Blackbird

 

For years I wandered aimlessly

up and down,

past all the pretty cottages

in the town

where happy people lived.

Oh, how I dreamed,
when I was on the outside

looking in,

that one day I would live,

like them, within.

I found a blackbird heart.
We loved each other true.

But, unused to being cherished,

knew not what to do

with all the feelings we kept

locked inside

through all the fear we tried

so hard to hide.

"And now you're inside
looking out", he said.

And it was true.

The cornerstone of my free spirit,

trapped. He could not say

the words to make me stay.
I took my broken heart
and walked away.

for Shay at the Word List. After this, I made a mighty leap over the mountains to the sea, and began a glorious adventure. Wild Woman came into her own and it was perfect. 

Link: https://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2024/06/word-garden-word-list-gracefully-insane.html

The Princess Who Ate the Pea

 

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She'd been told, of course,

about the princess and the pea:

a girl with such delicate sensitivities

she could feel a pea under fourteen layers
of mattresses.

What does it mean, then,

when her bed has pebbles in it

and the message is "you made your bed,
now lie in it. What doesn't kill you
makes you stronger"?

How strong does a wild woman

have to be?

She ate the pea; 
she needed the extra strength
for the journey.

In her world, the prince did not come.

There were no glass slippers.

She got stuck in a different fairy tale,

the one with a wolf in it,
and luckily he was friendly.
(Big teeth, but what a fulsome grin!)

For some years, she felt like

the aging woman in the Dickens parlor,

draped in spiderwebs,

waiting decades
for her suitor to arrive.

She was always brushing

those damn cobwebs
off her face.

Un-fairytales are her medium.

Definitely.

She has got un-fairy tales
down.

She learned to hack her own way

through the thornbushes,

freed herself from her own stone garret.

She and her wolf had fourteen years
of wilderness, with brave hearts
for the journey. No need 
to be rescued by a knight
on a white horse;
wild beaches and forest trails
were all they needed.

Un-fairy tales can get repetitive,
what with all that pining.

One may feel like she is beginning

a new chapter every other week.

It gets exhausting.

And delicate sensitivities?

One needs to toss those overboard

right from the start,

develop a hearty cackle

and a Can-Do attitude.

(But she still Believes,

for all that,

in fairy tales.)

For my prompt at What's Going On : Un-Fairy Tales.

Link: https://newwhatsgoingon.blogspot.com/

My Treasure

My room is full of wolves,
hanging from the walls all around.
I have a wolf head on a chain,
that I wear for medicine
when in need.

But when it comes to
the real keepsake,
the thing I want to
take into my casket with me,
it is your urn,
your wolfish face
engraved on the top,
your ashes inside.

(How I wept when
they handed you to me,
my big, noisy boy, so reduced,
in a small white take-out box.)

In life, in death,
you've always been
my treasure.

for Susan's prompt at What's Going On - Keepsakes/Treasures

link: https://newwhatsgoingon.blogspot.com/

Night Road

 

I travelled that night road

for far too long,
riding my bus of dreams

all over town. 
In ceremony,
with fragile faith,
I lit a candle,
hoping to feel your presence,
breathing,
all around.

In memory - once again that magic kiss,

the one that showed me all a kiss could be.

As you left this world, you came to me
as I was sleeping.

With the greatest love,
we set each other
free.

for Shay's Word List: Night Road

link: https://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2024/06/word-garden-word-list-night-road.html

The man of my dreams, from whom I parted in the 1980's, came to me with love in a series of dreams a few years ago. When I looked online, I saw that he had died around that time. In the dreams, we finally got the loving right, and I knew he finally understood all he had meant to me.

BOOKS

She has carried home

an armload of library books

every week for seventy years.

Her walls are lined with books;

a tall stack of Read Next's

teeters on her dresser.

Through the day, she looks forward to
climbing into bed at night,
and opening the cover
of her current book.

As the soft light falls upon the page,

all evening she treks through

the Himalayas in search of

the snow leopard.

She communes with a shaman

in Africa, her heart aching

for the White Lions,

marveling at the mystery

of their history.

She walks the Camino with Shirley Maclean,

and looks through the veil of a burka

in Afghanistan,

lives in a refugee camp in Palestine,

is disappeared in the jungles

of the Amazon.

She wakes in the bitter cold

of a Siberian dawn

in the Gulag. She sleeps

on the bare hard boards

of Auschwitz.

She expands her heart

and her humanity

by learning of

and caring about

the human family.

Books are portals

to the great mystery.

Books tell

what it was like long ago,

and also what it is like

to live right now.

She lives in small rooms

full of books
and feels herself
wealthy beyond words.

for Sumana's prompt Books/Reading at https://newwhatsgoingon.blogspot.com/

I had to let a lot of books go as I downsized, but still have a solid collection of favourites.

Tears of Blood

NBC News image

What heart is not haunted by the past?
Say "Latin" and I am back
at early Mass, breathing in the incense,
bending my head at the ringing of the bell,
the familiar, comforting chanting
my safe harbor, my peace.

The wax is dripping down the candles.
We pray for the dead,
those restless ghosts
perhaps kneeling right behind me,
haunted, spirits
without rest.

The movie of the past
lives right behind my eyes,
each random thought
rolling a few scenes,
beautiful, tinged with regret
for all I did not then, but needed
desperately, to know.

In Italy, a Madonna weeps 
tears of blood
that any mother understands.
Believers beat their chests
and pray, spread wildflowers
at her feet.

The statue's owner refuses
to submit to
a DNA test.
Doubt enters the hearts
of the faithful.

Perhaps it isn't
the end of the world
after all.

for Shay's Word List:  https://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2024/06/word-garden-word-list-madeleines-ghost.html

Weirdly, Blogger wont let me insert links any more. Sigh.

Waves

 

Our time is brief.
We slip away, out the open window
into the starry night.

Behind us, we leave memories,
tears and laughter, poems,
so those we leave behind can find us
and remember.

Watch for Grandmother Owl,
flying across your windshield,
looking in at you,
her head turned back
to hold your gaze
even as she flies into the forest.

She brings a message
from the otherworld.
Listen to whispers on the wind.
Walk in an old growth forest.
Watch for the messengers.
There be spirits there.

Look for me in old man's beard
and fiddlehead fern.
Hear the song of the eternal waves,
forever advancing and retreating
in my heart.