravity
there is no first or last,
only equality,
which is, perhaps,
why it appeals to me ~
we are all the same
at the bottom
of the slippery slope,
no One better
only worse
for space and time.
We can merely hope
that our propensity
for Liquor, Love and Lust
is just a side Bar
with little immensity
in the thrust toward Absolute.

Tell Me

How is it that the first sighting of delicate, new blades of grass can bring me such pleasure. I actually gasped with excitement when I saw that the seeds planted 10 days ago actually sprouted in nubile wonder...and on May Day. Happy verdant Beltane to all.

Leisure

by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Cape Disappointment

You broke my horizon,
claiming a noble neglect,
"I don't want to hurt you
like others have hurt you."





Yet, we became a tragedy anyway,
one of recognizable proportion.

Now, knowing the sorrow
of waves on ragged rock,
wounded shorelines,
and a seagull's scream,
the ocean is no longer a lullaby
unless this song was our last.

I have loved, oh God, the beauty...Psalm 26

Why is that not enough ~
loving the beauty, oh
when everything else is gone
does the etching of love remain ~
yellow lips deep within
open petals of violet iris,
echos of a poet's heartbeat,
cello vibrations, strummed,
rippling out, faint but still
audible, attainable
when all else is said and done?

The sword fern awaits
my planting.

My Nephew Grows Up

From dressed to charm at 4 months to dressed to...protect.

I yam what I yam

THAT SORT OF WOMAN
by Jan L. Richardson

She is that sort of woman
so annoying
not content
to let the truth stay hidden.
Discovering
is her forte,
revealing the masks
that others choose,
reminding those
who dwell near the holy
fire will find them
shadows will take form.