Category: Poetry

digital rendering: ”Gaia Provides” — by: rob kistner © 1997

 
Gratitude & Balance

~

Precious mother Gaia, you embrace us with your love. You carry us safely as we hurtle thousands of miles, every hour, of every day, through infinite space. You provide for us our every need. You sustain our bodies with your abundant bounty. You nurture our spirits with your beauty and endless wonders.

Your need is simple. That we live in balance with your rhythms, and with our fellow travelers on this amazing journey. You ask that we know gratitude, as humble stewards of your countless gifts. That we live in harmony, attentive and reverent. But we’ve grown arrogant. Foolishly we believe we have dominion over you, over all in your realm. In pursuit of intellect, feeding ego, we have lost our sense of equilibrium, lost our way.

Now we suffer, as we watch you suffer. Please forgive us. Be patient, do not forsake us. We can learn, as we must learn. Precious mother gaia, grant us time to again find our way, our humility, our center — to again find the gratitude, the balance.

This was not a moment in my life when I was speechless, searching for the right words. I had no awareness of words, nor even of language. I was suddenly completely untethered, falling through a frigid void, with a building primal scream, roaring through my soul, fighting to escape.
 

Modified Tennyson imitation — nine lines with a rhyme pattern AABBCCCCC, and using four trochees per line, with a touch of surrealistic humor.

SURREALISM: Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason…

NOTE: I was born in 1947 in a post WWll Catholic orphanage. Mother unidentified and likely unwed. Father unknown. Having been abandoned from birth was a matter of much confusion for me in my troubled childhood, and into my young adult life. With the birth of my children I stopped looking back, and started looking ahead, finally understanding of, and thankful for the support of my adoptive parents.

It’s quiet in our home. Darkness has fallen early, as it does in deepest December. We cozy into the comforter, warm across our lap, gazing out our window at the moonlit forest. The fire quiets to ember in the nearby hearth.

Midnight’s snowfall shimmers through the boughs of old growth, invitingly elegant. As if spread by star clusters, it blankets our high-mountain meadow in crystal down. This night lay quiet and crisp. A great white owl echoes through the frosted cedars.

Lover and beloved, we entwine ‘neath winter’s window, with our dreams, and one another. You enfold closer, in gentle snuggle, a peaceful smile upon your face.

I’m remembering another resplendent December night. You, warm in my arms, the night we first kissed, embraced in darkness. Softly I whisper, “if it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant, as is our passion, my love.”

“Original version of this poem posted here on October 25th as “Come February”. It was in the 1st person. Rewriting this one in 3rd person, from my perspective, shifts the essence from feeling personally sad to feeling empathy for another.”

“Originally written about a proud wild beast, I changed the perspective to being the beast. That change made the poem empowering for me, rather than just powerful.”

 

No — I will not be confined
always in motion
restless is my spirit
perpetual like the seas

my wild heart
challenges constraint
defies boundary
to bolt at will

I will not be defined
my nature is fluid
my essence turbulent
deep — ever changing

reach not for me
I will not be held
do not name me
I will not be yours

*
rob kistner © 2022

Poetry at: Earthweal

 

The past few Christmas seasons there’s been evidence of some unhappy reindeer. Jolly old St. Nick’s been hittin’ the rich creamy egg nog hard. This was overheard at reindeer preseason camp.