Tag: Stories

The Petals I’ve Known

It’s been sunny and seventies, and the seasons
have not so much been confused
as they have been seemingly
just leisurely mingling, amused,
some stalling, some joyfully letting go;
nothing in the South rushes though.

Like melting cubes of ice in tea,
we take it sweet and slow down here.
It tickles me pink to have the mix
sprinkling personal messages so clear.

Today started differently,
gray with a bit of nip in the air.
Certain trees partaking in autumn
are almost now bare,
covering the patio in a bland
blanket over stone,
which made the flowers
I did not grow
even more the focal point
of my windowed soul.

I smiled for how they have become
so deeply rooted in my journey.
Marking my heart’s pages,
so many petals and leaves held so dearly,
imprinting with their colors and scents
my most powerful untold stories.

The Light in My Reflections

Amongst the backdrop
of artificial light,
even in the pretty art
the water makes of it,
reflections at night,

my lens, guided by
the lighthouse of my soul
seeks the single detail
to anchor, to hold,

for only in the hushed detail
can I find my story,
mine alone,
these silent allegories,

and when the lyrics
feather float
to the page,
I hope
my heart’s songs
resonate,

for really we are all
the same
as the stalk of grain swaying
before the moonlit bay.

Poem and last night’s images ©LauraDenise

The Language of Wildflowers

I have always been drawn to intimacy,
that of the petal, the shell, the bee. 
Grand, sweeping panoramic views
have trouble impressing me. 
Everyone else lines up though to see,
so I release the guilt to the benevolent breeze
while I sneak away from my party
after posing in their pictures
to get low upon the mountain surface
to hear the gentle, pink, silky whispers.

My first two vacation poems of the same subject,
the world-renowned postcard as a blurred backdrop.
You can take a body to a different location,
but you cannot take control of a soul’s vocation,
especially when it is spiritually connected
more so to the underfoot details overlooked and neglected. 

The stories of nature that fit in the palm of my hand
speak to me more profoundly than the grandest canyon. 
I have never been one to follow the crowds. 
The bold mountaintop bloom whispers another route. 

I cannot take it now: my father is guiding this tour. 
But I will never forget the brief shared encounter

with the single wildflower

that found me in the clouds
and allowed me to recenter myself. 

Concrete Daisies

Concrete daisies 
veiled in silhouette,
shadows upon the crushed,
colorless.

Wind-caressed
nonetheless,
the mood of the kinesthetic,
interpretless,

no witness,
for every glance
is upon the source
hues and scent,

the cast-shadow dance,
musicless. 

I fall into a trance
watching all the ways
the whispered stories 
on the side non-stage
are artistically portrayed
in the concrete-daisy
ballet. 

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Far Side of Flower

My photographer daughter nearby
(with better equipment than mine)
inquires why I would take a photo
of the flower from behind,

and I am a bit surprised,
as she usually gets it intuitively,
my fellow creative with
our shared-way-of-seeing-nature genes…

I didn’t have an answer at the time, 
hard to explain the inner, abstract sensations, 
but as I play with the many images I took, 
some of it lends itself to alphabetic translation…

All stories in nature are wordless,
yet powerful are the messages
granted to the ones who listen,
stay long enough for full transmission,

and as beautiful as each is,
whether tales of love or sorrow,
what good is one side or version
or even chapter when the whole

can never truly be told in full
with so many perspectives
and levels of depth;
to have the layers revealed
comes with degrees of entrustment,

and this particular flower
whispered permission
to let me photograph
the other sides after others
would have moved on and left, 

and it is with this honor
that story then becomes
something impossible to convey
in either written or verbal language,

but oh how that message
pierces the core of my soul 
in such profound truths
we have yet to know… 

No poem could do justice
to such revelations,
nor one photograph or two
with so many facets of 
the single bloom 
so humble in 
His glorious creation. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

Bluebell Truths

First among the season’s
blooms of Mexican bluebells,
the sight of the familiar color
already having sprung
the leak in my heart’s well,

so profoundly in its silence
rang such messages of truth, 
its face to the soft, setting sun,
its torn wing-petal too,

so humble,
so beautiful,
a story untold:
inner workings
only through
the gentle,
loving light
vulnerably
exposed.

We are meant
to fill in the gaps,
each other hold, 
using the same light
harbored in our own
souls. 

Poem and image ©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

Lone Fisherman

Lone fisherman at the sea
I watch as the sun begins to bleed
into the horizon and the golden
makes a moment of the scene
that in turn seeps into me
and coats in a honey so sweet
each of my memories and dreams.

The fisherman fades in footsteps away
into the sunrise of a thousand days,
and I paint upon the canvas of my soul
a thousand stories I do not know.

Poem and image by Laura Denise

Footprints & Silhouettes

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So many silent, untold stories

in yesterday’s leftover footprints,

in this morning’s sunrise-silhouetted

figures in the distance.

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I am a people watcher,

always curious about

human nature,

collectively and within each

individual character.

 

When the stage lights are unlit

and the microphone off,

I wonder about each’s

private feelings and thoughts.

 

We are not actors

on life’s stage;

we are each keepers

of our own private plays,

 

longing to be brave enough

to raise the curtain, so you

may get but a glimpse

of a scene of what we’ve

been going through.

 

So many footprints and silhouettes

crossing paths,

so little we know

of the bodies’ souls

leaving the tracks.

 

What lies inside the impression,

what lies within the shadow,

those are the mysteries

I continuously wonder about.

 

Which footprint seeped love,

which footprint seeped grief,

which figure is weeping,

which figure rekindling dreams?

 

Hearts upon sleeves

are taken up by the wind,

feelings in chests

locked and buried again.

 

So many untold stories,

so many opportunities passed,

to initiate conversation with another

and simply ask.