Tombstones
 
 
Tombstones push up out of the
            wet spongy grass,
            covered with moss.
 
The names are no longer readable;
            the deeply etched letters
            long dissolved by hot rain,
            and sweeping cold winds.
 
Under the sprawling branches
            of the oak,
            the stone markers
            are always in the shadows,
            speaking of the dead,
            screaming out remembrances
            of ladies in lace
            and knights in armor.
 
One lone sarcophagus rests
            like an unexpected
            treasure box,
            half – opened,
            waiting for Pandora
            to awaken the Spirits
            who are dreaming about us.
 

I took this photograph in Oxford, England.  It reminded me of ancestors, of our lineages that go back centuries -- as far back as Lucy.  It reminded me, too, that we are all related, all family no matter how distant. It is a pity that people waste their lives on petty pursuits of power, with the cost of millions of lives so that one person can feel powerful for a nanosecond in the stream of time. As a mother, I know that what I want for my children and for the children of the world (anywhere and everywhere in the world) is to live a peaceful, productive and free life; a life not scarred by the greedy, power hungry, violence of petty people seeking control at the expense of humanity.

Apparition
 
 
She hovers in the ink black
            darkness, transfixed
            above the world, 
            in between breaths.
 
She radiates. Streams of light
            laser across the Infinite –
            interwoven with pearls of gold
            in luminous strings.
 
She speaks without words,
            with just the shimmering of wings
            and the sad, wide look of her eyes
            and curve of her hands in prayer.
 
She speaks without words
            to a world that does not listen.

It has been a long time since I posted.  There have been many reasons for this.  Most of all, there has been sadness.  Houston has sometimes been called Atlantis because hurricanes and tropical storms sometimes drop torrential rains into our area and, even from the sky, it looks like most of the city is underwater.  Every time this happens, people die and animals die and lives are changed forever.  My family was lucky.  We had no problems really.  Eight inches fell in 6 hours at my house, but we had no flooding in the house.  Our neighborhood was cut off from the rest of Houston by flooding for several hours, but that was just inconvenience and not hardship.  The flooding situation has made me very sad for the many people who lost their lives and loved ones.  But, then, there has been so much sadness in the world for different reasons. These are the times I wish for apparitions -- for some connection with the Divine to help us understand the reasons behind the tragedies -- either the natural disasters or the man made ones. I think the reason that millions of people flock to movies about superheroes is that we all know humanity is in dire need of them -- of entities with superhuman powers to help us get out of the mess we find ourselves in.  Our humans with supernatural powers.  Either way, we keep waiting and the silence keeps getting louder.

Fifty Shades of Green
 
The forest is mantled
in fifty shades of green;
the lightest chartreuse of the elms,
the moss green of the oaks,
the emerald green of the pines.
 
Everywhere,
a different verdant variance.
The Piney Woods has suddenly burst with Spring,
with all the beauty of the new leaves;
the lush, soft layers of needles,
the clumps of jade moss,
the clusters of sweet gum stars,
and the freshness of the bluebonnets in the meadows.

Pilgrimage
 
Sanctuary torn open;
            arches forming
            in midair;
Spaces to let in Spirit –
 
These become a frame,
            in which to frame,
            the gray existence
            against a gray sky.
 
Somewhere beyond the slate horizon,
            the unseen angels
            flow across the intricate
            limestone cornices,
            into the stair-stepped vault,
            into the depths of shadow,
            past the pools of water
            that mirror the stones,
            and into the crevices of creation.
 
Iron railings close off the entrance to eternity;
            but it is still there, hidden,
            under the colorless rainbow.

I have walked through the ancient spiritual places, the high castles by the sea, the broken monasteries, and living abbeys that always seem to call to me.  I find them, too, hidden in plain sight in the middle of a busy street... like Merton walking in Louisville, I look around and find myself in love with everyone.

Holy Grail (I)
 
 
 
Sunlight sifts through a window,
            glinting on an ancient golden bowl;
            delicate fingers curl around it.
 
Like a cauldron;
the planes of water
            dance there,
            revealing secrets
            to those with eyes to see,
            and ears to hear.
 
Sometimes, it is a window into heaven,
            the patterns of light
            draw the soul in,
            like a tunnel.
            The spirit dances there --
            there in the place between
            heaven and earth.
 
Sometimes, it is only a bowl --
            A bowl that holds a
            goodly portion of porridge
            and never seems empty.

