At The Trestle

Navigating rapids,
being battered by waves,
flailing in riptides:
for decades, the assay.

Perhaps that’s why
these ripples and reflections
call to me now
to make amends.

I let my soul be stroked
with the bristles
coating with liquid layers
in redemption, baptismal:

acquittal.

A sibyl
reinstated.

Something about this river
brings back the scribbles
on my slate.

I linger
at the trestle bridge,
toes across inverted sky, skim.
I know it is a portal
to where I have been.

I chant the rising words
to be let
in…

Flaura

I only apply love,
for love is my essence;
I don’t know how
to have any other
purpose.

I try to dim
the brightness
of my aura,
but then, from within,
sprout the wild, white
flora.

Despite this gift
planted in my creation,
and all my practice,
and the best
of intentions,

I can’t seem to get
a reciprocated
connection,
which makes me think
I was misplaced
in this wrong
dimension…

Meanderings

In the absence of trail markers,
I find they were always there;
He’s seen where I’m headed
and steers me with care.

An arrow in morning-glory gold
and silhouetted wings
once again lead me
solo into the sunrise
in my homebound
meanderings…

Introvertedly

I check the ground for a “safe” spot and sit beside the mound to observe awhile through my macro lens; my hand was too shaky in that squatting position. I wait and wait, camera poised at the precipice of the mountain (I’ve made again from a hill smaller than the mole’s), waiting for a leg or head to surface. Patience. Stillness. These seem to be the dying traits falling out of practice. It is the essence of my passion, ironically, as a hobbyist: I photograph. Only nature. Submersed in it. Currently, I am at an immeasurable distance far away, though only from my back door, a few paces.

For a shot, I extend my permanently-scarred leg (what they did), foot to shin, and position it too close to the enemy camp. Damn fire ants. The savages are known for swarming, stinging, inducing explicative screaming, leaving blisters, pussing, to dry and fade to red. I have wished them all dead. But now, here I am, because I am a lover, and I am drawn to developing my gift of making beauty from pain. I simply observe, get to know the supposed perpetrators, and if I get attacked again, I know it will be deserved for violating their now-known territory. Self-defense is all they have ever been guilty of really…

A stir in the grass beside my hip! What is this? So hyper-focused on my enemies, I saw not the burrowing bee. Did I sit on it, I wonder now. Oh dear, so very sorry!

I keep forgetting, I have not actually been granted the ability to shrink. Did it go underground too, for I lost it completely… I realize then, I took my eye off the threat, but then again in the Three Fates’ web, perhaps we are all clinging to the same seasonal gossamer thread.

The neighbor’s doorknob plops me back into my own dimension too suddenly, as I rise and dust off my bottom, and silently slip away

introvertedly…

His Ray

Dawn gently stirs
to find her,
single wildflower.

In his softest warmth
extended,
she slowly rises,
highlighted,

and across the shadow line
sends her cheer
to the fallen,

who, in turn,
becomes one
with the earth.

“Right behind you,”
she comfortingly whispers,

as a sea bird
breaks the ray,
or was it Sun
blinking his tear
away?

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Suffice

Artificial light
will suffice
when I employ
on quiet walks
my creative devices
to make art
during heart-
survival crises

until it all naturally passes,
as all weather is designed to do;
I need to do better with storm preparations,
though He always sees ahead and sees me
through.

Tonight, to distract
with creative play,
I replace and extend
a stem with manmade

until the flower becomes a tower,
and then I ignite the beacon,
and let the moon console
a lonely orb romantic-dreaming.

I do these magnificent things
not only to take focus away from the pain
but because it gives me the control and power
as an abuse-survivor to manipulate
in a positive way.

I do it for you, but really and also
for me, selfishly,
but if you and I both need it,
how comforting it then becomes for us
to become “we.”

You’ve been here too,
I know, as I have been there,
not these same tracks
but in the aches that echo,
shared.

Oasis

When drowning in the desert,
I make my own oasis
to anchor my hope upon
’til tame becomes the tempest.

I know the weather patterns,
just not when the wells will dry,
but when they do, I’ll resurrect my heart
from its protected burial site.

Poem and (this morning’s) images (while walking into work) ©LauraDenise 🙂

Untitled

We can be nothing,
label-free,
defying definition,
and be
everything.

Come fly
with me,
fear not
the fall;
we never have
to land at all.

We’ll rise,
we’ll dip,
we’ll plummet,
we’ll soar,

sun-singe our wings
and touch
the ocean floor.

Returning To The River

Returning to the river
cautiously
for the first time since you drained it
from my happy memories.

Unplanned,
but the sky beckoned,
so I translated it
as a loving nudging
from the heavens

that the timing
was personally pre-approved, selected,
to make peace again
with my nature,
so dearly beloved.

This adventure
of my own, I began
and descended
down the road
beneath the bridge;

on the other side,
sandaled feet in sand,
it was a fallen tree
that first held me
so tenderly captive,

as I slowly drew
my therapy weapon,
seizing the sun itself
in my aimed lenses,

creating the art,
selecting the perspectives,
as my subjects so selflessly lended
themselves to manipulations.

Tri-colored trunks
and branches I braided
around a knot of light
to hold the center
of this soulful oasis.

Then, as if with x-ray vision,
or simply a gift to hear nature
in the language of revelation,

I saw the inner glow
of life after another death,
or maybe the asomatous mending
of a damaging past,

and, too, the beautiful reminder
that through the thick and barred,
and shadowed solids,

the rays and fires
of hope and passion
can always reach
those who desire them.

I have desired
but have not known how
to get back to my nature
nor my self

since the impact
of the last explosion
left too deep within
the shrapnel
bereft of reparations.

In a window,
in the distance,
the legendary River Deer leaps
into the sunset,

and in its landing
after the eclipse,
a second sun is left
as both a back up and a

genesis.

The clouds in the river
pave alternative
paths for me,

and the bisolar rays
upon the Oracle Tree
leave an evanescent ember map
breathing…

As I Await

Black morning, coffee
with Stevia and Cream,
only laptop light as I await
Dawn’s sweet window greeting.

Unrushed so briefly,
though second hand, I hear,
muses in pajamas,
whispered verses
in my ear,

pup still lazy,
still and quiet on the street,
ah…the first bird call
to rise the songs
from sleep.

Lack of photos
free from buried memories
from which to see
the poems,

I feel a bit lost
lyrically
but also even closer
to home.

I run my fingers
across your cheeks
in this four-by-six,

and from my heart,
pure from the source,
blow across distance,
this kiss.