Lost Poems: Angel Questions

 

 

 

 

 

Angel Questions

What is the question?
Do airplanes ever collide with angels?
I was hoping
the angels would tell me
but they are staying up in heaven
today -- leaving me to wonder.

All this wondering
leads me to think prayers are just questions
answered up in heaven
keeping the angels
from telling me
the secret of airplanes. I will pray and hope

and in all this hoping
I will begin to wonder,
Why aren't they answering me?
Maybe the angels have too many questions -
too many prayers to answer today - oh beautiful angels,
take me into heaven.

Can only beauty surround the quiet places of heaven?
Does each shadow hold hope
as a present given by angels?
Where do angels go to cry, I wonder?
I know, I know too many questions,
please forgive me.

It is just so miraculous to me,
all the nooks and crannies of heaven
bring up all these questions
inside about love and faith and hope.
But one thing I never have to wonder
they are my constant guardians, my angels.

But if airplanes do ever collide with angels,
what would happen to me?
I can not help to wonder
still, if I would end in heaven
answering others' prayers of hope.
Am I able to handle such questions?


To fly as an angel up in heaven
for me, would be too hopeful,
too wonderful, to question, if it could happen.


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My dear friend, Liz, choreographed a beautiful winterguard show a couple years ago using this poem.  You can watch their state performance here or their national performance here.
 

They Dance Alone

 

 

 

"What do we glean from the stories of other women?

What am I gleaning in the furrows of my mother's journals?


I forage for the details left, overlooked, discarded.  I will use everything in this story she has given me before her death and afterward to find out what is there and what is not there, and then begin culling the grain from the chaff, savoring what is essential.


Mother gave me my voice by withholding hers, both in life and in death.  Her creativity presided in her home.  She spoke through gestures, largely quiet and graceful.  A letter.  A meal.  A walk together.  Her touch.  She lived on a private elegant plain.
Mimi gave me my voice by proclaiming hers: directly, honestly, and, at times, shockingly.  When Brooke and I went to tell her we were getting married, she said, 'How wonderful!  And if it doesn't work out, you can always get a divorce.'

But I believe my own voice continues to be found wherever I am being present and responding from my heart, moment by moment.  My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty."

-Except from Mary Tempest William's "When Women Were Birds: Fifty Four Variations on Voice"



Allium Bud: Tears
Rocky Mountain Columbine: Cuckold, Capricuousness, and Folly (or image of doves as Shane Connolly suggests)
Sir Winston Churchill Daffodil: Chivalry
Bramley Apple Blossom: Repentance
Strawberries: Perfect Goodness, Excellence
Quince: Temptation

 Resource for flower meanings from "Discovering the Language of Flowers" by the ever thoughtful Shane Connolly




Musical Inspiration: Sting's "They Dance Alone"

Spring Morning Songs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These photographs tell their own little story, separate from me, of my days these past few months.  They can't tell the whole of the story.  Nor, I think, can I.  The story is still being written, being lived, being known.

 

Strips become squares become patchwork becoming a quilt.  Garden flowers on tables welcome special Easter guests. Bulbs buried in autumn in struggle, blossom in spring to life.  Meaning that now Sir Winston Churchill lives in my garden.  The Queen is having her day and Yellow Cheerfulness spreads into my home.  Or so I hope.

 

A little experiment is at play in the kitchen.  Taking inspiration from different places and adventuring to create something of my own. Drawing from a recipe found in "Garden Design" magazine from the previous winter and mixing it with a scone recipe given to me years ago by a coworker at the time.  Using the fruits of the season.  It almost turns out just the way I want.  A few tweaks still to try. I don't mind trying again.

 

Dreaming of embroidering little flowers using the crabapple blossom photo as inspiration alongside the beautiful work of Caroline Zoob and too the ladies participating in The Stitchery Journal project.  But first a quilt must be finished.  It is now policy for me to only do one craft project at a time.  Hard as it can be sometimes to stop myself from delving into the next new creative thing.  Life for me flows better this way.  I do wonder if the desire to stitch these little flower pictures will come into fruition or if by the time I finish the quilt something else will strike my fancy more?  It's a real fear.

 

So many things not captured in photographs.  Not captured in words.  Only quietly, with a whisper, felt with the heart.  Joy, sorrow, grief, emptiness, renewal, hope, struggle, and strength.  Music and silence.  It's all here.

Autumn Begins

Pretty ... Hurts

View image | gettyimages.com

Pretty ... hurts,
 --shine a light--
  on whatever's worse.

Perfection is the dis-ease //
  of (our) nation
.
.
.
It is the sOul that needs the surgery.

//

Attachment to things...
         let it go,
   let them go. It is for the
                 best.

