November 30, 2015

I Have Sworn to Protect Her









"Healing" giclee by Autumn Skye Morrison



I have sworn to protect Her!           
Miracle blue-green jewel of all the worlds,
ancient blue mountains, vast golden deserts,
hummingbirds in the jewelweed,
black bear in the raspberries.
I speak for Her!
I howl for Her!        
I howl, “Beware!”
to you who remove Her sacred mountaintops
torturing her body to get at Her coal.
I howl, “Beware!”
to you who go deep within her mineral layers,
scraping away at her core
for your own gain.
But no one gains by this.  She feeds us all.
I have sworn to protect Her,           
this day that She needs us,
when even Her vast blue-green oceans, 

teeming with life,
are tainted with blood, 

the black oil of power and greed.
This is the day, this is the hour.
She, long-silent, awaits our voice.
The signs of Her anger are everywhere:
desert, flood, tornado, wildfire, 

earthquake, typhoon, tsunami.
I howl for Her!             
I love my Earth as my own body!
I have sworn to protect Her!


Annelinde Metzner
July 31, 2011


As I turn the page to "December 2015" in my We'Moon wall calendar, I come upon an excerpt from my poem above, with fabulous art by Autumn Skye Morrison.  You can see her wonderful giclee, "Healing," as well as other art pieces at her website here. 

     I send out my poem once more as a prayer, to add to so many others, for divine wisdom to come through and among the many world leaders courageously meeting this week in Paris for the World Climate Summit of 2015.  May we all protect our Earth, our beloved Home!!   May we love Her more and more each day!!




Delaware River, Margaretville, New York
  






Sacred mound, Blowing Rock, North Carolina


















September 19, 2015

September light





Goldenrod


The light in September!
As if She were a lover,
tender fingers on the lover’s soft cheek,
as if for one last time,
as if tomorrow were goodbye,
the Sun floods the leaves bountifully
with September light.
Still green, the leaves turn to Her, adoring,
knowing this day will never come again.
September, the last hummingbirds drink and drink
for their impossibly long flight.
So quiet! but all is changing,
transforming, metamorphosing,
intimations of new colors to come.
September light is a radiance,
a golden honey, still warm in the hive,
pleading, admonishing, 
“Turn your faces to me!”
knowing soon we will drop

to the ground.

Annelinde Metzner

September 19, 2015
































July 17, 2015

Loving July








Blue and black butterfly, photo by Chuck Wilkins

                                                 
I’m just here to love July!
It’s summer, and the in-your-face red, white and blue
has faded now, mellowed here
to the pink of mimosa, the cream of Queen Anne,
the lavender-blue of cornflower.
Wispy and bending in the breeze,
the colors blend delicately,
the flag of some other world,
my world.
I’m just here to love July!
The days are long, languid.
It’s so silly to be in a hurry!
The heat comes in clouds, wet and heavy.
Rose of Sharon blooms, in Her purple, color of thyme,
color of my fingers after blackberries,
flower of Magdalene, Her feast day nearing.
And butterflies! Hovering over the blooms,
blue and black, limenitis arthemis-
they teach us how to float and taste.
The mockingbird improvises all night,
courting his beloved with music.
How can I resist?
The breezes lift each branch slowly in the heat.
Their coolness soothes my skin.
I’m just here to love July.


Annelinde Metzner
Little Pine

Many thanks to my dear friend Betsy Murray for giving me her country cabin in Madison County to rest and write.

























June 15, 2015

The world opened





Mountain Laurel blooming


I was five when,
riding a country road in the family Ford,
I exclaimed with surprise and delight
and Dad stopped the car.
The laurel was blooming!
Throwing the car door open,
my parents solicitous of me,
I climbed a bank as close as I could
and gazed within the blossom.
The ten-sided blooms,
deep pink turning to white as they opened,
drew me into their world.
As the petals widened,
releasing their power to the wind
and the pollinators,
the one bloom made, not a world,
but a universe.
My five-year-old self
gazed into this tiny mandala
of white touched with magenta.
I rejoiced in Her being,
the laurel somehow freeing me,
calling to me, “Remember!
Here in my petaled calyx
is the beauty for which you were born!”
Mom and Dad called me back to the car,
and we went on our way,
forever changed.


