Poetry
How many wonderful poets there are in our world! If you have a poem of hope and healing and compassion you would like to share, please email it to [email protected]
Sanctuary (written after the summer shootings)
by Kayleen Asbo
There is only one safe place:
The heart.
Bullets will find you in the cafes of Paris,
the synagogue in Pittsburgh,
the elementary school of the suburbs,
the disco in Florida,
the food festival in Gilroy,
the parking lot of Wall Mart.
Thieves will steal your backpack
and your phone
and even your identity.
Your mind will slow,
And your wits will dull.
Your body will bend and shrink and
Your eyesight and hearing will both fail.
But the memory of your love
Can never be lost.
If you feed it truth and beauty,
Your heart will continue to grow,
Expanding until your dying breath.
No matter how confined your quarters,
The sanctuary where you love
Will bloom and blossom
Until you follow its petals
To the farthest star.
The River of Joy
Kayleen Asbo
January 9, 2020
Australia is burning,
And the President threatens war,
Missiles shoot Canadian planes from the sky,
And the homeless camp stretches for over a mile
Along the creekside trail.
But today, the mist covered mountains
Played peekaboo with the sun,
And I just could not stop singing with joy
As my peony-petalled heart
Kept opening again and again with love.
Part of me felt almost guilty
To feel so much happiness
Knowing how much the world is suffering.
But then, I thought of all you have been through
And how the time has come for you
To be lavished with tenderness and ecstasy.
.
We have each known so much sorrow
And no doubt there will be dark days ahead.
Let us linger while we can in this stream of light
While it rains upon our hungry hearts,
Drinking in all we can --
And then find a way to share it
With this thirsting world.
Kayleen Asbo
January 9, 2020
Australia is burning,
And the President threatens war,
Missiles shoot Canadian planes from the sky,
And the homeless camp stretches for over a mile
Along the creekside trail.
But today, the mist covered mountains
Played peekaboo with the sun,
And I just could not stop singing with joy
As my peony-petalled heart
Kept opening again and again with love.
Part of me felt almost guilty
To feel so much happiness
Knowing how much the world is suffering.
But then, I thought of all you have been through
And how the time has come for you
To be lavished with tenderness and ecstasy.
.
We have each known so much sorrow
And no doubt there will be dark days ahead.
Let us linger while we can in this stream of light
While it rains upon our hungry hearts,
Drinking in all we can --
And then find a way to share it
With this thirsting world.
The Blackberry by Kayleen Asbo
I remember my grandmother during the sultry last days of summer
Sending me out to the blackberry bushes by the stream
Insisting that every last one be gathered and brought inside.
“Pick it clean”, she said, “ we will need each and every one”
And on and on we picked until there was no more light,
Our fingers stained purple ,
Our bare legs scratched from thorns.
It seemed impossible, during the bounty of August
That one more berry would make a difference.
But months later,
During the harshest blizzard in one hundred years,
Grandmother took the last canning jar from the shelf.
That afternoon, we carefully made crusts the size of quarters
Placed a single berry inside
Silently holding our breath while they baked,
Paying fierce attention
Lest they burn.
We gathered around a glowing candle
as night fell and
the wind howled outside
Our tiny pies cradled in our hands.
“Remember”, she said
“Remember that day
When you thought there would be never be lack,
never be need.
Remember every detail-
The laughter in the creek
The sun on your skin
The smell of the dog.
The lilac blooming.”
As slowly as we could,
We each placed the tiny tart on our tongues
And sacramental tears
Flowed down my cheeks.
Oh my darlings, begin now.
Harvest every last word, photograph and song that is within reach.
Inscribe upon the walls of your memory
Each precious and juicy morsel of the sacred and ordinary times we have known
Days are coming when they will have never tasted so sweet.
Six Feet
By Carl Scheidenhelm
What exactly is 6 feet?
72 inches, 1.8 meters, 1/100th of a mile.
Slightly more than the average height of a human.
5.9 x 10^9 light seconds.
The length of 2 arms outstretched to meet.
As of late, it became, for the first time ever,
a safe distance between 2 humans.
It won’t stop a bullet, or a birdsong, or a smile
but it will, they say, stop a virus.
I’ve never considered how close or how far 6 feet would feel.
I’ve never felt the push or pull of that small distance.
Now that I have, I long to fill the void with kindness, joy and beauty.
And now it contains - a poem, a song, a blossom,
a ray of sun, a friendly hello, an offer of support, a blown kiss, a virtual hug, a solemn prayer, and a knowing smile.
Once given, these things can never be taken away.
They reach far beyond this short distance
to connect each and every one of us.
And so I ask myself,
‘Are we really 6 feet apart
or 6 feet together?’
Indeed, it all depends on how we choose
to fill this space every day.
By Carl Scheidenhelm
What exactly is 6 feet?