I am fascinated by the medieval stories of Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail; the Grail that was a catalyst for transfiguration, transformation, transubstantiation. There are stories of the Grail that have come down to us from  Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes, and Sir Thomas Malory.  And, there are others... some that wait for discovery in the ancient places like Tintagel and Glastonbury.   I have walked in some of these places... in the footsteps of Arthur and Guinevere and Merlyn and Lancelot. I have explored the ancient trails and.waited for the sea to whisper to me --- to give me the stories of the Grail that no one else knows.. 

Glastonbury
 
 
I sought shelter from the
            rain; under the gallery
            that connects the chapels.
 
On rough, hewn stone, I prayed –
            there with fellow pilgrims,
            in the dark chamber
            with the whir of a summer storm
            all around us.
 
The alter had not changed
            for 900 years;
            sculpted out of pure stone
            with the image of the
            crucified Christ above it;
 
The image was worn into the rock
            barely an outline –
            so stunning, so beautiful --
            that I wept.

I wrote this poem on a pilgrimage to Glastonbury several years ago. There were so many beautiful, spiritual things I found in England. So many mysteries. It seemed like everywhere I walked, I was walking in the path of a saint or a poet. It was amazing to just walk through the arches of places like Glastonbury --- places that had called to people for centuries, had gathered the poets and the artists and the dreamers; all those people, who, like me, seek to find the spiritual in the everyday world.

Please see my new movie (video) --- digital poetry --- about The Piney Woods

Dark Rock
 
 
“I was rock, dark rock
and the parting was violent,
a gash of an alien birth:”
 
            Pablo Neruda
            Stones of the Sky XXIII
 
I live in deep flashes
            in the belly of the opal –
The stone cursed,
            that carries curses,
                        that bestows curses.
I flash and find myself
            abandoned, but beautiful;
                        cold and alone.
Light returns to Light,
            flees across the spaces of atoms,
                        launches across time --
Eternal, even if it seems imprisoned
            caged in a cabochon,
            tiny and unremarkable.

I have to make a confession.  I am in love with opal.  My dad used to carve cabachons of opal and tiger eye and malachite.  My favorite was always the opal. There are legends about opal --- about how opal is unlucky and can bring curses on the wearer.  This was so prevalent in Victorian times, that most women would not wear it.  When beautiful opal deposits in Austrailia were discovered, along with the advent of the Arts and Crafts Movement (part of which was Art Nouveau), the use of "semi-precious stones" became very popular in jewelry and crafts. There is a legend in Austrailia that aborigine lovers from two different tribes wanted to marry -- against the wishes of the tribal leaders.  They decided to be together anyway, but the tribes pursued them.  The two lovers ran so fast that they became black opal and the light in the opal is the fire of their love. I love opal beyond any other stone -- it is much more interesting than diamond, which, though they sparkle are really colorless.

I don’t know if it was
                Caddoes or Comanches
                who walked these woods,
                who haunted the bends
                of Fawn’s Creek;
 
Or, perhaps some other tribe;
                a forest tribe maybe;
There are traces of a people
                everywhere;
                arrowheads, in bunches
                beneath the sandy surface
                of the earth;
                and spearheads, too.
 
There are shards of broken pottery--
                perhaps ancient,
There is a sense of secret travels
                through these woods,
                along the rivulets and creeks,
                or down the fading paths of the deer.

Legends abound about the Caddoes or Comanches or Karankawa tribes inhabiting the Piney Woods.  It is easy to see where forest tribes could have lived very well in these forests.  Of course, the forests we see today are secondary forests. When the logging companies moved in during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the pine trees werenearly as big as the trees of the redwoods.  There are pictures of them with men standing next to the trunks that were as big around as a carousel and several stories high.  None of those trees are left.  They were all cut down. Every one.

The Musketball
 
Rusted and pitted from decades
of rain and summer heat,
and the raw wind of winter,
a musketball emerges from
a sandy, tufted ridge of earth
under the shade of ancient pines.
 
What battle ensued in that place
that it yields up flint arrowheads
and battered musketballs?
Lafitte’s lost treasure underneath
the curve of the ravine?
Conquistador gold?
 
The crows sound a sonorous alarm;
the rabbits shuffle across the path
and the buck deer jumps the creek.
 
Whatever the secrets of the forest,
only the spirits can reveal them
and they remain silent.

We found spearheads and arrowheads, and then we found what appears to be a musketball.  Of course, now that I am writing this blog, I cannot find any of them!!  I promise that if I do find them, I will take pictures and post those pictures.  Meanwhile, I often wonder what happened.  I guess I like to think it had something to do with Lafitte's gold.... but, records indicate he and his party of mutineers travelled further east and south. In the meantime, it is fun to imagine that the spirits of those involved in the fray still inhabit the forest and come out, sometimes, at night or in the mist at the end of the trail.