Some may think of the heart, metaphorically speaking, as if it were an ornament or a colored piece of glass. Too fragile to expose, they live in fear, never knowing the nature or the value of this gift that's been bestowed.

In childhood, our hearts are made of purest gold, so precious. They begin to take on layers through our experiences of love: we've known, our families, those closest to us. Over time, the layers grow, though some may wilt and fall away. We find refuge in the layers that remain just underneath.

No, this heart is not made of glass, nor will it break into pieces. I see it ever as a flower that blooms over the passing years, petals forming, falling, loves encountered and lost. The heart is the beauty of a memory that lies dormant, to grow again. A seed .. newly planted, to await the coming spring.

💡LightInDarkness 🌑 ©JFO👥2024

Our spirits and souls are starving.
With each passing day,
we see only these mortal bodies that time will fray.

We kiss the skin,
find embrace within,
but no matter how tight the grasp,
the spirit stays beyond our clasp.

Is it only in our final sleep,
when we face the mystery it dares to keep,
that we will find these spirits starved,
and see the selves we've long discarded?

-Sonja Kettunen
Instagram: @sojafoxpoetry

The sun and stars in the heavens
stand only as a reminder of the depth of my love for you,
my sweet Cathy.

But their luminescence is but pale in consideration
of the brightness of my love and the beauty
that you possess.

Though great is the effort of the constellations
at the dawning of the night
To eclipse thy beauty and my love,

My love for you and thy beauty only grows stronger
and shines brighter, that the stars must shine
for all eternity in effort to match.

You are my Sun and Stars Cathy

When the dream ends
And the dreamer dies
Would the world stop to mourn
Or would it continue its revolution;

With neither an impressive gun salute
Nor just a simple cry of sadness
How long until the warrior's song fade
Into the reality's cruel silence;

When the dreamer dies
He dreams of an eternal edifice.

It is not somewhere over the rainbow
beyond Mother's breath or
in the devices of ancient
or modern hands bereft

we touch it in our pathos
and empathy from
time to time
through a shallow fading
gravel bed
filtering a bitter water table perhaps

whilst the tender leaf of spring feels it
in the autumn of unconditional
acceptance of the inevitable
morning frost
cold relentless rains
and colourful leaves
falling to their death
in beauty

so far removed from our bipedal posturing
and upright positioning at the computer
desk knowing there is no mystery here
no wild cry in the night
only electronic and organic
bleeps and drones and

aw! there… I heard it again

a lost chord
a missing link
that the wild
creatures understand
of what we sometimes feel nearer in our shared limbic
brain seldom penetrated through
our domineering eyes planted firmly in front
of the gray dross from an eternal fire

we spend our given time on
this planet trying to douse when the rest
of creation knows the need for its
purification and leaps willingly into its
all-consuming heart as we
live in fear of the unknown
and of fear itself

keeping us estranged from the cosmic mysterium which provokes us to awaken
to the wondrous eternal
which will
alter our deluded consciousness
to see what has been seen through the
unknown eons to help us take to the fire

we only catch a whiff of in the twilight
of our hopes and selfless dreams
so we will rise through the
dry brown leaves of our once tender
green vision of an ever-changing universe
which whispers louder and louder in our darkness
until we cease our chatter and
learn to listen to the serene silence
of an eternal vibration heightening

morphing less organic much more
ethereal spiritual crawling further and further
from the pulse of the earth
as we shed thickened skin which
once replaced thin soft unprotected flesh
needing protection from extraneous
sources to cover what should have been

eternally naked bare to the elements
not limited to a frail carcass which
will ultimately be left behind as we
transform into our individual eternal temples to
join in worship with the rest of creation
to be the living offering
at the foot of the
eternal voice ineffable
not waiting to be obeyed
in mass procession but

as individual as one spark igniting
a plot of trees newly released as mystery
revealed ever so slightly in the wake of
the burial of earthbound mind steeped in
temporal ancient tradition fermented in
oak casks which were made to remain
and grow in their ****** state

as we hear distant yet distinct whispers of
the origin of our human calling above and beyond
Thoreau's distant drummer’s near silent tremors of the
most ancient rhythms now mostly echoes as we
march to
and follow our own drummer
leading the way back home

as we at times seem to distinctly
hear original rhythm's calling
as we try so earnestly to
respond like a dying sea
longing to once again sway
to the beckoning moon

often keeping in step
with our
own inner drummer who
is always trying to keep
time by asking

"are we prepared to give
in to what we will
inevitably meet in the end?"