Tag: God

Peace Of Plank

“Whatcha doin’?” my teacher friend across the outdoor space between our classroom doors says, popping her head out.

“Just capturing poems I’ve passed by,” I say, still hunched over close to the sandy ground just before school started. “You know.”

I captured the wildflower oasis and the non-fool’s gold recently but have since discovered the plank in the magical world beneath our giant steps…

Peace of Plank

I wish I could have been afforded 
the plank
instead of all the times
each “he” just yanked 
my never-grounded footing 
away,
the sharks
themselves. 
The plank
in the desert
beneath me now,
still 
symbolic of how
we can feel so nudged 
toward the apparent 
doom to drown,
prisoners and victims
until the spell 
is unbound
and we are able to see
that the moat 
was always
a mirage,
and we always 
possessed 
the power
to simply 
step 
off 
into the safety of our 
selves,
trusting God 
would never 
let us 
down,
and if we ever did
get pushed into the deep, 
what He personally pre-planted within us each
would be all 
the buoyancy
we need. 

Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

One Pebble

Whirlwinds, whirlpools,
whirl me, no blackholes,
just the pulls and pushes
of the world;

when will I be able again
to simply be
still?

My soul needs the refuge
of trickles,
the focus on the ridges
of ripples.

Throw me not around;
throw a pebble
to the pond
for my gaze to sail upon
to where the circle runs
out…

Just give me a moment
and I’ll give you again
all of me,
all of my
love.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Hummingbird At The Pane

My heart sighed,
the exhale combined
with the incoming uplifting
screened spring breeze;

despite the birdsong,
my eyes welled up,
as I began to walk into
Sadness’s alluring stream…

But my nature friends
and forces always seem
to intervene!

To my pane came
a hummingbird who hovered
until I forgot
all of my soul’s woes

and again felt
Hope’s flutter
and the feeling
of not being
in this world
alone.

Despite it all,
life is truly beautiful
as long as there is
this Presence I feel
so connected to.

Cut me open. I don’t think
I will bleed.
I am sure
butterflies
will rise
out of me

and to the moon,
my essence return,
merging light
to warmly glow
in a belonging
forever.

Pitfalls and Wings

I remember you describing it like trap doors.

That unexpected drop we don’t see coming. It’s one thing when you are watching your footing, placing your soles carefully around the eggshells, having been conditioned, trained, skilled, at moving around in this on-guard, defensive way. It’s another when you’ve just started to have confidence in the spring in your step upon trusted ground. I was outdoors, in my favorite place, when it happened this last time.

A trap pre-set by a predator disguised as a friend. Another very unexpected fall. No problem. I’m used to it. I know what to do. It’s all very logical. Except when I go to grab onto the root to begin the climb, it opens another hole. I unexpectedly drop again. I reach, I lift myself, I lift myself, I reach for the wrong root again and another hole opens… I don’t understand these. They come from deep within my own self. These were not set by him. There is no logic; I’ve tried every pattern. Eventually, I make it out.

And then another pit sends me plummeting.

I’m thinking about these pitfalls today, sitting upon a rock in a favorite dress on a beautiful day, revisiting the scene, the trap pre-set especially for me. I find myself thinking the all-too-familiar question for each of us, so universal, so personal: why me?

I honestly do feel I should have been spared by my higher power. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. With Trauma. But what sense of entitlement and special treatment is that? Not to mention the whole free-will clause which others can use to interfere with my own hard work and desires.

So I do now reflect on the possible reasons. Does God have yet another lesson for me to learn, yet another trial to overcome? How strong does He want me to be?! And why?… When I think of this, I do not feel like a victim; there is very little woe is me. I actually get a bit excited that He is preparing me for big things. Like I am a chosen one. And if ever I were to be in training or to serve, I would definitely want it to be for Him! I feel empowered. I feel an ego I never thought I had. I always thought I was selfless to a fault.

