Little bird, singing praises
Outside my windowsill
Rising warm sun on the horizon
Reminding me, God loves me still
When I feel lonely or discouraged Feel abandoned or unsure
I turn my vision to the only
Source of comfort; Love that’s pure
Category Archives: Poetry
The Hourglass
My dead are buried here
Cycling the winds of change
Filling my hourglass with the sands
of moments spent with true hearts
moments charged with life’s passing
Experience dictating lessons
of community
of unity
of vision
A tribal pulse weaving roots
deep into the soil of my hearth
fashioning the cloak of enduring life
a version of immortality
told in legends measured by grains
creating a life worth living
Pass it onward!
The Stillness is
The stillness is
where you were
Intimately held;
death and life blurred
The wealth of years
Fell silently
The labor gone
So quietly
The stillness is
Where you were
The peaceful night
Embraces you
Mourning’s tears
A grassy dew
And yet,
The stillness remains
Where you were
Glimpses of mortality
An unacceptable reality
Because the stillness is
Where you were
Pass it onward!
The gaping whole
It is broken into catastrophic wounds
The edges once pristine are jagged
Bitter with unspoken resentment
Abandoned on the side of the road
in unfamiliar territory
hindered by a lack of direction
or a sense of purpose
Trusting the impermeable
a mistake made of elevated tension
The chaos and confusion weep
from saturated sacred ground
sullied by panic and frustration
anxiety writhes in unworthiness
Pass it onward!
The Wisdom of Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga
The Grandmother of angry repute,
When she wishes to be found
May grant three voices
Likened to that of her same-named kin
Each louder than the last
Blasting as horns through the silence
Of long disguised enigmas
Concealed in shadowy cellars
Her nefarious, grotesque face
And carcass alike
Wallows in the justice
Of adorning her garden fence
with the skulls of the unworthy
She beckoned,
granting me fortress
At her whim, I unmasked for her
The eyes of her distorted haven warily watching
Her chicken-legged house
settling noisy bones
Baba Yaga, with her filed iron teeth
Has devoured me
with surges of bloody wisdom
As ancient as she is
from time unrecorded
On written pages
She ravaged me with mortar and pestle
crushing me with catastrophe
Sweeping up my granular remains
Endowing newfound resolve
To cultivate a bedrock authority
Roots of my own power
controlling the forces of my very nature
and the singular destiny
of my kaleidoscope purpose
Pass it onward!
Trust
I learned to trust from untrustworthy people.
I based my confidence in their reckless care.
My expectation was being cherished.
I watered it with tears of faith & hope.
I gave assurance that my loyalty was a certainty.
My certitude was placed on an altar of conviction.
I gave credence to cruelty as part of my human credit.
My dependence was absolute in their disapproval of me.
My positiveness came from knowing they were right.
My reliance on the low-stock they placed on me
violated ME,
But their neglectful assurance was their gospel truth, not mine.
Pass it onward!
A Good Day
She is well but doesn’t know me by sight.
She knows me by sound.
I have to tell her my name like a password
that unlocks that she likes me.
We talk,
Or I do the mundane,
Or we read together.
The together is a championed victory
The memory of presence remarkable
Pass it onward!
In the Deep
I’m fragmented by your absence.
Infinitely reformed.
I’m suffering love
the color of tears.
It is salty and dark
It is laborious to breathe.
I’m not afraid
of loving you
as I held you.
I’m conscious of the vulnerability
in which I’m submersed
from our severed physical connection.
My grief is a mere reflection
of our laughter, our conversations
distilled into our unwitting last
“I love you.”
I bring the best parts of us forward with me.
I will not betray our trust.
Your love is a part of who I am now.
No matter how deep the anguish,
There is no regret in cherishing
the you I knew.
Pass it onward!
The Still of Grief
In the still of grief
Time moves strangely,
Cruelly away from
The last breath,
The last moment shared
unforgiving
Unrelenting
In its finality.
It is like swimming in shallows
While experiencing depths
One half of a choreographed routine
Meant for two;
danced by one
Pass it onward!
Invisibility (Linda Looney)
I am an invisible person.
I’m sure you’ll disagree
But you’ve been well versed in
How to visualize me.
Maybe scorch-eye my belly
Disapprove my thickened thighs
Look down your nose at me ready
to allow me to be humanized
then possibly you’ll witness me
Become familiar and un-stigmatized
Mare Martell 