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F Elliot Mar 20

Poetry is both lighthouse and harbor.
It does not force the journey, nor does it
fill the void of what is unresolved
It stands in its own gravity, unmoving;

      Offering only a silent invitation:
      Will you Unfold?

There is a craving that walks the shorelines of poetry,
a widow’s walk of those who have not yet learned
how to participate in what they long for.

They circle the docks,
watching the ships come and go,
watching the light shift across the waves,
watching for something that will draw them
back home.

Some mistake the lighthouse for the flame
and rush toward it as if to be consumed,
as if breaking open is the same as being made whole.
But the call is not to burn.

The call is to move toward what moves toward you,

   to become ready for  the return
   rather than wither within the waiting.


A moth drawn only to light
will die before it ever understands
what it was meant to become.
But a moth that finds its way to the cocoon
will emerge with wings strong enough
to meet the wind.

This is the choice—
to remain circling, craving, watching
or to disappear into the transformation
that will allow you to stand whole
when the vessel returns.

For he is both the lighthouse and the emerging vessel,
both the safe harbor and the dock,
where the journey finally ends.
And she, in waiting, is not idle..

She does not chase passing figures,
nor fill the silence with lesser pursuits.
She does not betray the longing
with distraction.

She deepens.

She prepares to meet the one
who braved the waves to return.

And when at last the ship appears,
bathed in the light of its own voyage,
she will not meet him as she was—

   .. but as she has Become.



I'm but a lonely woman
Waiting at the moor
To bring home my fisherman
To Gloucester Harbor Shore

A kiss goodbye
Upon the moor
A wave goodbye to see
I'm praying every moment
That you'll come home to me

The halibut, the cod to he
The numbers are too few
Too far the men go ferrying..
Far not enough, do live

Come home
Come home
Come home
Come home

I'm but a lonely woman
Waiting at the moor
To bring home my fisherman
To Gloucester Harbor Shore

The days, they pass
A storm blows in
And not a ship in sight
The icy hand of death, I fear,
is on my home tonight

The sea, tonight, a feral force
A wild cyclone eye
Is circling,
And swallowing,
Our vessels in the night

I've worked the piers
I've raised a daughter
And a little son

How will we manage
Without you?
Without a father's love?

Come home
Come home
Come home
Come home

I'm but a lonely woman
Waiting at the moor
To bring home my fisherman
To Gloucester Harbor Shore

https://youtu.be/QcAIEs7OzUM?si=JCFGpM5xYjbM81yX


May the strong hand of Love
bring each and every one  of us

back Home

❤️
Sharon Talbot Mar 17
I was thinking about the blast
of neon colors in a film
and the New Wave Music
and Marie Antoinete pastels

But in my childhood
it was as if we had other hues,
a small box of crayons at hand,
or that the world was seen through
Kodachrome film.

There were lollipop reds and purple
and dungaree blues, lake and skies,
lemon ice yellows, setting suns
and lush summer green.

In scratched lenses, children seemed to play
as if inspired by the living colors,
imagining that their lives would last forever.
And even as they grow, it immortalizes them.

But, like life, the colors decay
and we gaze at scenes of sepia and moss,
with ochre grass and reds turned brown.
We must attune memory to remember more.

And using suspension of disbelief,
Elders, middle-aged and children gather
Like the neolithic ceremonies meant for gods,
But celebrate, not the stars or stones,
Rather the lives we have lived or have yet to taste.
I found the first two stanzas written on an old paper in my journal and decided to finish it.
Ken Pepiton Mar 17
The practice,
the accepted right, good enough,

as with practice one's fingers learn,
each note, each tempo, each stain

eradicated, recollected and confessed,
irrational as time running the other way,

life, the experience, surviving any way,
eventually, we rest, or die while fretting why.

Commune with the chorus calling our attention,

as we, this pair, this form mankind can take,
readily, from the source, in truth a child knows,

if given half a chance,
if one causal agent takes patience to perfect

the unwanted child,
to fill the will
to become
the utmost valuable kind
of thing that ever is
contained in minds of our kinds,
a vessle to hold golden oil used for light.

Yes, light hearted frolicking's toddler's joys,

recalled from memory, as if ever with us,
this strength willing to make of us, this

mind involved in finishing the refurbishing,
so the sword of truth glistens rust free,
as the finest whetstone hones this edge,
minding our manner of thinking we know,

if
then
this that we aspired to, inspired by you, is
the entire you, foil plural mind to my weform,
after time
is no more, eternity now
happens as happens
to seem to be, then is,

enough to think about a while.
I an in the same mindset as Saul Bellows, though he is dead, I am in agreement yet, as it remains true, there is too much to think about, all at once.
preston Mar 17

She stands at the Well.
But she is not alone.

A voice speaks—
"You have no husband, do you?
Not just one—not two—but many.
And still, you are thirsty."


She freezes.
Because the voice is true.
Because she is seen.

But she resists.

"It’s not just the men…"
Her hands tighten.
"There is another ‘her’ inside me.

She fights. She *****.
She wants destruction and hunger and chaos.
She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t stop.
She is the one who makes me want to throw myself from a cliff
just so I don’t have to deal with her anymore."

"She’s gonna do something crazy,"
she whispers.
"And I’ll be gone. Like I was never even here."

The voice does not flinch.
"Then let Me meet her."

Silence.

A storm brews behind her ribs.

The "her" within her stirs—
The dark one. The wounded one.
She crouches behind the rocks, clutching her shame.

The other "her"—the one who still believes—
She wades into the water, hands lifted, reaching for salvation.

One moves toward the Light.
One remains in the shadows.

"You see, Lord? She does not belong to me.
She belongs to the dark."


A pause.

"No," The Spirit says.
"She belongs to Me."

The rocks begin to shake.
The water ripples.

Behind the trees, the dark "her" presses her back against the bark,
watching the water, watching the other "her" wade in.
She wants to believe.
She wants to step forward.

But she remembers.

The love of man is dishonest.
The world swallows and devours.
Every time she has trusted, she has been burned.

"The water will steal me," she whispers.
"The light will dissolve me. I will disappear."

But the Spirit does not demand.
It does not chase.
It does not force.

It only knows.

"You are afraid that surrender will erase you," the Spirit says.
"But you have already been erased."

The words cut deep.
Because they are true.

"You live divided.
One ‘her’ in the shadows.
One ‘her’ in the light.
Neither whole.
Neither free."


The dark "her" clenches her fists.
"You don’t understand her," she spits.
"She needs me."

"No," the Spirit says.
"She needs  Me."

The trees begin to shake.
The wind rises.

"Come, little one.
I have been waiting for you."


She takes a step forward.
The trees do not stop her.
The rocks do not hold her.

The dark "her" and the one who waits—the one who believes—
They are not enemies.
They are not strangers.

They are two halves of the same soul.

And Love—
Love has come to bring them both home.



The Art of Salvation

River running..
That rushing sound in these parts
spell out the words, crystal-clear..
Tree-lined banks, giving way
to the Dark Hills,  upslope

Giving way,  to
granite-rocked outcroppings
giving way to  elk-hidden quakeys
Surrendering their holy-huddle's
pristine stances
to tall  prairie-grass, waving
wild raspberries  and tall pines

    And I,  myself..
    am surrendering also
She is watching the water, believing
That as it flows,
she will not lose herself in it
That it will not steal,  but heal

That I will not  rage again
within my fear

I am watching her,
watch the water
I am watching the water--  believing
That as I give  of myself
further  into the flow

that I will not become  diffused
by humanity
By the love  of man
and all  of its dishonesty

and all  of its  diabolical treachery

Of its  lack of concern,
or understanding
Or ability to break through
its own,  self-centeredness

Or its need  to swallow me up
    into the mundane.
Her hands are in the air now,
praising..

Worshipping
the true nature  of the flow,
Believing..
that I will let all of this, go
And as she  wades in
I ease, back--

Retreating
up the Dark Hills, *****
Clutching tightly..
To granite-rocked outcroppings,
  weeping.

Hiding in the quakeys,
among the majestic elk
Begging for the tallgrass, cover
among the wild raspberries.
   Now, fully concealed
   in  tall pines.

Her hands
are stretched out,  now..
as if hovering  over the waters,
participating

While I hide  from it all

While I hide,  from humanity;
From the fallen,  love of man

    She is wading in,
    Believing
.    
As I am leaving;
Believing

    As the cloud-hidden sky,
    starts raining--

playing the most incredible, of tunes..
https://youtu.be/PgRafRp-P-o?si=1A3rb7ajt_ZPlMW2

xox
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4407079/the-art-of-salvation/


"Little Spirits  were born
with their little  freedoms  intact--
In freedom.. they are only
drawn out  by Love"

youtu.be/i-kHleNYIDc

            ❤️❤️

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4736547/children-of-the-quakies/
xo
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