I did it. I think. Again. I’ve lost, yet won.

Are you proud of me, God?

I think, too, about how much I have control of and how much I don’t. I know how we react is everything, our miseries often self-induced, self-perpetuated, the way we keep ourselves trapped and prisoners; we look down sometimes and see the cuffs and chains are unlocked, and we scramble to re-secure them. Why?

Is it all fear?

If so, are we really trusting God is with us, sees what is ahead? We cannot get there if we keep re-locking ourselves when He keeps setting us free.

My past is my past. I have freed myself from it. I must shake the dungeon dust fully off. Perhaps that is the purpose of these new wings.

I feel the breeze of your and His love…

Thank you for always believing in me.

I suppose with wings,
these pitfalls can
no longer sink me;
I’ll keep my eyes
forward in these skies
and focused
on the portals
to my dreams.

Words and images ©LauraDenise

Resetting the Sand

With wide-opened arms,
I offer myself
again to the sea,
double-red flag at the
abandoned beach
and in me.

I give it all to God
who takes it up
with the wind,
wild waves
rush up from within.

Benevolent powers
remind me
who I am
and what I’m capable of
in this lifetime chance

when He is inside me
like He’s always been,
and all of nature,
my lifelong friends.

The beach itself
is rippled clean,
new slate
on which to imprint
the path
He leads,

another first step
into the trust
of His plan,
the next leg of a journey
to lead me even closer
to where He is at.

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

Re-Lighting

Rough week. Double red flags waving. The bay wilder than the ocean. It called me home. Here’s to the ones in the throes of it. Let’s relight ourselves. Again.

I give my light freely,
but sometimes it is taken,
emotional perpetrators
breaching my innermost spaces.

They underestimated 
my strength
and did again
today,

for as long as there
is the sea and my God,
I will raise my arms
in faith;
you will never 
keep me down
as long as there 
are waves and rays. 

I will wash 
what you left
away. 

You underestimated 
our strength. 

Still Life

Still as silhouetted dragonfly wings
is all that used to swirl restlessly in me.
I hold my breath and so does the breeze;
we both stop time for centuries. 

The secrets from the ancient flier 
can only be imparted in complete silence;
any ripple in the universe jeopardizes
this which is rarely achievable in this life. 

Perhaps this is my umpteenth time… 

I recently had a supreme spiritual moment;
not now, but when I was again freshly broke open,
my soul exposed again to worldly poisons 
and decades-rotten ingested false notions.

It is only in these complete ruptures, it seems, 
can the bad get out and God restitch the seams. 
Perhaps it is true that the rock bottoms are needed
to unclench the fist and open the palm for receiving.

I was mended with light again by His own loving hand.
And inside me, this time, another something planted. 
I feel it in the silhouetted dragonfly wings suspended, 
except I think it is me that it and the breeze are sensing. 

I feel our connectedness, 
the same serenity seeds inside of us. 
It’s hard to go back to the way it was
when gratitude, which I’ve always had, 
are blooms in such surplus shooting up. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

Mission Depletion

Overcasting the heart,
the plagued cloud
drew color and life;
eruption ensued,
torn from the burst
deep inside.
The salt rained
on the open wounds.
The gray swooped in, 
attempted final ruin. 

But a survivor returned
from his own
near entombment,
kissed petal lips
to restore the hues, 

and love rushed in again
to ignite the blooms,
imbued with goodness
the only truth.

The excess overflowed,
flooded the world,
infused each connecting branch,
bled the colors to combat 
all hopelessness. 

The gray cloud retreated.
Only depression was depleted. 

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

There Is No Fear

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.

(1 John 4:18)

To have no fear in love
is to have total faith, 
but sometimes my heart leaks, 
so exquisitely, I feel
the break.

When the darkness comes
and I feel alone, 
I must always hang on
and trust
you will find your way back
home;

even when I am certain
I have ruined His plan,
I must believe He’ll mend it
once again. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise