Poetry – Page 3 – Jennifer Brookins

May 9, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

It was shocking to my soul
How softly the night fell
Upon the earth as lips kissing
An undeserving traveler
For the longest time
I’ve wanted to lay my cheek
Upon the sky and grab hold tightly
To cusp my hand
In such a way that I pulled it down
Upon my unsuspecting breast
Until every breath
Every sinew finally gave way
To one sigh
To that one moment
That hearkened upon
Such sweet sadness that
I could no longer yearn
Nor reach
Nor want
Nor run – nor hide
I could but receive
as you caressed my eye lids
sweet lover
will you not cradle my soul
within the bosom of your own
send me a message if you will meet me tonight
unbalanced am I
waiting for you

May 7, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

Mrs. Thrush sings the morning song, cocks her lovely head exhales her spotted cleavage. Dearest friends, herein lies the solution to the world’s problems: people should find a solitary place, open their mouths wide and holler so loud that everyone knows how miserable they are, have no money, their apartment doesn’t have an elevator, the kids never write; worst of all they’re sure someone gave them the dreaded coronavirus because everyone in the supermarket (or maybe the elevator) breathed on them. Dear Heart, please make friends with Mrs. Thrush in the hope she reveals her secret for leading a happy life. She wisely counsels: never fear turning the corner

May 4, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

I sit in the great spring outdoors, my heart buried in snow
hot torrid summer comes; I’m still buried in snow
If there was a way out I would take it, at least I tell myself so
I remain a prisoner of what I know but cannot see
I asked my human heart what happened that it’s become so stingy …”it isn’t words I hear but your thoughts that color you in ambiguity” …time to play the violin again
Oh Weaver, will you catch me if I fall from this path of grace you carved narrow as a razors edge. I’ve grown old searching for you; living on virgin fizz, of dreams and castles,collection plates for some formless god. You found me sleeping in a church pew craving cigarettes and wine. I gave up my wild ways; promised to meditate each morning though I preferred sleep. Early today as dawn colors our tree line, I received another wind song penned on my bedroom window
“You are mine … I am yours”
My soul now wraps around your honey self in ancient ways that cannot be broken, woolen shawl wrapped around my shoulders
I have no say in matters of the heart

May 2, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

There are moments in the middle of the day when I drop everything and just stop. I forget the time and the day; even myself to spend moments by the creek where wild basil and sweet jasmine grows wild. I lay my body down upon the earth and listen to the gentle ripple of water flow over rocks, a blackbird sitting on a limb nearby and somehow my balance once lost is rediscovered in the profound simplicity of a creek bed. Why am I so ill at ease in a crowd?

April 30, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

this foggy winter morning I hear a 3-string quartet
of aged priests playing the cello to “Baby it’s cold outside”
and wonder if it’s you ….. is it? or a bullfrog croaking
the same old tune of moon turned cartwheels on a hot summer day, I could not be more awed than just now placing my shoe inside your footprint that leads me back to you
Oh Weaver Ji, I wait for you under the sweetheart tree

April 29, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

wind rustles through high grass, bends even lower this dark night of my soul, other times turns ordinary stones into Egyptian obelisks…still I listen for you. Oh Weaver, burn a path to my door lest I store my dreams in an empty robin’s nest. Sunshine freckles my withered moor, wild aster and pansies grow in abundance; leaves soft and feminine but spines of steel. They sway to rhythms of falling snow. I watch them in their nakedness. I wear winter’s coat but yearn for spring; slow thaw of winter snow; bougainvilleas eagerly await spring no matter how veiled her balancing act. Oh Weaver Ji you gift your hardest battles to your strongest warriors. A lion waits in my gathering place that need be tamed. it is to that divine drop of you I sing. I kiss your belly full of divine secrets waiting to be cracked open.

April 26, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

I walked to the barn this evening; wanted to say goodbye to my old friend whose udders were dry from milking. She always saw me through the worst of times when I thought life wasn’t worth living but tonight I lie down beside her on a bed of hay; wrap my arms around her wrinkled hide while the two of us fall asleep gazing at the moon through a crack in the roof. She nursed many babies yet tomorrow they’ll send her to the stockyard. Oh Weaver, bless your bossy cow for all she gave but received so little.
My heart aches …hard to say goodbye

April 25, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

I had almost forgotten you my spring beloved last caught up as I am in this secret rebirth repeating itself this time each year. My possessive heart would wrap you in my head scarf, make you every bit as finite as those very things I wish safe passage from. Oh Weaver, be generous for I am so foolish. Hold me captive in your moon pocket. How long the distance between a bud and a flowering rose? I retrace my footsteps same as swallows exhaust themselves winging back to Capistrano each year. Again and again I turn my face to you. Your darshan weaves feelings in me that moves my heart to prayer

From Living Under the Weaver’s Hut

April 24, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

sun came into view as mixed breed of ginger raspberry … carmine, peaches so full of grace they burden the mother limb. O Weaver, you exhale the sweet fragrance of valor upon a sleepy discontented world while dreamers dream their dreams between the stillness of daybreak and noon day hour; knowing there is something better for each of us as the loveless wheel of human chatter grinds on

April 23, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

The great wave reached down to the depths of ocean’s floor that teemed with every imaginable form of sea life; bursting with desire to live and breath, and have its being under her great umbrella; then rose up, its breath shy of touching the hem of heaven’s gate; exhaled and curled its crest inward and downward until finally, after much struggle, pressed its body upon an unsuspecting shore. A moment of respite passed before it returned to pools of iridescent fish swimming with mermaids and whales and other mystic life-forms below the surface. And so it went, that love was never a right but rather a state of being to be experienced from loving. And the one who watered the rose, weeded the bed, tilled the soil, fed the child and sheltered the mermaids, was dearly loved and loved and loved.