This is for this prompt about Veterans’ Day. Follow the link to read more.
Put down your weapons —
Saint Martin’s intercession
this Armistice Day
For more on Saint Martin, whose feast day in the Catholic Church is November 11th, click here.
Peace
Between Breaths
Let spaces of silence slide
Between breaths —
May the words I do say
Shed light, bring peace
Between breaths —
Keep breathing,
Count the inhale and the
Exhale, count the pause
Between breaths —
Let kind silence live, yet
Let no voice be silenced,
Between breaths.
A quadrille for DVerse including the word “keep”. This poem didn’t begin as a quadrille, but then I decided to see if it would work as one, and I liked the result.
Generosity
For Poets United Midweek Motif. I chose to write about remembering the dead.
How generous the dead are,
With the way they so often haunt
Both memories and dreams:
I think of my maternal grandmother
And my high-school friend —
You were cremated
Body became ashes but memories
Remained. If you had a grave,
I would visit it and pray
“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” *
The sentiment lives, and you visit me.
* This is the beginning of a prayer for the dead, in Latin. More info
Getting to the Destination
One day we will understand
That the bends in the path,
The winding in the road,
The detours along the street
And even into wild unknown —
One day we will understand
And rest content with the path,
Surprisingly, exactly the right road,
Some say this happens in heaven’s streets.
Is it hell to remain unknown?
Fandango challenges us today to write about detours.
Thou hast out of Thy plenitude…
I wrote this poem earlier today and am sharing it with DVerse’s open link night.
Thou hast out of Thy plenitude enriched
The soul which seekest Thine abundant light:
Thou strengthenest the soul which wants to fight
For holiness, and battle wounds are stitched
And healed with Thine o’erflowing love,
Perhaps they leave a scar but without pain.
The soul agrees, to live is Christ, death gain —
And even Thou hast nail-scarred hands above.
On Inner Beauty
For this.
What kind of advice can I impart
Without feeling like I’m playing a part,
Living like a hypocrite?
Which is the message I can give,
Which I can accept myself?
(Can I accept myself?)
My poems are the message:
Make room for your words, a haven,
Make room for yourself, do not give in
Until the negativity is crowded out.
Allow not the silencing of the spirit’s shout.
Update: I am sharing this poem with DVerse Poetics this week, because living with an eating disorder and especially the associated thoughts is absolutely maddening. Thankfully I am much better than 2 or 3 years ago, but it still hasn’t really gone away…
Keep the Empty Spaces
This micro-poem was inspired by this challenge at Real Toads and the photo below, found at Fandango’s flash-fiction #29.
Why must a wide road
Cut // through the forest?
Sentinel-trees line the highway
Watching people destroy
The natural spaces // and themselves.
We try to fill the empty parts
With painted, dead asphalt,
But Nature whispers to return
To Nature, and to her Creator.
