Tag: Resilience

Mythological Growths

Cycloptic serpent
scorched deep
into my being,
color of decay
not even attempting
to camouflage
into my resilient green,
laying eggs,
disease breeding,
growing larger,
but still unable
to see,
for at my core
is also my heart,
and it bleeds
in light.
You try
to grow more eyes,
but this love
inside
will always
render you
blind,
not Karma
but what is right
finally
for I have falsely seen
too clearly
all my life

your lies.

The exorcist has arrived:
self-love.
Parasite,
good final bye.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

December Pinks

The pink blooms I never planted
are more beautiful than ever
as I return rejuvenated
to the patio in December.

Autumn has rained
its traditional hues too;
warmth in the setting sun
dries a wet spell of the blues.

I am tickled by the message
of the southern bell for whom it tolls,
waking the possibilities in me
of choosing the way it goes.

I’ll keep growing these pink blooms
even if they get winter-taken,
for I’ve reseeded in my heart
a season of hope to never end.

Dress Pockets

Over the years, I’ve collected
the best fragments
from the jagged breaks
of the past,
revisiting the scenes
after the immediate threats
have into ashes passed.

When the sun faithfully returns,
each ray seems to gently lead,
reflecting in intermittent beams,
to rebuild resilient dreams,

refracted off each of these
gorgeous shards of glass.
I add to these, the heartifacts
unearthed from avalanche

and dug up from old spots,
buried for protection,
washed and polished rocks
diversifying my unified vision.

In dress pockets,
I tuck into shadows
the reflections resurrected,
reunite them with the rays
as I sentimentally
deconstruct them,

assembling a mosaic
stained-glass arboretum
to grow from pains and grief
a new garden of suncatchers
and walk among the rainbows
into a new and beautiful future.

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

Wind and Wings

I will bend to please,
for I put first others’ needs;
overempathy makes me weak.

Forceful winds,
whether intended or not,
push with invisible pressure 
until my insides knot. 

In opposite direction
of secret desires,
the flight I am put on
with unpurchased ticket
takes me higher

but farther
on false wings
to where I wished to be;
nonetheless, I relentlessly
look for the positives 
in my surroundings. 

Rock, boulder, 
my anchor,
my center,
is never stationary.
I move the mountains
with the strength
of your arms 
and my unshakable faith
in the Almighty. 

Bent tree. 
Flight path. 
Criss-crossing trajectories.
I will bend back.
I will disembark. 
And wherever that leaves me, 
I will find where 
the wildflowers are. 
And if you pluck them all, 
I will water the seeds
in my heart. 

I will persevere as me,
no matter how many rounds
I smartly, politely, or wearily
concede. 
Each of those fertilize 
bloom potentiality. 

I will grow my own
wildflower fields
until they rise
out of me. 

Resilient Hearts

I am NOT a gardener.
Though a gardener I’ve never tried to be…
Every natural wonder I’ve ever encountered
has been there before me, 
remnants from previous tenants’ tastes
and sculptures wild and free
lovingly planted in my path
by the Creator Almighty
and meant at the time of discovery
to be the personal messages needed. 

And so it is with my hibiscus pinks, 
cut down to the ground by the men
so they could build a fence more easily. 
Flowers dear to me for the way they so faithfully
after such meaningful moments took turns blooming
to mark the milestones in my healing,
to commemorate the special blessings,
to symbolize with such humble beauty
the changing seasons within me. 

In the soft, golden morning rising sun, 
they lift themselves again to greet me. 
Not defiantly. Just filled with inspiration. 
An example. A reunion. A smiling. 
I approach and spend some moments 
I do not have according to clock and duty. 
The buds seem from an extra-long green
hibernation to be defrosting, thawing.  
I know what lies inside. The knowing
denies mystery but does not anticipation-impede.

My heart does indeed too beat again,
my dear friends. 
They can never cut short
our aspiring stories. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

Story Roots

Don’t think my sunny outlook 
comes from a lifetime of easy;
I’ve walked through the dark wood
and from depression’s cliff,
still find myself sometimes clinging.

I’ve cried my share of flash floods,
drowned several lives in the deep, 
survived decades of verbal abuse,
spent my time vowed and banded to Lonely.

I’ve been there and back,
having spent most of my life there,
but through it all, I kept the marker on
where my dreams were buried,

inside a humble chest
beneath the patch of wildflowers;
I watched the live hues grow
as the turpentine slowly stripped 
my own colors.

But the spirit, like pain, is buried deep,
like music in the heart, cannot be reaped
by any other, and perhaps the tears
upon those wounds are the rain needed
to combine with the light of the soul
in that long, desolate season,

and we finally figure out
how to use that manure
to fertilize our strength and desire,
and the sprouts from within
finally catch fire
and rise up to inspire,
and the wildflowers burst
from that buried chest,
breaking the lock 
from the inside, having had
enough of that old
non-life.

So when I see all that I now see in each bloom, 
know I, too, like you,
am the seed, the petals, the stem, the story, 
the roots.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise