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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Tag Archives: Spirits

Bent On Flying

26 Saturday Nov 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Beauty, Courage, Dancing, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Music, Poem, Poems, Poetry, shame, Songs, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Survival, Unity, Yearning

Fogged in for five days,

A space, made smaller

By low-hanging clouds

That won’t go away.

Nothing is as ungovernable

As weather, except the soul,

Bent on flying–

It’s what they always get wrong

About need; I need freedom;

I need sun, and a view so clear

It extends forever, like a soul,

Bent on flying–

Beyond every cage, open space;

Beyond every wall, more room;

Beyond this fog, the sun,

So bright, it will blind you.

2

He said, the world is bound together

in shame, and shadow.

3

What serves your soul:

A walk, a song, an embrace.

Last summer, we danced

Under stars and moon,

To music from Alexa.

Last night, we danced

To Christmas jazz.

You opened the door,

Danced barefoot in snow,

Twirled under night clouds,

A free soul of sun, and song,

A soul bent on flying.

Winter Blind

24 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Alone, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Ice, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Snow, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, The Universe, Winter, Winter poem

A white blanket was pulled over

Our homes, the earth, our heads,

As effortless as sliding on ice,

As uncontrollable as dying.

And, it was hard to see beginnings

Of fields, or endings of hilltops;

In that way, it was a blur of (also white) fog.

Who’s to say what lay behind it?

The infinite forever of lost souls–?

Just there, and there, look where

My finger is pointing, beyond the trees.

I see myself only as far as the fence-line.

All else sparkles back, a vision

Of what is here, and what has been here,

Always within the margin

Of what we can so easily see.

How We Keep It

23 Monday May 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Doe Mountain, Dying, Father, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirits

Moments, so beautiful they are painful,

Unless you take a deep breath

And carry them into your heart & lungs

Where they mix with the sweet oxygen

Of your body’s blood, pulse, beat, throb.

And you think, I will keep this, Lord,

Help me keep the memory of it,

Let me be changed forever to the goodness,

Yes, even the holiness of this moment.

(Because what is this, if not sacred?)

A poem can keep it, too, and as I read back,

I feel you in the flashing memory spots,

Where touch and sight and smell,

Ignite the latent feeling of you, still alive.

There you are, rising with other wonders:

The geese, flying through basalt cliffs,

The view, after ascending Doe Mountain,

The ocean, when I had not seen the ocean.

There you are among it all, in my mind,

And I can feel your love from this far away.

Skunk Cabbage

19 Thursday May 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Death, Fear, Fear of Death, Hope, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Promise, Quartzite Mt, Skunk Cabbage, Spirit, Spirits, spring poem, Survival, Truth, Yearning

No, I did not bend down too near

To smell the yellow flower

Which grew in weaving lines through

The swampy crack, the scraggly creek,

Creeping amid mid-high, mid-spring grass.

We were at the base of Quartzite Mountain,

Nestled behind a tiny ski town, ghost town,

When the skiers don’t ski, or snowboard,

Or venture icy roads to snow-topped peaks.

You said the clicking was cicada,

I said, cougar, because I’d seen a video

Of a cougar making a clicking-ticking sound,

And decided the next clicking-ticking

Behind a bush, or tree, or grassy knoll,

Would be a mountain lion. You see,

We will never know who was right,

Because we passed safely the miles up,

The miles back down the hill, to the creek,

With those most beautiful, yellow flowers;

You could see them recede into the woods,

Like mystery, like scattered crumbs,

Showing us the way to an unknown truth.

I followed them for awhile, alone,

While you stayed back, and packed the dog;

Those irresistible, extra steps along their path,

Like blazing torches, luminous, yes.

One Swan, One Last Kiss of a Bee

12 Thursday May 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Beauty, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Happiness, Hog Lake Falls, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, prairie smoke, Prayer, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Survival, The Universe, Truth, Yearning

Hog Lake Falls, a cool breeze,

One single, solitary swan.

I think I see him preening

From this vantage, far away.

Last time I hiked here, you’d just died,

And I thought, how lovely to know

I can bring you with me,

Free of the dying chair,

The dying bed, the whole dying room,

And house, where you’d locked yourself away.

Such days are ripe with feeling alive:

Prairie smoke droop their heads,

Their beautiful faces turned down,

As they wait for the kiss of a bee.

Then they will finally look up at the sky,

Say one last prayer, go to seed.

The Knowing Alone

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Alone, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Grief, Healing, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, Survival, Yearning

They say,

There are five stages to grief;

All, feel terrible;

Where’s the relief?

When can we expect

To accept the loss of being

Who we were together.

The knowing alone–

Is that it, the end;

Is it final?

Mending spirit,

Where are you now?

Are the returning birds

Too loud to hear?

The Sun, too bright

To see?

The wind, too cold

To feel you?

Dimensions Around Us, Heaven

14 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Belief, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Survival, The Universe

If there’s a heaven,

Who’s to say

It’s not right here,

Next to us,

Rather than far away?

Another dimension,

Our souls

Walk through at death,

More whole,

than in life.

Scientists say,

Our lives replay,

As we pass,

They can map

Our brain’s waves,

An almighty flash

Of memory cells,

Flashing.

