There is Warmth in the Congregation,

 

I tell you what I see — the landscape of the spirit requires a lung, but no tongue. 

~Emily Dickinson

 

Sisters I speak to you of loss

the cuts that tear down and leave us broken

they hit just as sure as a lumberjack

and we are never quite the same

but despair and love are a two-winged bird

even in the struggle to move on

there is a promise that lingers

and it has the power to lift us

remember that in your winter journeys

for birds soar the sky together

and there is comfort and warmth in the congregation

~~~

Daughters I speak to you of hope

even in the heavy burden of doubt

it has the power to change the landscape

if we give it light like an open curtain in morning

for life is both a forest and a mountain of cut logs

the path is hard and lovely

but even in the struggle to endure

there is a warming fire in our truest home

~~~

Mothers I speak to you of life

beyond the cries and breath of being

and before the prayers that yearned for something more

there are seeds planted long before the blossom’s greenery

soul’s song carried long before the throat a voice

for every mother carries and birth’s eternity.

 

For Susie 💖

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #197.  The image here is different than the one at the prompt for my poem became a tribute to brilliant lighted souls and love but the words hold resemblance to the Muse image.  

 

Soul Song

Photo Credit

Linking with The Sunday Muse for The Muse # 18

Also linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform.

Come Join us!

Neither height nor depth can measure the possibilities of the human soul.

 ~James Lendall Basford

I am feathered in grief love and longing and I am caged in skin and bone

I hold the knowledge of something greater beckoning me onward

and calling me home.

Life must be perched closely but it cannot be held too tight.

It is a ballad that must not be silent and bird that has to fly.

Birds are kindred spirits never meant to perch right here for long.

As we are called to something bigger, we have a greater song.

This song rises within us like a sparrow unto its nest

Stirring like falling feathers from what once was to what is next.

The soul is a mighty presence that can ride the wind like birds in flight.

It is bigger than scientific theories, yet smaller than our sight.

It is a guest in a God made palace that someday will crumble down.

In a journey full of lessons of being lost and then being found.

For I am feathered in grief love and longing and caged in skin and bone

I hold the knowledge of something greater beckoning me onward

and calling me home.

For Lauren

Wild Journey

LInking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform brought to us by Sanaa

and The Sunday Muse

How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man while he sleeps!  ~Mark Twain

It has been a wild journey

 and my soul has weathered many a storm

but my heart lost the sturdy umbrella

a long time ago

this makes for a sloppy passage

and wet shoes

I used to leap over puddles with ease

but now I tend to 

wade through slowly

like a used jalopy bus

in the rain

I don't mind a little mud

just give me somewhere warm

to dry my socks

and take a load off with friends of a feather

and I am happy

there is a luxury a mature heart knows

the comfort of knowing not to rush

and of course the wild journey of the past

has given us bad knees. 

The Transient

Google Images

You don't have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.  ~C.S. Lewis

Road Map of the Soul

painting by Andrew Wyeth

The Mag # 178

"The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun."

~John Greenleaf Whittier, My Psalm

We must truly bear our soul butt naked to the world

 if we want to behold truth's vision upon our path.

Yet we shroud it with robes and veils like Muslims do a girl,

suffocating the bosom of all the answers we ever longed to have.

For a welcomed visitor cannot enter into a fortress locked up tight,

nor can a wealth of knowledge be payd for by bounty of the poor.

Yet we search for fulfillment with eyes that have no sight

trying to attain an answer we keep holding hostage for a cure.

This life is a journey that each soul must ride solo with no map

 and the directions cannot be given at the nearest corner store.

So we chase meaning unknowing to what lies ahead and what has passed

for our quest for purpose is not found beyond the horizon but at soul's core.

The Sheerest of Gowns

photo by The Fox And The Raven

The Mag #158

"You are a beautiful soul hidden by the trench coat of the ego."  ~Mike Dolan



If the flesh of this world
 was as thin as the sheerest of gowns,
 what of the soul would man's eyes see?
Would its essence penetrate through like a light
shining right into our own eyes
or float like air beyond our sight?
Could we see it dance embraced within our skin
or would it fly past our vision with us unaware?
And could one's hands clasp hold of it
and keep it in one place?
If possible would one soul touch another
like a caress of a lover's hand?
These are answers I long to hold
like soft satin within my hands
yet as the sheerest of gowns does
soon descend quietly to the floor undressed
so shall my questions go fallen
upon uncertainties profound fabric of silence.

The Might of Just One Kiss

Artword by Joseph Lorusso

The Mag #155

"Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be carried in one's breath."  ~Eve Glicksman

It is not a meager tug this pull that love has upon a woman's soul....

drawing her lips to another's like a golden ember and charring coals....

it holds an utter splendor that is tender yet strong like cobalt steel....

capturing the strength of resistance not to reach out and want to feel....

it's ache lingers in growth that multiplies like big numbers within the heart...

for the magnetic field of a deep kiss is a force no mortal might can pull apart.

