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



     I send out my poem once more as a prayer, to add to so many others, for divine wisdom to come through for all of us.   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

Prayer for the Wood Thrush

On this exquisite New Moon of May,
the Wood Thrush has returned, exuberant, virtuosic,
casting its heartbreaking riffs 
into the eager ears of the woods.
All nature sounds with her, in its bones, in its sap.
All of us are freed with her freedom.
All of us are catapulted into new ways, new paths,
vibrating down to the quivering spirals of our DNA.
Welcome, darling brilliant wee singer!
Break up for us the frozen overused ruts
that form our cold winter thoughts, our stiffness.
Push us one more step forward into joy.

Annelinde Metzner
May 13, 2010


I search for the sound of the wood thrush, deep in the woods each summer.  Its sound lifts me like no other.   Here is a video and recording of the wood thrush.

The Vine Basket

Path on the ridge

I come for the wind.
At the high edge of Craggy Mountain I stand,
leaning in and rocking back 
as the wind rolls upward,
tender jewelweed and high nettles all around,
high ridges beyond and beyond.
Today on the mountain, looking west,
away from words and clash of minds,
away from the confounded jangle of yay or nay,
of human will forever at odds,
the wind rises miles and miles up the hollow.
I stand with no questions, with only my self.
I am four years old and someone is washing me.
There is nothing here but the wind,
and I stand naked as I’m able.
Faithfully She bathes me, 
Her touch firm and tender, 

thorough with years of practice,  
until naught is left but the hum, the drone
of Mother God and Her vine basket,
leaning toward me
with Her absentminded lullaby.

Annelinde Metzner

February 4, 1990

"The Vine Basket" performed at "In the Mother Grove" 2009

    Listen to "The Vine Basket" read by Deb Scott and Becky Stone at the performance, "In the Mother Grove", 2009.   Dance by Helen Hollifield.

      
    You may purchase "In the Mother Grove" as a CD or DVD on the "Buy" page of this blog.   Thank you for supporting the work of Annelinde Metzner.

Where the wind blows

My vine basket

The Sky in May

I know there are stars,
     galaxies, worlds,
     nebula, planets and moons,
but in this sky, this green, green day,
     there is only wonder.
Only the unknown in this all-embracing blue,
     impenetrable.
Gazing at Her blueness, I hear Her tales,
     Her ancient wisdom, Her deep knowledge,
     but in a language I do not know.
I am a child at Grandmother’s knee.
Here is the air, filling us with breath,
     everywhere, like the water we swim in,
and yet in the sky of May,
     even as we feel Her
     in the tender winds upon our skin,
there is a magic, an enchantment,
     oh! that our very home, the air,
     is so beyond our ken.

Annelinde Metzner
Hawkscry
May 24, 2014

Her Winter face

Her Winter face

She wears Her Winter face.
Cold, cold, cold and clear,
layer upon layer of skeletal trees
lead us up to Her summit.
This is a Bone Forest now,
the land of the Dead.
The air an oceanic indigo blue,
deep beyond knowing.
It is quiet, all quiet,
the people home by their quiet hearths.
She is powerful now, today,
showing Her Winter face.
The clear lapis sky and the unstirring air
offer no resistance to Her divine emittances.
She is in Her element, the Earth,
Her arms extended above Her,
giving, giving us of Her power.
My Grandmother, undisturbed,
goes about Her business, Her divine charge,
replenishing the Earth with Her energy.
Still, She smiles at me.  “Welcome, daughter,
dancing one, my beloved, poet and friend.
Take my warm love into your heart.”
I sit beside my Grandmother, basking in the sun,
grounded in Her giving,
at one with all my Earth.

Annelinde Metzner
November 9, 2012