What’s that about,

If not

Making us better?

And so

I talk to him,

In woods and fields,

My father,

Who loved woods

And mountaintops,

And me,

Less alone than before

He walked across,

Or flew across,

Or emerged across

The invisible line

Between life

And death,

The breadth of which,

Seems smaller

Than I knew before.

My Father, In Dreams

13 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Dreams, Father, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits

Now, he is alive

only in dreams,

But they are vivid,

And real,

And the best of him.

Toward Our Once Bright Existence

03 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Aging, Beauty, Belief, Children, Death, Dying, Eternity, Family, Gratitude, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Memory, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits

In the end, we don’t know

How the end will come,

Peaceful, as we sleep,

Or, under the thumb

Of morphine. Memories,

Like flotsam, from the depths

Of our once bright existence,

Form a tunnel toward our exit,

Each day, one step closer,

Almost touching what was lost:

mother, child, father.

Song of Sorrow and Joy: 5

12 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Family, Happiness, Hope, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Song of Sorrow and Joy, Souls, Spirits

V.

Joy is found in minor chords,

Singing our truth to the universe.

The story of love is never perfection;

It is always one dropped note,

A half step away from resolution.

The Pull Towards You

21 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Attraction, Celestial, Destiny, Gravity, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirits

I like to think 
it was some great,
cosmic, 
gravitational pull, 
two spirits, 
in proximity, 
drawn closer, 
meant to be 
together. 
I mean, 
why
this one, 
not
that one? 
You can feel 
the magnetic draw 
between two 
celestial bodies; 
what is that, 
if not destiny?

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.

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.

You, Me, and the Spokane River

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

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.

A Love Poem

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Loneliness, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Need, Passion, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirits, Yearning

Need,

like a bliss of birds

who flow, spring to spring,

synchronized of sun and moon,

and wing of wing.

Love is best a mutual thing:

selfish, blind, and binding trust,

passion, that crushes

bones to must.

The Trillium in Gig Harbor

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

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.

The Day I Knew the Way

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Afterlife, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Birds, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dreams, Freedom, God, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Maggie, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Reality, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits

it was a dream, and hard to tell

where borders and countries began,

but there was a dirt path,

and only I knew the way.

The dirt was soft, and the day

beautiful, I was barefoot

and running freer than ever I have

in wakened-life. It felt good

running in a warm sunshine,

ducking under the Velvet Mesquite,

with their canopies, their shade,

their branches, like open doors

to some better, magical place.

I liked the dream very much,

and could have kept running,

but I came to a lone house,

stark in the barren desert.

A blonde girl stood outside a fence,

scared and holding a gun,

and just like that,

I was shot in the arm.

I said it was a dream, didn’t I?

So, you won’t be surprised

I was impressed with her aim,

rather than the pain of being shot,

and I had to go pee.

I looked for a bathroom,

but had to wake to find one.

What is memory, I asked

later over coffee,

a little box in our brain,

a string of pictures?

How do we get there?

Memory is what we tell ourselves,

he said, about what we see

and what we feel.

You see, when Maggie died,

she passed into a prairie falcon,

she banged against windows,

day after day after day,

then left a last gift of quail,

and traveled the road of her happiness

to some place better than here.

Months later, the sun smiled,

and I ran on dirt, soft as baby powder,

passed through door after door,

on long, liquid legs, more of wing

than bone, and only I knew—

only I knew the way.

If Snow Could Form Into Tree

24 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Dreams, God, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Shades of White, Spirits, The Perception of White, White, Winter poem

If snow could form into tree,

It would be the aspen.

Snow, one of a thousand

shades of white,

The perception of light and brightness–

And Spirits, rising up like like colonies,

Covered in it. The snow. This aspen.

Our hopes. Our dreams. The good dreams,

That is. The ones where fairy god mothers

Float down and save us.

Did you know, aspen bark heals?

They say it takes away pain–

Like a friend, a lover, my mother

rubbing my back until it burns.

And, like a child, that’s what I want it to be.

Yet, its naked trunk rises like winter–

So unafraid, so unalone,

So rigid, intractable and distant.

Yes, if snow could form into tree,

It would be the aspen,

And the cold, white stillness of what seems

A winter that won’t go away.

Light In a Black Hole

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Uncategorized

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Tags

Black Hole, Event Horizon, Germany, Ghandi, Greece, Heaven, Hell, Hope, Iraq, Italy, Light, Love, Milky Way, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Refugees, Souls, Spirits, Supermassive Black Hole, Syria, Turkey

In the center of the Milky Way,

Exists a black hole

Equal to 4.3 million suns.

Its gravity so strong,

There is no light.

We stand on the edge,

An event horizon,

Or, the point of no return,

As refugees push out

And we argue about definitions.

Mothers and fathers,

Children,

Who dream of a good Germany,

A Europe with jobs and new homes.

They launch into black holes:

The Aegean Sea,

The Dark Sea,

Floating back in waves,

Absent of light.

We wonder at this hell,

A place of suffering,

And hope for something beyond,

A better place

Where there is love,

There is light,

Light in a Black Hole.

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