The Indwelling

image by Daniel Murtagh

The Mag #150

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard." ~Anne Sexton

There is a certain beauty that surely dwells within the outermost door

and it speaks to the deaf and mute reaching out to comfort the grieved and poor

the blind detect its presence through its warmth like the laying on of praying hands

still it stands there naked with a purity not seen by the mortal eyes of man

faith is its companion as they lay on sheets that bear hope to a world in need

it is an intimate miracle within the breast of every man's hopes and inherent creed

somewhere between one's doubts and beliefs it comes out into a glimpse of the heart's eye

a beauty beyond compare in grace it heals the broken and restores vision to all the blind.

Star Out of Sky

image by Alex Stoddard

The Mag # 114

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

~Teilhard de Chardin

This world is but an aquarium that is the place that we now swim.

It is not the destination nor is it where we once had been.

Our time here is brief like snowflakes floating under glass,

as we glide in these waters with particles from the past.

We voyage forward within the confines of this space,

in a constant pool of learning, preparing for a better place.

Like a fish out of water......or a star out of sky,

this is not our home;

it is a stepping stone for you and I.

All That We Cannot See

Linking with Poetry Jam "Mystery"

"Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you cannot feel it."

~Nicholas Sparks, A Walk To Remember

We search for proof like Sherlock Holmes,

looking at the world through a magnifying glass.

We dig like archaeologists looking for bones,

sure we will find the next great artifact.

The mystery that surrounds the world in which we live,

is greater than any astronomer's telescope can see.

No architect can calculate it's size and width,

nor scholar prove in scientific theory.

All the beliefs that fill each heart and soul,

are hard for the logical mind to truly grasp.

For all the sight our spectacles can surely know,

depends on the vision our hearts will truly have.

Swimming Lessons

"Happy 100th Magpie Tess!"

Mag # 100

We are born of water then struggle the abyss onto dry land.

We cry out for breath and comfort reaching for warmer hands.

With time our struggles move forward and seem to learn to grow,

like giant obscure statues rising from the stone.

We wrestle with life's waters, like we never learned to swim.

Grasping at the future's edge forgetting where we've been.

It is a journey full of waves in an ever flowing tide.

a souls lesson in strokes and breathing that takes a lifetime.

When I was growing up I did not learn how to swim until I was 17 years old.  At one time when I was about 12 my father had me take swimming lessons at a local YMCA.  It was quite difficult because I had developed a great fear of the water, and everything they tried to show me and get me to do was a major undertaking.  My fear prevented me from learning at that time.  It was a struggle that followed with me until I had the determination later to finally take my feet off the bottom and submerge my head and learn to hold my breath.

Life in general can be like this.  We have so much to learn, and sometimes it can be frightening, and we struggle with the process, like a drowning man in the ocean.  It only makes learning more difficult, but we can still learn, it just takes a little longer.

Language of The Soul

Photo by Ella Wilson

"With all your science - can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?"
~Henry David Thoreau


There is a language that knows no words.
It has no sound nor a ring.
Yet if you listen with your heart
you can  hear it's voice sing.
I have heard it in a babie's laugh
I have seen it in weary eyes of the old.
Once I held it in my arms in the midst of letting go.
It lingers in hope's calling resounding through the night.
It whispers like the wind though no vision is in sight.
Prayer is its sweet song that sours like eagles up above.
The closer that you look the louder it becomes.

Thursday Think Tank # 76 Soul's Whisper



The Soul's Tattoo

Poets United Think Tank Prompt #20 The ugly that is beautiful

The stumblings of our youth can leave a lasting mark

reminding us where we have been and directing us where we are

a source of evidence that lingers for all eyes to behold

a roadmap of the past and still a tattoo of the soul.

Food For The Soul

Magpie #30

Reach outward like branches of a willow tree

take hold of life and keep it within your hands

embrace it's cuts and bruises

then open up to take it all in

like a baby bird that will surely be fed

for he needs strength to one day fly

from this tree

so take each slice of wisdom

and consume it to it's core

for the seeds that remain

will one day be a tree

where another little bird

will open wide

and grow

and one day fly away.

Magpie Tales a wonderful site for writers

Open Wider

Magpie #20

Life's accumulation of all the "maybe somedays" rise up like stone walls of crumbling sins.
They build a barrier between our sense of feeling, and what penetrates and we allow in.
Then complacency seeps in and settles to stagnate underneath,
forming empty places deep where the human eye can never see.
Like birth, we open wider to try to brush the surface and kill the deeper ache we hide.
But only God can break the stone to touch the soul, and fill the cavities inside.

Magpie Tales a great site for writers



Recently I had a long visit with the dentist.  It was the completion of many trips to repair years of neglect.
When the hygienist said to me open wider, at that moment it dawned on me how we have such tunnel vision in life.  We spend all our time busy with mundane daily tasks, and neglect the things that matter most.  It was like God was saying to me,  "open wider, there are many more things to be repaired here". 
:-) I am still working on that.  :-)