Just Friday

 

Just Friday                                                                  

(a spontaneous poem from the beach)


It’s forty-five degrees, 

and the water feels even colder,
But I splash in the foam like Aphrodite, 
even though I’m almost sixty.
And I’m NOT SHOPPING.
A kite is suspended in the sky,
so much wind that no one at all 

is holding the string,
and it stays suspended for hours,
and the kite is NOT SHOPPING.
A child builds palmetto fronds 

into an altar in the sand,
a  child NOT SHOPPING.
A boy out in the ocean 

paddles by on some board,
standing straight up in the ocean, 
looking for all the world like Jesus,
and certainly Jesus would not be shopping.
Two dogs whirl around each other,
joy sparking off of them 

like the flash of Venus in the night,
like the Pleiades in the dark moon night,
and today is just Friday, and no one is shopping.


Annelinde Metzner
Isles of Palms, South Carolina
November 25, 2011

 

The Dance of Letting Go

 

 

 

 

In November, each tall tree
     casts forth Her leaves, one by one,
     tenderly, gracefully,
     each leaf improvising
     Her own sacred dance of falling-away.
The tall trees, rooted,
     wait all summer with delight
     for this moment, movement!
The elegant delivery of the tree's gift,
     new humus for the forest floor.
Oh, all this is beautiful!  Her dance,
     Her stately arms releasing,
     each leaf pirouetting in her own way,
     side to side, up and down,
     solo dancing with the breezes
     or all at once, a chorus with the wind.
Now She's a flower girl,
     casting petals throughout the forest,
     in a perfect ceremony of movement and change.
And deep below, so slow, so slow,
     Her roots draw down the great nutriment
     She shares with all the Earth,
     as She offers Her beauteous dance
     of letting go.

Annelinde Metzner

November 7, 2021