Sunday Poem #8
Hiro Boga | November 1st, 2009
All you yearn for is held in trust
for you.
Press your roots deep
into this loamy earth, drink
from underground tributaries.
Go in and down instead of out
and up. Spirit
is not separation. You are sacred–
your body
the heartwood of the greening tree.
We are Diana
and Apollo entwined, unfurling.
……………………………………..
(It’s been a while since we had a Share-a-Poem Sunday at the Flourishing Muse. I look forward to reading your poems in Comments. Let your fearless heart speak its eloquent truth.)
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Beautiful, Hiro. Yes. The time of down and in. Funny that a. my poem has heartwood in it too and b. I’ve passionately wanted to share it. So thank you so much.
Dead Days
release of what is not
was not
could not be
what is over
get down into the dirt
back to the earth heart
the worm core
that center place
where all things blossom
blue fungi blooms
around the heart wood
there is life inside of death
the spider creeping over white eyes
terrifies because it is so gentle
the way the rain is gentle
as it seeps into the mud
creating momentary sculptures
mud people first people
a frothing pulsing hot birth
bursting through the carapace.
It is not the birth we expected.
.-= Kate T.W.´s last post … Dead Days =-.
Lovely, Kate, thanks so much for sharing your beautiful poem!
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #8 =-.
I loved both of the above poems. Here is something I did a long time ago.
A woman’s fight for herself – Some thoughts and a poem
I wanted to share a poem I wrote many years ago about a young woman, Robin, who was very sick and eventually died from cancer. When I first met her in the hospital I could tell that she was thinking about suicide so , I think to her surprise, I said that I thought she was thinking about killing herself. She said very quickly and very defensively, “Why not? While I can still do it and save myself a lot of misery.” I think she expected me to say that she didn’t really want to do that or to somehow argue that it was wrong or whatever. All I said was that yeah I could understand that logic but that though her prognosis was pretty bad her present state wasn’t that bad so she had a little time before following through with that thought. And that maybe we could just talk about what was going on with her.(She eventually thanked me for my reaction.) As it turns out she was really down on herself. She thought she had been a failure in her life. She was only ( I think) in her 20s and she felt she hadn’t done anything well. She had screwed up relationships and on and on. She had one failure story after another. Again I didn’t argue with her.
I did challenge her though. We started looking at everything she could think of in her life and lo and behold we started finding some things that even she had to admit were pretty good. We started exploring the incredible relationships she had with her mother and step father. We looked at all the friends she had. Were they all really just stupid I joked? Maybe one or two you could write off, but she had to admit that maybe she had some qualities that drew people to her. We really formed a wonderful relationship. I never met anyone quite like her. She changed everything around. She lived her life like no one I had seen. As sick as she became, when I would go in to see her she radiated life. As she got to the end she knew that the end was near and accepted it. One of the doctors accused her of giving up and really tore into her. When I went to see her and told her I had heard what happened she just laughed. She said that he had ripped her a new one but that it was OK because he had problems with “failure” and she didn’t consider dying a failure.
We had talked about camping during one visit. She said she loved it and I said I was a clutz when it came to camping. A couple of days after she died I came back to my office and sitting on my desk was a book about camping that she made sure I would get after she died. I still tear up just writing that. Robin was a wonder. Here is my poem to her
ROBIN
She came to the end
with herself
She fought for that
She deserved it
Her body broke away
Slowly
Painfully
Relentlessly
But her eyes said “I’m here.”
“I’m tired
but I’m here.”
Early in the dying
was the question
Why not now?
Before I hurt
Before I lose
So much
And know it.
But her eyes knew/
Not yet.
There were questions,
Answers,
Endings yet to be.
The voices in white said
“Try this – Try That.”
Robin tried this
Tried that
The voices in White said
“One more treatment.”
“One more drug.”
Robin nodded
“Do what you have to.
So will I.”
The voices in white said/accused
“You’re slacking off.
Try harder.”
Robin sighed.
The voices in white
Didn’t see her.
They saw her cells
They saw her cancer.
But they missed Robin
They couldn’t cut Robin
Probe Robin, Radiate Robin
Only cells.
So they weren’t interested
In Robin
Only cells.
They should have looked.
Robin was there
Fighting for her life.
Not her time -
Her life.
Longevity was not the issue.
The future was not the problem.
“Did I count?”
“Was I real?”
Validation – The past
They were the issues
They were the problems.
The body retreated
from life
But the spirit fought
for answers.
“Did I feel?” “Did I matter?”
And still the voices in white kept coming
(“Sorry about those side effects.”)
And the pain kept coming
And the frustration kept coming
The answers to the past
were not to be found
in the past.
The present kept intruding
Often ugly. Always insistant
But the answers were there -
In the present
Past the Pain, the frustration
The voices in white
They were found in a mother’s
presence. A father’s support,
A stranger’s friendship.
But most of all In the search itself.
It seemed so simple
There was only the present.
She loved in the present.
She was loved in the present
She mattered
She was real.
She came to the end
With herself
She fought for that
She deserved it.
Scott, thank you for sharing Robin’s very moving story with us, and for the poem you wrote that honors both her living and her dying.
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #8 =-.
I wrote this poem to remember my grandmother, and I thought it would be appropriate given the wonderful metaphors of roots and earthy, deep internal growth above.
Thank you Hiro for allowing us to share these with you…
In My Grandmother’s Garden
My squinted eyes could barely see, the sun
Heavy on my grandmother’s skirted knee
Bent hemmed in a rose polyester dress,
In front of my nose.
She would grow tomatoes like vineyards.
Me in their shade, ripening slowly,
Smelling so much red I could sense my
Head begin to blush, and
My short stumpy fringe delicately
And hairily extend to green stalks.
My toes took root through my sandals and
Fed my well-filled cheeks.
They hung heavily red from my head
And she would pick them each with a kiss
Then take me inside for toast and beans,
My nose behind her knees.
.-= Natalie Christie´s last post … Choose Your Chicken, Choose You =-.
Natalie, I love the way you play with the child’s identification with the essence of tomato-ness, and weave it with the portrait of your grandmother. Thank you!
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #8 =-.
My poem to share for today…
The Roots
I have spent my whole life, up to now,
looking at the flowers,
drinking in their beauty…
wishing for something I am not.
It’s the roots now,
that I’m attracted to,
the gnarled, tangled, messy roots.
The ones that reach down
into the natural world,
find their strength within the earth,
soaking in glorious nourishment,
drinking up life.
–Barbara L. Lazarony
.-= Blaz´s last post … on Being a Know it all… =-.
Blaz, these are wonderful, powerful lines:
“It’s the roots now,
that I’m attracted to,
the gnarled, tangled, messy roots.”
YES!
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #8 =-.
Lovely poems! And a lovely space to share them. Thank you Hiro.
She gave up listening to other people
and turned to loosening her own language
like an entertaining solitary game
spilling the syllables, working against the timer
What was she to make of these words?
Wrap them around her feelings,
name things she never knew before,
look for connections and find them everywhere
She was delighted to discover
the concept of a tree’s weep line;
she understood the botanical meaning
and wanted to stand under a tree in the next downpour
She also understood she’d found a name
for something she had know but had no word to describe.
She’d had her own weep line all along
but never understood it was perfectly natural
and exactly right.
.-= Deborah Weber´s last post … Love Your Body Day =-.
Thank you, Deborah. Lovely to discover that you’re a poet, among all your other gifts. :-)
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #8 =-.
these are all treasures.
.-= Kate T.W.´s last post … Dead Days =-.