Sunrise

 

 

 

From out of the dark, dark night,
the people come with reverence to the sea.
Gazing to the horizon,
all wait in awe,
the sea roaring, the wind in our ears.
Slowly, slowly, the misty, golden rays
shine forth from that certain spot
where She will rise, where each day
life rebegins.
Seagulls line up, quiet,
faces to the sea, waiting.
Slowly, slowly, She appears again,
the merest sliver, and then Her shining self,
painting the cloudline coral-pink,
happy to be here, adored.
The seagulls slowly rise and begin to swirl,
dive, call out, rejoice.
Every day!  Every day!
We adore Her every day, we wait breathlessly for Her.
As She rises, we rise, we spiral,
we whirl into Her day, yes,
another day arises on this Earth.

Annelinde Metzner

November 25, 2010 

Grandmother Makes the World

 

 

 

Magnolia

 

This is how my Grandmother makes the World-
    clouds in a sky so clean
    each seems to sing against the blue.
In the new-mown grass, you can smell the new Spring herbs,
    a richness of greenness and healing.
Lift your gaze, and you can see forever,
    jagged shapes and rounded ones.
This is how my Grandmother makes the World!
A veery releases Her spiraling song.
Brand-new the star magnolias,
    their vanilla color rich enough to eat,
    drooping beguilingly from the branches.
This is how my Grandmother makes the World-
    pristine, clean, bountiful,
    energy unending. 

Annelinde Metzner

Grandmother Mountain

May 28,2021

Song of the Humpback Whale

 

 

What is in your long song, your ancient song?

In the cold bays, North and South,

your pure tune revives in cavernous water-spaces.

Up here, walking, I hear your song always,

like a neighbor calling, or like children singing.

Your song says, "God is here!

The ocean is filled with light.

Man, the ocean home is well.

Sing for us in the air, Man,

as we do for you below."

Far below the crowd's buzz

is the infrasound, your song.

I need you there below, singing!

Your ancient tune courses with my heart's blood,

and makes more plain

my own dim voice, from an unfathomed ocean.

And I sing with you.

It is what I wanted to hear.

 

Annelinde Metzner 1983

 

In 1983, I wrote this poem and set it to music as part of my song cycle, "Legacy."  My intuition tells me that the whales are the history keepers of the world, and they are aware of all we're doing.  This event happened recently in Victoria, Canada, which reinforces that intuition. 

 

 

This is that quiet place

 

 

 

The woods call to me with Her silence.
That one stillest spot,
   all life waiting expectantly,
   brilliant April sunshine,
   wind holding Her breath.
I am drawn to that spot,
   stand rooted to the ground,
   head tilted to the sun.
This is that quiet place
   where sacredness opens up.
I breathe deeply, pulling energy up from the Earth,
   as, "eeh-oh-lay!," the first Wood Thrush
   welcomes me back with Her song. 

 

Annelinde Metzner

April 16, 2021

 

 

 

Wood Thrush

 

 

Pearson's Falls

 

 

 

Pearson's Falls, Saluda, NC

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

Saluda, North Carolina

April 29,2021

 

Colt Creek

Forest ephemerals

 

Cascade on the way

Seeping stone

Mister Toad

The Nest

 

 

On her artfully woven nest, the size of a teacup,
     hidden in the labyrinthine branches of an azalea,
     the redbird mama broods her Spring clutch of eggs.
All day she sits so still,
     it took me a week to find
     her red beak among the flowers.
She sits on the nest, unmoving.
What is she seeing, her warm body so focused,
     so perfectly present, a servant of her DNA?
All around, above and below,
     luminous coral-colored blossoms form her bower.
Blood-orange to almost-white petals,
     the new-green leaves bright with photosynthesis,
     the little redbird nests in a sea of swaying petals,
     her dwelling-space more glowing than the sun.
The bumblebees probe and float blossom to blossom around her,
     sonic guides to other realms,
     transporting us with their deep and all-embracing buzz.
New life will arrive soon beneath her downy belly,
     pecking its way through the shells.
 We all know, here and now,
     this is all that matters. 

Annelinde Metzner

April 28, 2021

In Love with the Rooted Earth

 

"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

Redbud

 

Redbud flowers and bee, photo by Ruthie Rosauer

I can’t translate this!  I can’t write it!
It’s spring, my eyes dilate with an ongoing delight,
no end, no end!  Ah me!
Still in April bare grey trees remind me 
that this is no dream,
this everyday, this every new day-
The cherry blossoms, first to bloom,
then scattering in breeze, reminding of snow,
and now today, lush and greener by the hour,
intent on producing sweet red fruit.
Every day, every day, no end!
The hummer’s return, a long, long drink,
fitting for one returned from Guatemala!
Welcome, wee warrioress!  Battle on!
And then, ecoutez!  Welcome the wood thrush,
her deep multilayered melody guiding me back.
Welcome thrush!  Welcome me!
I can’t translate this, I can’t write it.
My eyes dilate, hummers buzz, 
and the chickadee not two feet from me,
cocking and cocking the wee head, 
seeming to want my finger for a perch.
A bluebird, shy as Spring’s first new,
and cardinals, and goldfinch!  A riot of color!
I can’t translate this, I can’t write it!
Along the banks of the river, red bud, 
misnamed in her purple gown,
paints filagrees in the forest canopy, 
here there and everywhere,
suspended in a perfect ballet, sucking my breath away.
The new dogwood, still clinging to green,
not yet ready for the full openness of total white.
I can’t translate, I can’t write.
Pale yellows and greens creep tenderly up the mountain,
a turkey buzzard gliding on the thermal winds.
A great peace relaxes me all along my spine,
up to my tippy-top, my eyes dilate, 
for the everyday of this, it won’t go away, 
tomorrow and tomorrow, hooray and hooray,
here’s my world come back again, 
this day, this day, 
this very day.