Annelinde Metzner
May 23, 2015















May 17, 2015

Saint Francis at Hawkscry







St. Francis at Hawkscry




Falling in the mud!  Oh, no!
The St. Francis statue,
for thirty years at the neighbor’s house,
suffered severe neglect,
and a preponderance of falling over.
William, faithful and kind,
lifted Francis out of the mud.
Now Francis sits regally on his pedestal,
surveying this green domain,
prayer flags over his shoulder.
Gentle Francis, they say,
who learned to love all beings,
walked with a bird on his shoulder, and sang.
Teacher of kindness, of course you attract
more kindness from this alert neighbor.
Francis, this is a peaceful place. Welcome!
Cast your sweet grace
for miles around.


Annelinde Metzner
Hawkscry
May 15, 2015


 Many thanks to my dear friends Jane and William Stanhope for letting me write at their beautiful sanctuary called Hawkscry in Sandy Mush Valley.




Hawkscry cabin





Hawkscry shrine






Angel bird bath






Hawkscry sky









April 13, 2015

Bundled Up with Grandmother











I’m all bundled up and sitting at Grandmother’s feet!
It’s February!  What good fortune!
Under a red wool blanket,
I exult and absorb Her pure, boundless energy.
I’m here!  I’m here!
Beside the sacred mound, so close to Brigid’s day.
What is this scent so sweet?
Oh grasses, oh pines!
I feel that we are stirring,
Life!  you of endless renewal,
Life!  with me here, dear Sun on my pen,
Life!  coming up through my feet.
Dear Son, nearby, his ashes on the Sacred Mound,
a Pagan too, like his mama.
In the ethers, he gives me a big “thumbs up!”
just for being here.
A big “thumbs up” from my son just for being here this day,
February, all bundled up, red wool to my ankles and chin,
Saule at my back, Gaia radiating through my feet,
the scent of May, the scent of becoming.
It’s Life! L'chaim, it’s the world, fresh,
I’m here, thumbs up, I’m here, bundled up,
I’m smiling, I’m here,
I’m here.

Annelinde Metzner
Sacred Mound

February 8, 2015



My name for a vast ecosystem in North Carolina, a tall mountain of almost six thousand feet, is "Grandmother Mountain."   Although officially called "Grandfather," Her energy is very powerful and feminine for me.
      I visit there and in the nearby area often, as a pilgrimage, and to be near the place I left my son's ashes.  I've learned to feel the abundant energy generated by these natural vortices, and I go there to recharge.









Grandmother Mountain in the distance





My son, Peter Metzner










January 16, 2015

Winter Moon












Trees bare at the edge of the ridge,
scraggly, December, full of secrets.
Cold Moon rises, barely there among branches.
She shocks me!
“Come out of your house!,” She challenges me.
“Breathe my bare cold.
Clean and direct I’ll fill your lungs.
Come out of your comfortable house.
I want you now!”
With that slap from the big Cold Moon
I’m made to remember.
The white pull of Her glow tugs hard
at some treasure I’ve been hiding.
Gazing into the white-glazed night forest
I pause for the Moon to paint me, too,
with cool Winter’s light.
For Her, I am what I am, nothing more.
The days go and go and go,
bright and noisy as ever,
but within me, as in dreams,
She demands my attention,
tripping me up,
no matter how well I hide.


Annelinde Metzner
December 21, 1995






My home in Phoenix Cove where this poem was written


















January 02, 2015

Clouds across Ocracoke










Swiftly, darkly moving,
nothing impeding,
clouds move dramatically over Ocracoke,
beautiful spit of an island
‘way out here, twenty four miles out to sea.
These clouds move, they move darkly,
grey and white,
powerful and overwhelming over the little village.
The clapboard houses and flooded streets
are quiet, quiet
as the clouds move as they will.
I feel our farawayness, our immersion,
I feel the clouds moving over the vast sea,
over Ocracoke, over me,
we a village of beings unnoticed
by the clouds,
darkly, swiftly moving.

Annelinde Metzner

November 28, 2014


Ocracoke is the most southern of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, reachable only by ferry.