All we truly own is this s.i.n.g.l.e.

precious m o m ent

And in the precious moment is a
simple choice --

    joy, sorrow
    love or hate
    life or death

There is no wrong answer here.

It simply is what it is
and based on our choice --

becomes what it will
    be
       c
         o
           m
              e.

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With humble gratitude to:
Beyoncé, Louisa, e e cummings, Alan Watts, HRH, and Him and Her

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"Dahlia: A Study" in progress...

My love, I will return to thee...

It's there somewhere
the love between grows
with each passing minute
the love between ebbs and flows.

Marriage is work
filled with moments
of false riches, hatred of deeds,
the elegance left behind.

We attempt to dispel
these headaches - these
heartaches - to cleanse
and find the natural vitality
of life and love again.

We stumble in our pride
caught in the haughtiness
and find we miss what we were
not realizing the joy that comes
after the growing pains
subside.

Each love is thorny,
and we may complain
that rose bushes have thorns
but covering the thorns in
maternal love eases the pain.

My love, I will return
to thee, more fully me
than I ever was
before.

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Dahlia: elegance; joy
Rose: ambassador of love; beauty; grace
Foxglove: work; stateliness; self-ambition
Basil: hatred; best wishes, good luck
Zinnia: thought of absent friends; 'I miss you'
Moss: maternal love
Sunflower: haughtiness; false riches; natural vitality

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Sunflower: A Study

The sunflower.  The sunflower is such an iconic flower.  Most who can little distinguish one flower from another can call the sunflower by name. 

The genus name of sunflower is Helianthus which comes from the Greek "helios" meaning sun and "anthos" meaning flowers. The sunflower is native to America and Peru. Ancient Peruvians used the sunflower as a symbol to worship the god of day. It has been a muse to many including Vincent van Gogh.  In the language of flowers the sunflower holds several emblematic meanings. Let's explore them together in this study.

In the quaint Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway the symbolic meaning for the sunflower depends on it's height.  If it is the dwarf sunflower, adoration is its claim.  The tall sunflower equates to haughtiness.  The Secret Language of Flowers by Shane Connolly also echoes these sentiments however for the dwarf sunflower he adds, 'Your devout admirer.'

Haughtiness is also the symbolic name given by Sheila Pickles in The Language of Flowers.  She quotes Thomas Moore in her explanation,

"No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,

But as truly loves onto the close,

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,

The same look which she turn'd when he rose."

 

Haughtiness seems to be prescribed because of the sunflower's great height compared with other garden flower friends.  But being haughty is not all the sunflower represents.

 

In Flora's Lexicon by Catharine Waterman, she prescribes "lofty and pure thoughts." She notes that in its native of Peru and Mexico the sunflower can grow to 20 feet in height! I love this quote Waterman includes from John Clare's poem Rustic Evening...

 

"Where rustic taste at leisure trimly weaves

The rose and straggling woodbine to the eaves,

And on the crowded spot that pales enclose

The white and scarlet daisy rears in rows,

Training the trailing peas in cluster neat,

Perfuming evening with a luscious sweet,

And sunflowers planting for their gilded show,

That scale the windows' lattice ere they blow,

And, sweet to habitants within the sheds,

Peep through the crystal panes their golden heads."

 

 

In Henry Phillips' Floral Emblems the sunflower is prescribed as ''false riches."  He states that the sunflower is so associated with false riches "because gold of itself, however abundant, cannot render a person rich who is poor in spirit."  He also provides a delightful quote from Barton...

 

"Uplift, proud sunflower, to thy favorite orb

That disk whereon his brightness loves to dwell;



 And as thou seem'st his radiance to absorb,

Proclaim thyself the garden's sentinel."

 

Finally, The Language of Flowers Symbols and Myths by Marina Heilmeyer provides a completely different view of the sunflower which I greatly admire.  Heilmeyer marks the sunflower as a "vital source of food, medicine and oil; natural vitality; loyalty; pride; devotion..." She comments on how the American Indians were cultivating the wild sunflower species dating back to 3000 BC.  They used it as an "important source of food and medicine as well as a pigment for body paint." Heilmeyer also states, "In Christian iconography, the sunflower signified believers' devotion to the Catholic church.  Like the flower that always grows towards the light - towards the divine sun- it represents the devout soul striving towards god."

 

I feel each lexicon has its place.  Sometimes one may feel haughtiness or false riches is needed.  Other times one may want to express loyalty and devotion.  The yin and yang of this lovely, brilliant flower is delightfully welcomed.





I yearn to return

I yearn to return
to a simpler way of life
without the multiple
distractions that cause
such strife.

I long for personal connection
without a screen in between.
A time of quiet and peace
where people call on one another
for long walks beside a stream.

Certainly simple does not
equate with easy.
But the question I have
is would the loneliness feel
so potent - leaving me squeezed?