The Architecture of Broken Hearts

"The Architect" by Erik Johansson

Click HERE to view his website.

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 78

brought to us today by the amazing and talented poet Shay!

Come join us!

"When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills."

~ Chinese Proverb

We build homes out of more than timber and brick

For living in a perfect place is an optical illusion

A sleight of hand that hides an ace under its sleeve

My mother built hers with secrets that remained behind closed doors

Perfect curtains in front of cluttered rooms where emptiness

Filled the air thicker than the dust that lined the shelves

I built my house on my own with no directions

But it still was block and beam set on the same illusion

Denial is stronger than the steel frame of a skyscraper

Where character defects can be blind to a cracked foundation

Sometimes to truly repair the damage

 we must tear down the dilapidated homestead

and simply begin again. 

The Uncertainty of Rain

The Angelous by Jean-Francois Millet

~This painting hung on the wall of my grandparent's living room all the years of my childhood.  It has always been my favorite painting in it's powerful and beautiful simplicity.~

The uncertainty of rain keeps us strong

holding on to hope with a tiller in the field

but with hard work and prayer you can't go wrong

knowing something greater is our strength and shield

the humility of needing and knowing grace

is a strength that feeds more than one

for hope is a cousin of tried and true faith

and when two kneel together it shall be done.

Explorers of Hope

Linking with Poets United for Mid Week Motif ~Human
Also linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform brought to us by the lovely Sanaa
and because my thyroid medicine has made me feel so much better I am also linking with The Sunday Muse Come join us!


Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.  ~Kahlil Gibran


We fly like sparks from the flickering flame
out toward greener pastures
our cells fueled by stardust
Halley's Comet racing across the sky
we leave our mark in due time
for every sparrow soon learns to fly
by leaping wings first
 from tree limb
or giving hands
humans are souls 
that search for 
meaning
marvel
and purpose
beyond the confines of home

explorers of hope

from one generation to another
grandfather to grandson
Earth to Moon
Moon to Mars
dreams expand
like wings in flight
we are dreamers indeed
our cells are fueled by stardust
and like all loving children
we will one day return
to what our souls call home
the glittering heavens

My Love Letter to the World

The Mag #308

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.  ~Emily Dickinson


From the time I was just a little girl 
flinging my legs high into the air on the swing
my heart was writing a love letter to the world, 
and penciling in each hope and every dream.



With time the words got bigger as did my questions why,
and the lines got all filled up as the book grew ever long.
I held on to every endearment and memory like a prize,
for the message became heavier but it read more like a song.



My love letter to the world will always be an unfinished work
my thoughts and recollections that forge onward to days ahead.
For the heart of every human is a voice that could be heard
and some choose to keep it closed while others long to have it read.


This prompt is a fitting one to announce the publication of my first book:
"Butterflies and Land Mines"
Many of the poems inside were inspired by Magpie Tales.
Thank you Tess!

I would also like to thank Ninot Aziz for all her encouragement and much needed editing!!




Butterflies and Land Mines



What Remains

 

Google Images

 

I originally posted this 5 years ago.  In observation of Mother's Day and my birthday, I wanted to bring it back to life again.  Happy Mother's Day everyone. :-)
 

 

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform. :-)
 

 In search of my mother's garden, I found my own. ~Alice Walker

 

 

  

 

 

Time burns her memory like a building on flame and my heart keeps re-entering to salvage what could be lost soft cuddles pushes on the swing thoughts shared all return to view I cradle them out of the wreckage with the tenderness of a mother yet fervor of an explorer certain I will retrieve something new that had been once consumed by time's tarnishing way

one vision at a time relinquished like a photograph taken out from underneath the protective glass yet they still fade tattered at the edges and dust in between reflecting the weakness of my memory to capture every moment like a camera but I will carry on with the recovery holding on to each one like a child's hand afraid of losing them out in the open streets for I am the guardian and sole heir of them all and I will carry them with me in homage.

 

 

 

I turned 47 this year; the age my Mother was when she passed away.  I never realized at that time how young she truly was.  She never saw us kids grow up, attended our graduations, had the pleasure of participating in our weddings, or held her grandchildren in her arms.  Now I am very aware of the blessings that I have to see my grown children, and have the opportunity to watch my grandchildren grow up.  When I look at myself in the mirror I do not see the many wrinkles, or all the grey hairs, that seem to accumulate like dust on a picture frame.  I see the reflection of my mother's smile, and her heart that lives on in my life.

 

 



The Endowment

Wind of History by Jacek Yerka

The Mag #156

"History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man". ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

The place my grandmother came from
 is the place my child would be destined to go. 
There is no way I could have foreseen it,
 but here in my sojourn backward I now know.
All the destruction of one bent affliction
of one searching for a cure of a hollowing ache
can leave a path filled with acres of ruin
 for the seeds of another generation to face.
For the legacy of this disease of suffering
is a gift no one in sanity would ever choose,
yet it is an inheritance granted with no favor
to the descendants of history's unsettling dues.



Unleashed

image by Zelko Nedic

The Mag #128

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." ~Havelock Ellis

We hold on to life

like a leash on a prized black lab

not wanting to lose a grip

on what we have and do not have

so we precede in our places 

pulling tighter as we move fast

trying to train the future

to be better than the past

we want to breed a champion

a great legacy to be viewed

yet the harder we hold on

the more freedom we do lose

for the handler of the show

and the true holder of the leash

is gracefully trying to guide us

if we will follow where He leads.

Like Etchings In Stone

Magpie #90

"May you live all the days of your life."  ~Jonathan Swift

 

I learned early the power of what we give and take in this life, and the weight of what we leave behind. It can be a heavy burden whether it be plenty or it be brief.  Having lost both my parents by the time I was 29, and my only sibling before I was 40, I know all too well how important it is to make every second count.   Regret is a heavy burden to pass down as a keep sake, and sadly I have held it within my hands more than once.

It was in that loss that I found both comfort and liberty in writing.  Through poetry and the written word, I discovered a way to capture those feelings and lessons learned in a way that could be passed down from generation to generation.  Like etchings in stone, the written word surpasses the power of time's decay, giving forth more than just a glimpse of days gone by.  It is like taking a piece of someone's life and preserving it in word.  Everything that we do in this life leaves a mark in some way.  Like etchings in stone at a cemetary that states our name and the years of our life, I want my words to leave a mark as well.  Something more than just a faded memory, or torn quilt.  My desire is to give a piece of myself through my words to the ones I love, to leave behind something substantial that my grandchildren and their children can hold dear. 

Legacy

If we could live the life we wish our parents did,

maybe our children will!