“My Healer” – a quatrain

“My Healer” – a quatrain

People will fail you, leave you black and blue
Trample your heart, the very existence of you
Rise above your hurt, let God mend your pain
When everyone has left you, He’s the one who remains.
-jmf

“Robin’s Song” (haiku)

Robin’s Song

Oh, the robin’s song

announces winter’s demise

serenades blossom.

-jmf

This is another stanza of the “Spring Wakes” haiku, a work in progress.  Each stanza reminds me of my hope.  As this season does.  I am enjoying it as I write it.

I hope you do as well.

J.

“I Taught Myself To Live Simply” by Anna Akhmatova

I Taught Myself To Live Simply

by Anna Akhmatova

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

---

I was once a very busy person.  Successful, but too busy going through the motions to know if I was really enjoying life or not.  This is what I’ve learned since waking from a coma.  Life is measured in moments.  Those moments are limited.  We are at liberty to spend them any way we choose.  We can waste them on mindless activities, we can worry them away, we can rush them by.  Or we can celebrate them.  They’re going to go by anyway.

My life is much more quiet than it used to be.  I don’t own a TV.  I don’t want to give away my moments for the sake of entertainment, if that makes any sense.  Plus, since my brain injury, I prefer the quiet.  I enjoy my moments as much as I can.  I’m conscious of them.  I have this fear of getting so busy that I lose that awareness.  I’m working on that.

I know there is a balance.  I’m in the process of finding it.  I want my moments to count; to be spent celebrating so that I will have as few regrets as possible.

I think there’s wisdom in that…and this poem.

“Feathers and Fools” – Mem Fox

I’ve been thinking of this book recently as I’ve witnessed conflict arise around us.

This is a children’s book but the story is a very mature, thought provoking one.  In fact, as an Elementary Educator I have found that many hard and true life lessons can be learned through children’s literature.  This is a fine example.

Mem Fox uses an allegory of swans and peacocks that misunderstand their differences which leads to fear of them.  Their fear of each other then leads to violence and war.  It’s powerful, yet easy to understand.  An appropriate story that addresses conflict for both children and adults.

I often used children’s literature to teach such lessons in my 5th grade classroom.  I never cease to be amazed at the wisdom of children’s literature authors.

I’ve included a video of the text.  It isn’t a read aloud, just text.  It’s a short read.

But powerful.

Enjoy.

What do you do when you have a persistent guest that turns into an unwelcome roommate??

He’s been here too long and it’s time for him to leave.  He was once a welcome guest, the only one to keep me company besides my faithful and loyal Pup. He listened when I needed to say the things I could not say to any other. But I’m growing weary of him and it’s time for him to go. He’s overstayed his welcome.

You see, there was a time when I welcomed his company for several reasons.  He understood my depression and self-pity. He actually encouraged it.  In his own way, he kept me in my solid state of depression, faithfully, day and night.  All he ever wanted to talk about was the memories of the life and love that I used to live. Conversations that only served to conjure up still-there feelings.

It’s true that I’ll have to live alone, just my Pup and me.  But his absence, the hole that it leaves in my heart and home, will be the space that someone else will fill.  Someone who will cheer for my smiles, my successes and my happiness.

So, I’m helping him pack tonight.  We’re not bothering with suitcases, no.  Garbage bags are sufficient for his unending supply of stuff.  I’m visiting and revisiting every room and closet, searching for anything that remains.  I don’t want him to leave anything behind.  I don’t want anything of him left behind.

I don’t know where he’s going.  I don’t know where his next home will be.  I only know he’s leaving.  Tonight.

Goodbye, Loneliness.

You just weren’t good for me.  I hope you understand.

“Spring Haiku”

This is just one stanza of a work in progress.  I love the haiku.  As poetry forms are, it’s limited, but I think that’s part of the beauty of it.  Because of the limitations, it makes the poet consider carefully the use of imagery and expression.

“Spring Wakes”

Spring’s Promise is here,

soft rain waking sleeping trees,

sowed seeds yield new hope.

– jmf

“The Invitation” – Oriah Mountain Dreamer

 

I have just discovered this poet and…Oh, this poem! I love it because it is naked and authentic!  Particularly, the last stanza.  I don’t even have words…

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesnt interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

“In Myself” – Louisa May Alcott

In Myself

by Louisa May Alcott

I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
Be thou my guide until I find
Led by a tender hand,
The happy kingdom in myself
And dare to take command.

I love this poem because it’s so simple yet so profound.

I think the poet is truly onto something.

Peace and acceptance of others, situations and circumstances in general, begins with acceptance of self.

That is where we learn to sail how to sail our ship.

Happiness Is??

“Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.” – Gretta Brooker Palmer

As I become more and more acquainted with social media I’m reminded of just how wrapped up in happiness we all are. Our own happiness.  I think there’s a little narcissist in all of us.  But, when I think about it, concerning myself with others does much for my own contentment.  Without my effort.  It’s so easy to get caught up in my own little world and its woes that I can easily lose sight of those of others.  It’s normal I think.

But, when I busy myself with doing something for someone else it takes time and effort…a busyness that gives me a break from me.

I like that.

And I don’t do enough of it.

It does this…

• keeps me from thinking of myself which is a remedy for self-pity and self-absorption, if only for a little while.
• gives me the joy of seeing someone else happy because of me.
• fulfills a sense of gratification that only sacrifice can.
• encourages me because I’ve encouraged someone else.
• builds strong, loyal and valuable relationships.

All things that are good for me.  Things that are sure to make me happy.  All while doing something to make someone else happy.

Yes.  I like that.

That makes me happy.

🙂

Maya Angelou…on love

Touched by An Angel

by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

So beautiful, this verse, and hopeful too.  I sometimes feel as if I live coiled in a shell of loneliness.  Timid and afraid of change.  Ah..there I said it out loud.

But I love the last stanza.  “And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be.”

Love costs all we are and will ever be…hmmm…

Worth the price.