poetry – Page 3 – Jennifer Brookins

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 19, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

Be with me this stormy night when your absence weighs heavily upon my heart for that glitters in Xanadu has lost its charm. I’ve tucked my soul within the boundaries of this poem; secrets I openly share breathe life into my snowbound heart. Will the real you please stand up? In winter your branches become a halfway house for mystical white birds; other days when tedium hangs like rain clouds in the air, red berries appear on your branches in a provocative way. Here I go again talking about nature as though it was you. When spring finally arrives, you give birth to that best part of yourself, myriads of sweet blossom angels sing hallelujahs and rejoice in their air ballet. oh just kiss me and be done with it.

April 17, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

You sweeten me like ripe melon on a hot day, my eyes burn …can’t think straight from mid-day sun, working in the field without a hat. Don’t blush. I’m merely a pond reed through which you play music to feed my soul.

April 15, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

why make friends with heartache …that old blowhard. Living in the past is a witch riding her broomstick over a memory heap. Laughter is contagious like eating a chocolate fudge sundae in the bathtub.

April 13, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

there is a moment before dawn when regret gives way to purpose, darkness to light, and heaven so close I could reach up and touch it. Can’t think of another place I would rather be than here, right now, recycling myself for a new day. I’ve made friends with struggle; wise old Shaman taught me the journey was far more important than the destination. Ask the eagle who flies overhead.

April 12, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

I’m invigorated sitting here in my old robe and timeless wooly socks, the type old men wear when they go fishing. The intoxicant of morning air shakes off the monotony of sleep. Good to let vagrant trickles of laughter escape that part of me who wants to burst out laughing for no reason at all even if it is 4 am.

April 11, 2020 by jenniferbrookins_2jj8dq

Oh friends, let us wrap dawn around our weary shoulders like two old elephants on their way to the nearest skating pond. We’ll guzzle a box of chocolates, and greet this new day with a joyful heart.