February 22, 2009

Rebirth


Rebirth

Midsummer sun on raspberry,
the spicy scent of fern, the color of red clover.
There is no better place, no holier ground than this.
And what is near you? What grows by your door?
How you longed to be here, those nine months in the quiet room,
all suspense and expectancy, a few noises and bumps.
Your first aroma, new to breathe air, was luscious as this:
Raspberry, fern, Mother's blood, her milk, her musky skin.
The vision came and went as you gazed.
Here today, it's new green berries tight as Chinese soldiers,
apple leaves against July's blue,
and darker in the shade, the mysterious abyss.
That first day, Mother's soft face came and went,
and each gaze another joy,
a bit of the immense puzzle you came just to experience.
With hunger and thirst, with tongue and lips,
our loudest "yes!" we sing.
Draw to your heart the new life, the new places of each day!
Draw into your soul the warm flesh of being,
her musky skin, her colors.
She is not going to disappoint you.

Annelinde Metzner   copyright 2006 

In the Fern Woods


In the Fern Woods

I scattered my son's ashes in the fern woods
as raindrops tapped like centipede's feet
on the balcony leaves of maple and oak.
I scattered his ashes near the ancestor oak,
old, gnarled, twisted, huge,
because above all he is a Druid, and there is no name to this place.
You must take the twists and turns,
the new, She will always be new.
This turn of ferny woods will be gone again,
fallen trunks and scattered stones,
anew with plants and creatures,
yesterday's underlayer giving birth to tomorrow.
My son lives here, with Arthur and Morgaine,
listening for Gandalf and the Lady of the Woods, 
and Hecate forever at the crossroads.
One would risk one's mind to have it all,
to have this eternity, this newness, this death,
and he got that from me, as I hoped he would.
Step into the new world with great trust and great love!
Ancestors will guide you, all life will support you,
and the spicy sweet bed of ferns will cradle you on your way.

Annelinde Metzner     copyright August 2004


February 05, 2009

Rain


When people see rain,
it's "get the umbrella,"
"cancel the game," "close the window,"
"my new hairdo!"
When rain comes to the wild grasses
they lay back like expectant lovers,
Gopis awaiting Krishna,
and it's just the sky changing.
Just the gray massed clouds becoming dragons and mermaids,
fragrant with the next field over,
jolly with the surfeit of love.
And the Gopi grass hears one, two,
three splats on the head of the drum,
and then party!  It's Krishna, gaining momentum,
entering like the mayor in the small-town parade,
rolling in rain like the ship had come in,
drunk, timeless, out-of-grass-body
and in love with the rooted Earth.

Annelinde Metzner   copyright 2001

February 04, 2009

What She Is


What She Is

We live in small spaces, working, eating, sleeping.
Do we know what She is, really?
How, in Arizona, She explodes up from the ground
into mile-high red rock, the Cathedral, the Hands,
or She implodes far down into Her own belly,
displaying Her inner self without secrets,
silent, awesome, vast, powerful, infinite?
Or how She riles Her cold Pacific, daily washing the western shore,
turquoise and lapis, boulders thrown like pebbles hither and yon,
sea weed and sea lions rejoicing,
whales diving and blowing air as they pass year by year?
North, how She sets forth giant trees,
so wide and tall that each is a world,
each a life for a thousand species, Her silence immense and eternal?
And how Her blood, Water, crashes over rocks through Colorado,
worshipped by the Hopi, drop by drop,
measured enough to grow corn on the dry mesa
or wild enough to scrub the arroyos clean again?
Do we see how wide She is, how vastly new?
Do we gain that joy She intended for us,
privileged as we are to be Her guests?

Annelinde Metzner copyright 2003

February 01, 2009

Santeetlah Creek


Santeetlah Creek

In winter, under crowns of curved ice,
you trade liquid for solid in the cold, cold air.
In warm summer, you're the laughing white water,
tickler of toes, leaping home of speckled trout.
Rushing, cleansing, each place a small volcano of water
within shape of stone and rush of air.
Deep cold waters from the quiet Earth,
the source a cavern of crystals akin to this white creek.
Santeetlah, you pour down on us from forever,
white jets long to the finale at Santeetlah Lake.
You are a carrier.  You carry leaves of autumn, gold and blood-red,
pine needles, galax, speckled trout,
fragrant mushrooms, eggs of all kinds,
rhododendron blooms in spring.
Babies of yours lodge here and there, wedged along the shore,
changing your shape as you change theirs.
Cold and white, the rushes sweep the stones below, and me above.
I'm but a stone here beside you.
In my hair is swift spray, smelling of ice water, galax and laurel.
Crawdads and minnows play "hide and seek" between my fingers.
My spine is the long stone of your vitality,
icy fluid whose leaps make me dance.

Annelinde Metzner copyright 2002

Elsie's Garden


Elsie's Garden

Drove up to Elsie's garden, my head in the radio,
counting measures and checking forms.
I raise my eyes just to park and...
Jolted into Eden, an ecstasy of brilliant color, 
as with a cold slap I'm awakened.
These irises (the eyes?) are a queen's purple, a ransom of gold,
fringed, bearded, double ruffled about their delicate mouths,
waiting for me, lush as Sheba.
Lemon yellow bearded coral, glacier white fringed,
all with a calligraphy of magenta.
Rust-red and egg-yolk yellow.
I regain my breath, and big tears, here in Elsie's garden.
Tante, at ninety-two, fosters this ecstasy of color,
and scent of peony, double, triple, magenta and snow.
As I go to knock at the door,
I breathe deep, remembering the grace of my DNA,
the colors, the purple, saying "this is me,"
my old Tante in her garden,
pulling a miracle of flowers from the unsuspecting soil,
this is me, I weep, I love, I remember, I belong.

Annelinde Metzner copyright 2006
(photo by Patty Levesque)

The Sacred Grove


The Sacred Grove

Passing through a phalanx of guardians,
six rednecks in camp chairs drinking beer,
I come upon a tiny glen.

The Goddess lives here!
Among the pines, in their rich soft carpet of silence,
spirit envelopes me.
I sit, and slowly, the wild world
reappears:  the titmouse, the bees.
And there She is!
Gracefully,
She offers me all She has.
Her love, Her endless love.
Blueberries grow tall enough to pick with my mouth.
I'm home, in this wild Earth.

Passing through a phalanx of guardians,
six rednecks in camp chairs drinking beer,
I come upon a tiny glen.

Annelinde Metzner copyright 2008
(photo by Patty Levesque)