72 inches, 1.8 meters, 1/100th of a mile.
Slightly more than the average height of a human.
5.9 x 10^9 light seconds.
The length of 2 arms outstretched to meet.
As of late, it became, for the first time ever,
a safe distance between 2 humans.
It won’t stop a bullet, or a birdsong, or a smile
but it will, they say, stop a virus.
I’ve never considered how close or how far 6 feet would feel.
I’ve never felt the push or pull of that small distance.
Now that I have, I long to fill the void with kindness, joy and beauty.
And now it contains - a poem, a song, a blossom,
a ray of sun, a friendly hello, an offer of support, a blown kiss, a virtual hug, a solemn prayer, and a knowing smile.
Once given, these things can never be taken away.
They reach far beyond this short distance
to connect each and every one of us.
And so I ask myself,
‘Are we really 6 feet apart
or 6 feet together?’
Indeed, it all depends on how we choose
to fill this space every day.
This Desperate Week, The Orchid Reminds Me
by Rosemerry Wahtola Traumer
It looked dead, the orchid.
After long extravagant glory,
the blossoms dropped quickly,
one by one. The stem shriveled,
dried. Every time I looked at it,
all I saw was what wasn’t there.
People said it would reset.
They said it needed rest,
a little bit of extra care.
But eight months later,
the plant still looked dead.
There are times we lose hope.
Times when our eyes tells us
we’re fools to believe beyond
what we see here now.
But from what seemed
like nothing, a long dark stem
appeared, lined with buds.
And what a fool I was to doubt,
to let the eyes lie to me.
Already they’ve remembered how to see
what will be. Already they remember
how to see the beauty
of exactly what is here.
Find more of Rosemerry's inspiring work here
by Rosemerry Wahtola Traumer
It looked dead, the orchid.
After long extravagant glory,
the blossoms dropped quickly,
one by one. The stem shriveled,
dried. Every time I looked at it,
all I saw was what wasn’t there.
People said it would reset.
They said it needed rest,
a little bit of extra care.
But eight months later,
the plant still looked dead.
There are times we lose hope.
Times when our eyes tells us
we’re fools to believe beyond
what we see here now.
But from what seemed
like nothing, a long dark stem
appeared, lined with buds.
And what a fool I was to doubt,
to let the eyes lie to me.
Already they’ve remembered how to see
what will be. Already they remember
how to see the beauty
of exactly what is here.
Find more of Rosemerry's inspiring work here
The Mandala of Letting Go
by Kayleen ASbo
Today I had ambitious plans for Making Beauty.
I combed the beach for intact sand dollars,
Unblemished white pebbles,
Rare jade.
I picked the perfect stick,
And carefully measured out a precise circle,
Placing each treasure from the sea
in an intricate design,
Like a precious jewel.
I was almost done,
When a wayward dog came bounding through,
Trampling everything
And crushing my creation
Into shattered fragments buried in chaos.
Dark frustration and anger
surged inside,
Followed by the tug of
hopelessness.
Despairing, I turned around.
And saw the most subtle and beautiful light
Dancing on the water.
Birds soared and dove in feathered clouds.
Foamy waves kept coming to kiss the shore.
“There is a secret to this art of living,” they sang to me.
“Give yourself wholly to the tides of passionate dreaming,
But when you fall (as we all must),
Let yourself be carried and
Lift up your face to praise the sky”
As our little dreams fall
Let us learn together like the waves,
How to let the currents carry us
To become one sea
beneath one shining sun.
by Kayleen ASbo
Today I had ambitious plans for Making Beauty.
I combed the beach for intact sand dollars,
Unblemished white pebbles,
Rare jade.
I picked the perfect stick,
And carefully measured out a precise circle,
Placing each treasure from the sea
in an intricate design,
Like a precious jewel.
I was almost done,
When a wayward dog came bounding through,
Trampling everything
And crushing my creation
Into shattered fragments buried in chaos.
Dark frustration and anger
surged inside,
Followed by the tug of
hopelessness.
Despairing, I turned around.
And saw the most subtle and beautiful light
Dancing on the water.
Birds soared and dove in feathered clouds.
Foamy waves kept coming to kiss the shore.
“There is a secret to this art of living,” they sang to me.
“Give yourself wholly to the tides of passionate dreaming,
But when you fall (as we all must),
Let yourself be carried and
Lift up your face to praise the sky”
As our little dreams fall
Let us learn together like the waves,
How to let the currents carry us
To become one sea
beneath one shining sun.
Cargo by Greg Kimura
You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world.
And as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.
Everything depends on this.
But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission,
and the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead Pharaohs.
The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held
and spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you ask:
"Is this the way?"
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing there is a way,
and it is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.
The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.
You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world.
And as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.
Everything depends on this.
But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission,
and the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead Pharaohs.
The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held
and spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you ask:
"Is this the way?"
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing there is a way,
and it is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.
The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.
Mojave Desert by Emma Asbo
The Galaxy of Grief by Kayleen Asbo
How very many firsts we accumulate over the course of a lifetime-
First words
First steps
First day of school
First kiss
First breakup
First job
Today will be the first day my mother wakes up
And there will be no yellow post it love note on the coffee pot.
The first day she will not hear his whistle
As her husband tends to the yard work
The first day there will be no
“Love you, Babe” after a shared meal.
How can it be, she wonders
That you go to bed one day a wife,
And the next, you are a widow?
How quickly a crack opens in the universe
Big enough for a whole life to slide through
Where you find yourself a lone astronaut
on a far distant planet
A place where time and gravity
are all so very different.
A place where what seemed so urgent yesterday-
politics,
the stock market crash,
the rising pandemic-
have no more weight
And where even food
Has no meaning or
substance.
It would be so easy here
to float out beyond the tsunami of memory and loss
And never come back to yourself.
Let today then also be a new first:
The first day I begin to weave a braid of beauty
To let those who have slipped into the galaxy of grief know
They are still tethered and bound
By love.
"This Kiss is for the Whole World" by Gustav Klimt, inspired by the Ode to Joy of Beethoven
Ode to Joy
by Kayleen Asbo
May 2019
The old ones knew
that relentless tragedy could also be the beginning of transformation -
could become paint on the cave wall,
song in a scarred throat
the drumming heartbeat of a dance of lamentation
that would lead us to a deeper truth.
I think of that long scream of terror
that opens the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
the cacophonous descent that signals the end of the world
and how the orchestra tries so valiantly to recapture the past
recapitulating one theme after another from the first three movements.
How each time, the Greek Chorus of the orchestra says:
No.
This will not do.
We cannot go back to where we have already been.
And that moment --when all seems lost in utter chaos and darkness--
how slowly,
tentatively,
ever so gently
emerging from the soft underbelly of the strings
is the simplest of tunes--
Childlike,
almost embarrassing
in its utter transparency and
open hearted
vulnerability
And how the goosebumps rise upon my neck
as the melody begins its sure ascent
Higher
Higher
Until it blazes with triumph,
blossoming into the Ode to Joy,
Shattering all notions of what a symphony should be
What a symphony could be.
I wonder if Beethoven,
gripped with liver disease and completely deaf
knew as he flailed his swollen hands
that his agony had opened the door to a new vision
for the entire human race.
I imagine how his sad eyes would open wide with wonder
If he could see his simple tune sung at Auschwitz,
as Chinese students faced tanks in Tianenman Square,
if he could hear it sung at the fall of the Berlin Wall,
and see the choirs all across the world after 911
uniting the world into his lifelong dream:
a chorus of common humanity, resounding with love.
Let us sing with all we have in us
no matter what storms rage all around,
and know this in our bones:
If a deaf and dying man
(who believed his whole life was a failure)
could give birth to such miraculous starshine as this,
surely,
surely,
there is still hope
for us all.
by Kayleen Asbo
May 2019
The old ones knew
that relentless tragedy could also be the beginning of transformation -
could become paint on the cave wall,
song in a scarred throat
the drumming heartbeat of a dance of lamentation
that would lead us to a deeper truth.
I think of that long scream of terror
that opens the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
the cacophonous descent that signals the end of the world
and how the orchestra tries so valiantly to recapture the past
recapitulating one theme after another from the first three movements.
How each time, the Greek Chorus of the orchestra says:
No.
This will not do.
We cannot go back to where we have already been.
And that moment --when all seems lost in utter chaos and darkness--
how slowly,
tentatively,
ever so gently
emerging from the soft underbelly of the strings
is the simplest of tunes--
Childlike,
almost embarrassing
in its utter transparency and
open hearted
vulnerability
And how the goosebumps rise upon my neck
as the melody begins its sure ascent
Higher
Higher
Until it blazes with triumph,
blossoming into the Ode to Joy,
Shattering all notions of what a symphony should be
What a symphony could be.
I wonder if Beethoven,
gripped with liver disease and completely deaf
knew as he flailed his swollen hands
that his agony had opened the door to a new vision
for the entire human race.
I imagine how his sad eyes would open wide with wonder
If he could see his simple tune sung at Auschwitz,
as Chinese students faced tanks in Tianenman Square,
if he could hear it sung at the fall of the Berlin Wall,
and see the choirs all across the world after 911
uniting the world into his lifelong dream:
a chorus of common humanity, resounding with love.
Let us sing with all we have in us
no matter what storms rage all around,
and know this in our bones:
If a deaf and dying man
(who believed his whole life was a failure)
could give birth to such miraculous starshine as this,
surely,
surely,
there is still hope
for us all.