All sleepers seem helpless, snuggled up or spread out limp snoring a little breathing slowly completely at ease maybe some twitches when they dream, but they are not helpless. They are whole. They are sturdy.
They are filled with joy.
Tag Archives: poetry
Sleepers
Filed under dreams, eternal, faith, forgiveness, hope, kindness, love, mortality, prose poetry, soul, spirit, transcendence, transitions
Between The Lines
Boy, did she know how to read between the lines! And upside down, and in a mirror, and in the dark. She knew how to read in Braille, in cuneiform, in emojis. She could read between the lines, and hear the unspoken secrets of many people. Not all, thanks be to god.
Goddess. There is only one woman, she heard in her head. There is only ONE WOMAN. One universal truth. Many fractured mirror truths. Everyone was cracked, somewhere.
Filed under acceptance, beauty, compassion, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, faith, fiction, tribute, Uncategorized
With Jesus In New York
We met Jesus at his gate. My little daughter was so excited she ran up to him & clung to his legs. He put her little feet on top of his big feet & continued to walk forward wheeling his luggage, while she squealed like a parrot.
His suitcase was brand-new & shiny, and it had a piece of purple duct tape on it — JHC, his initials. His carryon bag looked like it had been trampled upon by a multitude. Jesus looked… tired & dusty.
Not what I expected. Always, always, always use waterproof mascara. One never knows when one might find it necessary to cry.
He couldn’t believe what people were doing with his name. The worst kind of identity theft, he called it. Jesus knew swear words that hadn’t even been written yet.
He had a work ethic nobody could fathom. But superhuman, no. He functioned mainly on coffee and chocolate and weed, just like the rest of us.
Filed under Uncategorized
Words I Can Make Out of My Name, a poem
You were not built to carry the weight of this world, said God.
And yet. It is upon you; you feel it heavier each day.
Your prayers have been shouted & whispered, in communion
& all alone. There are four thousand languages in this world,
God said. Don’t you think I can speak every one? Never
be afraid to grieve; to cry; to pound the ground; to bang a drum
on a beach somewhere; to dance before the fire of your own soul.
And don’t be afraid to make your own mark, God said.
On the wall of a cave, on some paper, on a server, in a cloud.
Do you need a map? Some create their own — mandalas
with colored sand, swept away after three days.
There are so many ways to pray, and the most important way
is kindness, said God. You, my beautiful daughter, will begin
and end with a simple breath — and you, my well-loved child,
were not built to carry this weight, the weight of the world.
Filed under anthem, beauty, buddhist, christian, courage, death, dream, forgiveness, grief, jewish, love, mysterious, personal responsibility, spiritual, transcendence, zoroastrian
Weight
You were not built to carry the weight of this world. And yet. It is upon you; you feel it, heavier every day. Your prayers have been shouted and whispered, in communion and all alone. There are four thousand languages, in this world. Don’t you think God can speak every one? Never be afraid to grieve; to cry; to pound the ground; to bang a drum somewhere; to appear naked as a jaybird, before your maker. And don’t be afraid to make your own mark, on the wall of a cave, on a server, in a cloud. Do you need a map? Some create their own, mandalas with colored sand, swept away after three days. There are so many ways to pray, and the most important way is kindness. You, my beautiful daughter, will begin and end with a simple breath — and you, my well-loved child, were not built to carry this weight, the weight of the world.
Filed under compassion, courage, death, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, everything, forgiveness, god, grief, heart, human beings, kindness, love, mourning, religion, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, universe, world
Priestess
Sometimes we must learn to live with uncertainty, the priestess said. Sometimes we must endure the unendurable. She smiled at me. Come take a walk, she said. Let’s walk over there, under those trees. That pine grove over yonder. Under those quiet pines, on the hush of the needles. Let’s make a basket out of them. Let’s walk to the spongy banks of the creek & watch the salamanders wiggle across the damp. Let’s phone home, and listen to your mama’s voice. Go ahead, let us surprise ourselves by crying.
(Illustration courtesy of Mike Willcox, https://mikewillcox.bigcartel.com/product/the-high-priestess)
Filed under animals, beauty, compassion, courage, earth, faith, Uncategorized
Out of The Wilderness, a poem
The bride’s laugh vexed the lands,
overlooking the great, bruise-colored
canyon, when she first said to the groom,
No, I don’t think so.
She defied his desires,
for nearly a century. He tried so hard…
it nearly brought death. His, or hers;
it didn’t really matter.
We’ve learned how some of them,
my darlings, are nothing more than creeps.
And rest assured, our game does have an end:
an end which tips the scale. The journey
out of the wilderness, away from the pit,
will find our esters quite changed.
Our journey was (or will be)
long, and very quiet.
Now, our shimmering skin dims to the shadow thief;
time is stealthy, taking soundless, fevered positions.
The anticipation is delicious, under our knees,
truth thrust like a knife (between waxen observers).
Soon, light-dressed love will be in your hair;
and wrestlers, across the colors, will shift through the room.
Desire, realized, is hot silk, slipping quiet and soft.
Dear one, there is no other course found.
You know more laughing is the way —
and less is usually, but not always, more.
Filed under beauty, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, eternity, passion, poetry, prose poetry, relationships, Uncategorized
Prayer, a prose poem
Prayer
Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.
At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.
Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.
I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.
Filed under beauty, born again, compassion, dream, eternal, faith, god, hope, human beings, humanity, love, mama, mother, mothers, mysterious, peace, poetry, prose poetry, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence
Jasmine
The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?
So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.
For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.
She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.
Rain for Remembrance, a poem
Rain
The woman sits up all night, listening to it rain. The woman has often sat up all night waiting for one thing or another to either leave or arrive: bandaged fingers, whooping cough, her own lookalike grandchildren. When she can, she sleeps next to her dying mother in the king-sized bed; she bangs her own shins on the high rails, climbing in. Her arms and hands are able to lift the wasted body of her dying mother with amazing ease.
She watches & waters the great rack of African violets in the living room; grows wheat grass for her mother’s cat. Other times, she sits in a high-backed wooden chair, needlepointing forests in wool, chain-smoking for hours. Her mother will die very soon; then the daughter will put on her navy dress with a large, elaborate organdy collar and fail to draw a deep breath for several days. The woman’s several brothers and their children will fly in from all over the country, and flower offerings will dwarf the grave itself.
After the burial, the woman will pack all sorts of mementoes into her mother’s old cedar “hope” chest: yearbooks, diaries, photographs, diplomas, invitations, programs, baby booties, baby spoons, baby cups, even a rather grisly alligator purse, complete with the head, legs, tail & feet and sharp black claws. When she has nightmares, more often now, she sits up all night, her fluffy gray tabby queen on her lap like a hot-water bottle. The cat’s purring leads the woman away from the perilous mountain passes & rocky cliffsides inside her head and back to level ground, so she can help her mother die properly. That is what proper love looks like, she thinks.
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 