I Sat with the Bees

 

 

At the foot of my Grandmother Mountain
with my walking sticks I walked
up through fields of silent green and gold.
I found an old stone and sat
gazing out to Her pointed peaks,
Her Grandfather side.
Bees sang to me, continuing
their endless, ageless song
from yellow to yellow, full of pollen.
I sat in peace and gratitude.
Gathering chi from this sacred place,
giving the chi to my heart,
I sat with the bees
until meditation took me over.
Opening my eyes,
again and again I gave thanks.

Annelinde Metzner

August 16, 2024
(at Grandmother Mountain) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Returning

 

Azalea in my front yard

Each year more precious,
the rebirth of Spring!
As if now, at my age, I have my doubts,
mired down in tasks and obligations,
living just day-to-day, sunrise to sunset.
But this! The joy of brand-new life,
a quickening in the brown Earth,
and in my soul.
The lilac is back,
each bud bursting into four-petalled sweetness.
Deep in the dry leaf mold,
bloodroot arises from the forest floor,
its sap vermillion, exploding with life energy
into unique white variegated wonder.
Dandelions resume their relentless growth
with a yowl!
Trillium emerges, complete,
ready to live a miracle of grace.
And I too burst forth.
Spring flowers gorgeously in my chest,
silencing my fears,
pulling me back, whee!
into my place in the wonder of living.


Annelinde Metzner
April 8, 2016

Trillium

Bloodroot

Chickweed

Baby jewelweed

Metaphor

 

 

 

 

It's a March day, not warm yet-
The chill breeze has me in sweaters still.
But in my little flower bed, life stirs!
Everywhere, daffodils burst forth,
nodding their heads in orange, yellow and white.
Among last year's dry leaves,
green pushes out, bold and confident.
Lenten roses, tulip buds,
peony stalks like voluptuous red asparagus.
Here and there, a primrose,
lemon balm, anise and mint.
The perfect shapes of bleeding hearts,
my Grandmother's favorite.
Delightful after winter's long inward turning,
each green being comes forth waving,
like a long-lost friend.
Is there a metaphor here?
Everything we've planted can be reborn. 

Annelinde Metzner

March 20,2024

 

 

Lenten rose

Bleeding Heart

Peony

Grandmother's Bones

 

 

 

 

"I am showing you the beauty of Winter,"
called my Grandmother, the stark grey shapes
of Her naked trees, each one a poem.
A whiff of compost, a whiff of new-mown hay.
Why do I sense this richness,
as everywhere She withdraws,
holding energy within Her great womb?
Clean white clouds move ever so slowly
in the ceaseless November wind.
The majestic sculptures of the leafless trees
etched perfectly in the bright sun's shadow.
The ceaseless wind rumbles in my ears,
the cold, quiet beauty of brown and grey
begging me to give in. 

Annelinde Metzner

November 9, 2023

Celebration of Death

 

 

Autumn in the Blue Ridge.
A golden glow emanates
as the leaves slowly release their chlorophyll,
revealing their true selves,
their true colors.
In the soft breeze,
on this ridge-top ruled by wind,
one leaf drops, then another,
carelessly, an afterthought,
absentminded.
But in the full-force wind, it's a party!
It's a riot of release,
a bright-colored snowfall,
each leaf shouting "Whee,
let's become compost!"
In all this brilliance, lit by sun,
rose-red, pumpkin-orange, sun-yellow,
purple of asters,
brown stiff corn drying on the stalks,
my Mother, my Goddess instructs us-
"Look at Me!  Never forget,
my human sons and daughters,
I am the Queen of Death as much as Life!
Each end of life is mine, and each beginning,
the waxing and the waning,
the building up and then the letting go.
Regeneration is my watchword.
You will return!
I give you the beauty of Autumn,
to hold you,
to thrill you and warm you,
until you too pass like a bright leaf
on to the next thing."

Annelinde Metzner

October 27, 2023

 

 

 

 

Autumn Samba

 

 

 

 
The bite of fresh compost,
sharp leaf mold in the wind.
Goodbye to the galax,
farewell to the creeper,
“Adios" to the chokecherry vines.
It’s the majestic farewell,
the queen’s farewell.
It’s delicious, it’s numinous, it’s forever!
This is the goodbye of no tears but the rain’s.
Goodbye as relaxed as Guernseys in the alfalfa,
as relaxed as three women in a hot tub.
It’s goodbye, never more be seen,
and it smells like Paris perfume.
It lifts the feet. It’s Fred Astaire.
It’s a lilting “adieux.” It’s bagpipes.
It’s all the cousins waving.
Orange, red, a fandango,
it’s forever, it’s the end,
and if you twirl and spin your way down,
you’ve got the idea.


Annelinde Metzner         

September 2001
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Girls

Hawkscry clouds

In the back field above the apple orchard,
fern-scented, the pasture low-cut,
ancient boulders humming distantly at the edges,
we three girls, sixteen, giggled on our backs,
under the cloud-strewn summer sky.
They left us alone.  Who cared?
That blessed juncture when children are free,
past the need for guardians, but still not grown,
they could care less where we were, what we thought,
high on this mountaintop in early June.
We were carving ourselves a place, three girls.
The world held no leads,
“woman” meant not too much,
not a wide space, anyway,
and choices seemed so irrevocable,
not too far into our future.
But they left us alone, blessedly,
with the bulbous clouds changing shape each minute,
never remaining long with, say, an apron and a skillet,
but becoming, say, a witches broom, a magic mirror,
a scarlet dragon, or nets of silver and gold...
On a blanket in the high field,
we formulated no words,
but hourly worshipped the Queen of Change,
our future, and Hers, and maybe all women’s:
metamorphosing, shape-shifting, adjusting, changing,
altering ever so slightly and poof! a new vision,
carrying this blessing like a textbook in the sky,
the soft fern-scented lessons of nature’s giving.

Annelinde Metzner
July 16, 1995
Catskill farm

I'm posting this in honor of myself as a girl, for my Sisters of that long-ago time, and for all the world's precious young women in honor of October 11th, the "Day of the Girl."

Balsam clouds

Grandmother clouds

Grandmother clouds

 

Slow Walking

 

 

 

 

 

When the tall tree fell right across my car's path,
not five minutes from home,
the winds gusting at forty miles an hour,
the firemen directing me to turn around,
I cancelled my trip.
Trees swayed, the wind blew,
and there it was, freedom!
A day unaccounted for. I'm supposed to be away,
they're keeping the mail, and I'm gone.
A chance to follow where I'm led.
Finding a path in the woods that needed my feet,
I begin, s-l-o-w-l-y, having to be nowhere,
poking along with my walking sticks,
just here, just now.
But I needed to see this! Three lady-slippers,
then four, luxuriously pink,

like a French madam, about to expire.
I had to see this!
Going slowly, I pause for each smooth, green leaf,
little sapplings, oak, maple, poplar,
newly-unfurled Solomon's Seal,
slow enough to caress, and kiss, and welcome,
these soft green beings back from Winter's slumber.
I stop, because I am going slow.
In the distance, in that precious pause,
the first singing wood thrush of the year.

Annelinde Metzner
Ox Creek
May 3, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Oleander

 

 

 

Red Oleander, watercolor by Deb Pollard

 

A salamander pale green as the new leaves of May
opens its orange lung-sac, brilliant, to the sun.
Three times at every pause!
In the breeze, red Oleander bends on her long stem, celebrating.
I am drawn down a quiet lane by the scent of jasmine
beguiling my heart, a path toward joy.
The dear Earth wafts up into me,
warm as fresh-baked bread,
filling my womb with Her love.
With my feet in the sand,
I pull Her love into me,  to power my days.
Mother holds me tenderly, the mourning dove
in her palmetto-basket nest, giving, giving,
we Her babies, Her vast dream,
we Her future and Her now.
The black fin of a dolphin arises from the sea, ancient as days,
loving Her into the fathomless tomorrow.

Annelinde Metzner, June 1, 2010

Delight abounds in the month of May, moving slowly through the world, admiring each new green being.  And giving thanks for my friend Deb Pollard, whose art above, the pulsating life of May in which the dolphins rejoice, was inspired by my poem.  And many thanks to Feminism and Religion for publishing my poems, including this one today.

Red Oleander

 

Florida Masquerade

 

 

What a disguise She has!
Cars honk, interstates criss-cross,
golf courses manicure each square inch of land.
Shopping malls and theme parks, parking lots,
What a big charade!
But turn away just once,
just once turn away from the clamor
toward the quiet lanes.
Look up!  A bald eagle settles in
high in the branches of the live oak over your head.
A gopher turtle clambers on its bony legs
right across the road.
The alligator floats, seeming so gentle,
back and forth, back and forth across the lake.
The ineffable scent of orange blossom fills the air,
suspending all one’s notions of what is and what should be.
The ibis, straight as an arrow,
flies to her nest with a fish in her beak.
Good going!  You have seen beneath Her disguise,
Our Florida, our flowered land,
our fountain of ever-renewing youth,
our paradise.

Annelinde Metzner
Gainesville, Florida
March 30, 2014

Ode to Trillium

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to see how often I've honored Trillium in my writings.

Turns out I've written 11 poems to Her.  I've picked out 5 for this ode today.

 

Wake Robin

Blood-red trillium,
      with your sumptuous variegated leaf patterns,
      arising in big colonies early, so early in spring,
      amid dry leaves and old twigs,
Triple Goddess, you sprout from the dry earth
      innocently, as if it were every day
      ancient knowledge comes forth into our sight.
You lie barely visible at our feet,
      one of the old ones, short and well-adapted
      to the forest floor, a gnome
      with a new red cap.
But no pretty pink here, nor lacy white.
      You are of the blood of the Earth Mother herself,
      and even Her rich warm blood has beauty,
      and she will not hide this, our Mother.
      She bleeds, and Her blood is beautiful.
Wake Robin, wake us to know
      where e’er we walk, She feels and knows.
      We kiss the Earth, but She bruises, too,
      in bloodroot, in trillium, in fracking, in clearcut, in war.
Wake, Robin, don’t be a fool!
      Here is Life’s own rich display, ineffable,
      the upward thrust, the very orgasm of Spring.
She is here today, for you, for us,
      crowding upward for us here,
      but once only.

Annelinde Metzner
Flat Creek, North Carolina, March 23, 2012

As Spring unfolds                                      

As Spring unfolds, thousands
     of newest buds light up like flames
     upon each dogwood branch, each twig.
Thousands!  All lit from within,
     chlorophyll newly opened like a babe’s emerging crown,
     lighting up green on the tips of each twig.
In the woods, the newest Solomon’s Seal
     curls open, leaf by leaf,
     near the unfurling spiral of the fiddle-head fern.
As if to say, “I’m flowing once more,”
     the bloodroot, each leaf a different shape,
     sprouts white despite its sanguine roots.
The Trillium is back!  aware, proud of Herself
     and sure in Her threeness.
Birds in pairs sing all the day,
     impressing one another,
     bedding done in their newly assembled nests.
The Mayapple spreads wide its umbrella,
     dozens and dozens on the forest floor,
     waiting for us, waiting
     for our joy to join their ecstasy.

Annelinde Metzner
Black Mountain
April 17, 2014

 

     
 Reclamation                                                      

A pile of rubble, rusty springs, beer cans, car hoods,
strewn in the back of the old country place.
You could relax on an old car seat!
And now, walk amid crystal fountains,
hostas, trillium and Buddhas.
Sunlight dapples a leaf here and there.
The sound is tranquil among the trees,
the waterfall and the neighbor’s chickens.
Reclamation.
And what do you hide?
What is there, thrown to the back yard, out of sight,
that has rusted and accumulated each year?
What have you given up,
where have you lost hope and left,
despair winning out over possibility?
Nature is our teacher, and She is the master,
the source of true resurrection.
How easy, how effortless
to love this Earth,
the woodpecker, the spring peeper,
and give Her a hand to return again.

Annelinde Metzner
Mountain Light Zen Garden
May 31, 2014   

 Pearson Falls                                       

How did it feel, the discovery,
   before the stone steps carefully laid,
   before the thoughtfully placed and sturdy railings?
How was it that first day, the first human here,
   inching slowly through the thick undergrowth,
   following the sound (everywhere!) of falling waters,
   at long last to arrive and gaze upward,
   one's breath taken away by the height
   of the sheer rock face laced over with
   a wondrous curtain of water?
Time enough to ponder,
   to absorb, to just be,
   like the moth perched here on my writing-page,
   like the toad among the ephemeral woodland plants.
"Let it go!" She teaches me,
   as I sit and gaze.
"You will never know the whole story,
   what brought us to wherever we are now.
Let the relentless power,
   more precise, more intelligent, more patient than you,
   bring justice wherever it's needed."
I put my hands together, giving thanks,
   and sit with the trillium, the bloodroot,
   the wood thrush close by,
   breathing the water's unceasing wisdom.

Annelinde Metzner; Pearson Falls, April 29, 2021

What if you had to leave?                                            

This high bank of trillium, purple, pink,
the three wide leaves
a generous hand beckoning;
the unraveling Solomon's Seal,
suspending its tiny, potent buds;
the still air and
the crow’s loud assessment;
a turn down the trail-
and if this leaving were forever?
What if you had to leave?
Madly do you love Her, your Mother of the mountain woods?
Do you yearn to roll up inside of Her,
a wooly-worm in winter?
You will.
One day you will.

Annelinde Metzner, Ox Creek Road, May 15, 1998

 

Rock River

 

 

 

Once again, my pilgrimage
North to my ancient Grandmother,
that jagged mountain so old
Her power infuses everything.
But this is October, and the people are here,
everywhere, joyously gobbling up
the brilliant Autumn colors with their eyes.
I cannot even get near!
And then the thought, to a way much lower,
closer to Her deep roots,
closer to She who leads us so deep into the Earth.
As I venture around, unknowing,
She reveals this much to me:
for Her, the giant boulders
are Her toys, Her playthings.
Monumental stones are here,
which She has tossed gaily in a fit of joy.
My son once said, "Mom, a Rock River."
Here She has floated the giant stones
all in a tumble down Her beautiful sides.
Streams run with music as they splash among the rocks.
All of this Her terrain, Her birthplace, Her legacy!
Here at the very lowest, She has left us a trace,
a history of Her energy and might,
many-ton boulders strewn across the mountain
where She tossed them for us to see.

Annelinde Metzner

October 19, 2022

 

 

A Rock River