That Day the World Promised to Heal Me

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

Tags

Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Division, Grace, Gratitude, Healing, Hope, Huckleberries, Life, Loneliness, Love, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Souls, Strength, Survival, Wilderness

And then the world said,

I will heal you

In ferns, unfurling again,

berries, growing ripe

On the bows of yesterday,

the ones your hands touched,

As you harvested the wild fruit.

This is my great forest of chatter,

it says, in a smattering of late flowers,

a fragrant, maskless breeze,

and trees you can touch with bare hands.

Speak to the sky, it cajoles,

And the sky will answer you back,

With its bold booms, and its wet clouds,

none of this needs viewed

from behind the doom of plexiglass.

The young clerk, who looked down,

and down, and down, faceless,

behind the many layers of protection.

He was humankind, afraid to look up,

afraid to touch, or speak,

or even see one another.

But the world said,

I remain the same, fully open to you.

See me, and I will heal you.

All the Bright Things

16 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Hope, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Memory, Morning, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Sun, Survival

The sun wakes through a morning window,

stretches itself over the horizon, smiles,

says, it will be a good day,

for horses to lay down and dream,

and I walk into its warmth,

almost able to hope, almost.

The sun persists to midday,

wakes the mountain, still white with snow,

and transforms its peak into a picture,

and if I could paint–

but I will, instead, think it,

in memory of last summer’s huckleberries,

picked there, there, half way up–

the sun smiles again

imagining the sweet boughs,

dark blue berries.

That’s what hope is, it says,

all the things you can see,

like memory,

made bright again.

This Pendant World: Passover

09 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear, Fear of Death, Freedom, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, The Universe, This Pendant World

Wasn’t everyone born

thinking

they belong

here forever,

even death,

we hide

behind closed doors

praying it will passover

us,

the ones we love,

cling to,

this earth,

how it swings

on its chain,

from cold days,

to warm—our lives,

like seasons,

which go on and on;

how can it go on

without us?

This Pendant World: Super Moon

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Confusion, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Moon, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Stars, Super Moon, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

Some nights

wearing your shoes

on the wrong feet

feels right

The stars

haven’t changed

the moon is bright

Maybe tomorrow

it’ll be full again

big enough

to swing this chain

rock us back and forth

along this painful tether

to which we cling

Photo credit: NASA / Bill Dunford

This Pendant World

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Bird Poems, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Dying, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

Today, I trusted you,

straddled your wide,

bare back,

sweet mare,

doe-eyed, and healthy.

We breathed together

what good there is

of this April day,

and offered thanks

to a world,

mostly untouched:

the mountain, still there,

the grass, still starting to green,

the birds, still returning,

singing their songs

into the dark hours

of the night.

This Pendant World

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Fear of Death, Grace, Hope, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, This Pendant World, Winter, Yearning

Grace,

where are you now,

embraced in loneliness,

poetry was a kiss,

now it’s this:

today, a fog—

from doorstep

to trees,

to sky—

all blended in white,

our world reduced

to blindness.

What They Said About Love

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Courage, Death, Divorce, Forgiveness, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Love Poems, Marriage, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Vows

New eyes, your eyes,

not their eyes, you see

yourself anew, beginning

to love again. How can that be

a bad thing? Love is not bad,

ever. Make it worth it,

she said, and she’s dead now.

If she’s right, you thought,

could it save us? A love—

worth it, worthy of—

holding past what we thought

it was, what they thought

it was, to what love is:

mostly forgiveness,

he said it, I’m sure,

in the vows. Forgiveness,

he went on & on

about grace, & letting go.

What Darkness Have You Known?

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Aging, Courage, Death, Dying, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Snow, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Strength, Survival, Winter, Winter poem

Imagine

if someone covered you

in ice;

how would you feel

in a chill

blanket of snow?

What darkness have

you

known, the kind

that can kill you,

your voice

silenced

in wind-drifts,

the hissing whisper

of winter’s kiss?

A 52nd First Day of Summer

21 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

clouds, Death, embrace, Flowers, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Manito Park, Petunias, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spokane, summer

I’m writing today in response to a prompt about clouds that I found on the Manic Sylph’s blog.

My fifty-second first day of summer,

is cool and cloudy, the way I like my days,

a high of seventy, and I’ll stroll Manito Park,

while the flowers reprieve from scorchers,

and chaos; mild days are undervalued

in this world, everyone wants to run hot;

can I just sit here and dead-head my petunias

until I die of natural causes, hopefully,

in my sleep, when I’m past my eightieth

first day of summer, or ninetieth—

however old it is when I’m ready to go.

Are we ever ready to leave days like this?

There is always someone left to love,

to smile at, to hold in our just right embrace

while the sun comes up in their souls,

and they, too, long to celebrate

their first cloudy days of summer.

When She Was Young: Song of the Lotus

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Addiction, Daughters, Flowers, Healing, Hope, Loss, Lotus, Love, Mother Poems, Mothers, Odyssey, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Promises

“The lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them.”
The Odyssey Book IX

Promises, she heard them all,
the call of her mother’s voice,
she wanted to believe:
This won’t happen again, baby.
Maybe, it was okay to trust
for a while, and rise, like a lotus blossom,
above the mud of her addiction,
floating with petals stretched up to the sun.
Somewhere, she thought,
there is a story of a girl whose love could cure,
and pour itself out as an ethereal blanket,
so magical, together at last,
even their bones would long
to float away in the lotus’ song.

The Sweet Smell of Starting Over

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Bird Poetry, Birds, Death, Divorce, Eternity, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rain, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Starting Over, Survival, The Universe, Unity, Women's Poems, Yearning

Even the stars are made of this:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

What comes from above,

and we are made right,

our thirst, our life—

forgiveness,

after years of anger;

we finally feel love again.

The earth wreaks well of redemption,

grace permeates the dry ground.

And, the only sound we hear now,

birds,

who sing of starting over,

or, at least that’s what we hear,

like the smell of fresh water,

among grass, and clover:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

Hog Lake Falls

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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arrowleaf balsamroot, Bird Poems, Crows, Gratitude, Happiness, Hog Lake, Hog Lake Falls, Hope, Horse, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, Spirit, Spokane, spring poem, Waterfalls

The ground sounds hollow,

an echoing cadence of hoofbeats

follows among ponderosa, & a caw-caw

of wood raven, forest spies tattling

on our prattling happy chatter,

while hawks circle the pool

at the base of hog lake falls,

& balsamroot whispers

about the perfection of it all.

Homes, Like Cathedrals

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Cathedral, Divorce, Family, Homes, Hope, Loss, NotreDame, Poem, Poetry, Survival

Loss, it leaves an open space,      
         a void
that can become a vacuum       
         or, it can heal.       

Loss, it can create chaos,     
        as homes, 
like cathedrals, 
        burn    
and we wonder 
        what will be left? 
to rebuild from the ashes.

New Soul

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Birth, Brook, Children, Courage, Fear of Death, First Born, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Mothers, New Soul, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Son, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Yearning

Some, come into the world as old souls,
like they’ve been here a hundred times,
a bit weary, wise, or jaded, made cautious
by pain & an understanding of human hearts.
But not my son, whose eyes saw the earth
as if he, and it, were just created.

Yes, from first breath he was a wanderer,
like his father in his lust for the world,
possibilities stretched out before him,
no person stranger, no place strange,
a modern day viking making his way
across an infinite, angry sea, with no map.

Unless, music is a map. Song after song,
his heart in waves of hard-plucked strings.
He sang loud, and I wondered how
he could pour himself out in front of crowds.
I see him, even now, upon the ocean,
his wooden ship, the waves, the sails.

Things Poems Can’t Explain

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

aspen, Divorce, Hope, Loss, Love, Masochist, Metaphor, Pain, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Violence

I searched metaphors to describe you,
the aspen’s branches beating against themselves,
waving for help, like desperate arms,

but that was the work of the wind.

The coyote, who devoured all except the head,
and what appeared to be a shoulder
of our girl cat, and left her among the weeds,

but that was the work of hunger.

Then I thought, maybe the foal,
when they drove off with his mother,
her whinnying, more distant and more distant,
as he crushed his tender body against the rails,

but that was the work of love being torn away.

No, in the end, I came up empty explaining
your helplessness against self-loathing,
our loss of hope, and leaving,

but that, it seems now, was the work of surviving–
surviving the things even poems can’t explain.

You, Me, and the Spokane River

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Canada Geese, Cowboy, Freedom, Hope, Horse, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, River, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spokane, Spokane River, Spring, Survival

We rode dirt and mud,

through standing water,

like ponds, to verify

the sun, and life

of returning things:

Canada Geese, wood ravens,

mule deer, grazing at dusk,

and the river, surging

with the spring run off

of our souls, singing.

Second Birth

29 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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aspen, Aspen Trees, Beauty, Courage, Death Poems, Dying, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning

early spring,

a cold aspen, clothed

in soft buds, robed in white,

like ash, born of snow;

to touch her is to quake

with the anticipation

of a thousand leaves

desperate to unfold;

a thousand leaves

desperate

to unfold you.

Like a Night Foal

11 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aging, Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear of Death, Foal, Hope, Horses, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry

My father is eighty,

has cancer,

lives two hours away,

and I worry—

could I get there

soon enough to say

I love him,

should his last moments

come quick, unexpected—

like a foal born in the night

while I’m sleeping,

even though I’d been there

to catch him all day.

The Trillium in Gig Harbor

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Afterlife, Belief, Cedars, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Flower Poetry, God, Hope, Infinite, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Trillium, Truth, Unity, Women's Poems

O, Jamie, it’s beautiful—

everything is connected,

she said, before dying.

And Jamie thought of trillium

blossoming beneath musty cedar

at the edge of the sound,

the whole world epitomized

in heart of flowers,

and spirit of ancient,

mouldering trees.

For the Tulip Who Refuses to Die

07 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Afterlife, Aging, Alone, Courage, Death, Happiness, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Survival, Tulip, Yearning

Like the yellow tulip,

who blooms every year

in the pit behind our house,

who was dumped, long ago,

after her blossoms were spent—

yet, she screams, I’m still alive!—

every spring, among garbage

and weeds; like that tulip,

you don’t belong here.

	Linda R Davis Poetry on All the Bright Things
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	Linda R Davis Poetry on As Gone Becomes Gone
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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Tag Archives: Hope

That Day the World Promised to Heal Me

All the Bright Things

This Pendant World: Passover

This Pendant World: Super Moon

This Pendant World

This Pendant World

What They Said About Love

What Darkness Have You Known?

A 52nd First Day of Summer

When She Was Young: Song of the Lotus

The Sweet Smell of Starting Over

Hog Lake Falls

Homes, Like Cathedrals

New Soul

Things Poems Can’t Explain

You, Me, and the Spokane River

Second Birth

Like a Night Foal

The Trillium in Gig Harbor

For the Tulip Who Refuses to Die