poetry – Page 2 – unabashedly female

January 31, 2014

Inevitable Alchemy

She bangs the bars.
She screams out to be set free.
She’s found her voice after years of submission.

I feel her, past stirring, now demanding.
I see her hands, withered, but coming back to life.
I know her – she’s the banished one.

She’s demanding to be heard.
She’s demanding to know who keeps her jailed.
She’s no longer willing to submit.

Barely out of the shadows, the jailer just stands, keys jangling.
Tantalizing her with the taste of freedom.
Taunting her with her own power, stolen long ago.

I feel the jailer’s tyrannical nature.
I see the jailer’s smirk.
I know the jailer fears what it does not know or trust.

The jailer is a heady mix of misogynistic power and the false sense of security that comes from being able to control something, anything.
Just like her, the jailer is welcome.
Just like her, the jailer is me.

They stare at each other, sizing each other up, taking each other in.
She knows her desire is too potent to be contained.
The jailer sees the inevitability of alchemy.

Image: Twelve Drummers Drumming by Winter’s Magic on DeviantArt.com

September 6, 2013

A Well So Deep

A well so deep.

I’m finally beginning to see that this emptiness,
can never be filled.

Not long term,
that is.

Oh, for a moment, yes.

A moment when the sun comes through the petals and illuminates them as though
they were filledÂ with silent kisses from the stars.

Or, a moment when a warm, sweet breeze ever so gently blows across my face and I am lifted up
just a mere breath above the ground, captivated by the softness of divine breath against flesh.

Or, a moment when I’m dancing with another and our hands come to meet,
together,
just so,
skin to skin,
in a way that could never be planned or calculated or anticipated.

This longing hungers for the emptiness and theÂ emptiness feeds the longing,
and somewhere
between the two I dance.

inspired by this beauty by Irwin Keller of Itzik’s Well

February 20, 2012

Everything’s Full of Life

â€œFor within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, our feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets.â€ ~Audre Lorde

Yes, we have survived.

We are poets in this linear culture of reason and rationality.

Poets of feeling.

Poets of beauty.

Poets that long to nurture and nourish life.

We feel deeply.

But, what if our feelings no longer kneeled to thought?

What if the feminine in all of us, in women and in men, no longer kneeled to the masculine but danced in right relationship with it.

What if we didn’t hide our feelings, and instead realized the gift they are?

What if we allowed our own hearts to break open, to feel deeply what is here right now?

Would we finally wake up enough to feel what we have done to the Earth? to the animals? to the world’s children? to each other?

Would we begin to let in the stark possibility that the world we leave to our grandchildren will be far from what we have known?

Would we reawaken to the sacredness of life?

Would we finally feel the grief that is so close at hand?

Photo by byÂ Arianna_M(busy)Â on FlickrÂ Â Some rights reserved

January 9, 2012January 9, 2012

Until I Inhale

Until I Inhale

The tip of my finger quivers

As it moves along the ridge of your heart.

This line between you and me

is utterly fine.

You are just a breath away,

Until I inhale.

Photo byÂ white ribbons on Flickr -Â Some rights reserved

October 26, 2011

An Unutterable Tenderness

A softness that defies language.
An unutterable tenderness.
To touch it requires complete and generous receptivity,
an awareness that is feather-light.

I’m beginning to know this place within,
this place that opens with the
touch of Grace and my
willingness to be loved.

Completely undressed I sit,
In silence I wait with
open heart and a willingness
to let my longing be known.

In this subtlest of subtle places,
I hear the whispers of this woman’s heart.
To do so requires me to leave everything I know
at the threshold into this world.

I am nobody special here,
in fact quite the opposite.
I am ordinary, undressed, and open
simply waiting to return home.

July 17, 2011

A Thousand Ears

â€œThereâ€™s a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it. Give

more of your life to this listening. As
brightness is to time, so you are to

the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue

and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.â€

â€” Jalal al-Din Rumi

Image: Moon Some rights reserved by WiderAngle on Flickr

July 13, 2011

Tendermost Places

The Tendermost Places

You are here.
Softly,
Joyously,
Persistently,
Reminding.

A one-way conversation
Until I choose to let go
Into the rhythm
Of your pulse.

Much fear has been tossed around
About the inherent weakness of
The tendermost layers
Of your expression.

Yet, I find these places
To be filled with the
Sweetest longings
I can know.

Tendermost places
Lend themselves
To melting into,
To letting go,
To receiving and giving,
To going home.

June 12, 2011

Where No One Sees You

Found Art in Big Sur, CA (artist unknown)

~~~~

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you,
But sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
~Rumi

March 25, 2011

Kissed by Creation

Close to the Earth.

Full and ripe.

My body is cooking something up.

She’s been with something unseen and unknown.

Sheâ€™s been kissed by Creation.

Supple and supine, she dances in the dark.

With quivers and shivers, she responds to an unseen touch.

There is something I know, but donâ€™t yet know.

Something moves within her,

silently waiting to bring forth great light into the world.

Receptive and soft, my heart places trust in

that which knows of things to come.

March 23, 2011

To Feast Upon and Delight In

I happened upon this, today.

This She that is a tree.

And so much more.

Majestic.

Strong.

Curvy.

Robed in soft moss.

How sensual are these arms?

How free is She to spread herself among the ways of the sky

while rooted in earth.

To gaze upon Her is

toÂ feast upon

and delight in

Beauty

Grace

and

the Mystery of the Mother.