Annelinde Metzner
April 21, 2005

This poem and the above photo appear in "These Trees," a beautiful labor of love by Ruthie Rosauer, who photographed trees all over the United States. There are sections on bark, seeds, fruit and leaves, as well as the whole body of trees, and poems are scattered throughout.  Her work is available at www.ruthierosephotography.com

Dogwood blossoms

What She Is

 

 

Grand Canyon 2003

 

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,

worshiped 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
Cross-country road trip

August, 2003 



 

Turquoise and lapis Pacific

The Cathedral, Sedona AZ

Tall trees, Northern CA

This Most Huge "Yes"

 

 

 

 

 
I must have been four years old, out for an armload of wildflowers
-daisies, mallow flowers, phlox.
Elsie and I sat on a rock  to rest in the shade of the gnarled apple tree.
“Oh World, I cannot hold thee close enough!” cried Elsie, my Tante,
and on and on, poems by memory,
astounding my young ears with the bigness, the width of life beyond my ken.
Dickenson, Heine, Goethe, Millay,
-all fair game to Elsie’s keen mind and deep delight.
What is the world? She answered for me,
just a hint of what was to come, what could be, beyond the now.
I gazed at her above me,
and walked home with her, my arms full of flowers,
my little hand in hers.
And now, many years have passed.
My Tante is ninety-seven, but still, poems sprout from her lips,
and she, with her searching mind, evokes them from me as well.
“Prithee, let no bird call!”
We happen into a field, wild with flowers,
daisies, phlox, a wild quilt of color.
Thrice we return, picking armloads of wildflowers,
holding, holding, ever loving this life, unwilling to let go.
This divine charge we accepted so long ago
just to love this, just to live this,
eyes wide as daisy petals, enveloped in earthly scents,
knee-deep in colors,
just this most huge "Yes."

Annelinde Metzner
Wildacres, North Carolina May 2011

 

Elsie picking wildflowers

Run toward your creative life

Run toward your creative life with all your might
even when, and even because, tears stain the very surface,
the fiber of your creative being.

Isn’t this your truest self?
Isn’t this a pristine beach,
more wild than winter, more vast?

Doesn’t the joy breath of your inner life
smell fresher than new-washed cottons hung in the air?

When the long day finally ends,
and I come close to the inner self,
I pull back the veil.


Annelinde Metzner        
June 6, 2006

 

Grandmother Oak Speaks

 

 

 

I climbed the steep dirt road
    behind the old farmhouse,
    the back slant of the roof caving in
    from snow, winter, neglect,
    bricks falling from the chimney.
There I was! in the land of the Fairies,
    the majestic Grandmother oak appearing to my left,
    bending gracefully to the sky.
To my right, my nephew's hunting camp,
    target practice set up,
    and a grill ready for the fresh meat.
I turned back to my Grandmother,
    moss rising greenly from Her massive roots,
    ferns bowing reverently at Her feet,
    Her huge old grey body bending gracefully
    up to the wide-spread branches high above.
I gazed upon Her, and a sparkling city
    rose from Her roots in front of me,
    translucent, silvery, rainbow.
"Let Life be what it is," I heard,
    imagining conflict, sadness, despair.
    The power of these Fairy beings astonished me.
"We promise always to do what We do."
Hands raised, long we exchanged energy.
I touched a small double oak near to me,
    through its own body sending great thanks.
I turned down the hill, bowing,
    and left. 

 

Annelinde Metzner

September 5, 2019

Catskill Farm

Mid July

That orange-yellow light,
baking through the outrageously overgrown 
plethora of green,
laughing, ecstatic with the miracle of photosynthesis.
It's mid-July, such an overabundance,
such an all-out fling, a gala of green.
I know it's not long until we fold in again towards Autumn.
But I will stay here!  I will be here, now,
here and now,
where delicate pink lilies bask on the water,
dragonflies zoom with great abandon,
sycamore tosses me her peeling bark,
frogs grunt and croak in the cattails,
singing with all their might,
where berries ripen oh-so-slowly.
A leaf drops, and the water responds,
ring upon ring upon ring.
I am happy in the heat and the mid-July sun,
listening to the tumbling creek,
not needing to be anywhere but here.

Annelinde Metzner
Nels' Pond
July 17, 2020

Remember

I'm gazing up into the high tree canopy,
the tall poplars arising from rhododendron
decorated with their waxy blooms
like brides at a wedding.
In the heat and buzz of summer,
a breeze comes through the tree tops,
softening, softening,
until all the leaves are waving.
"Remember the Mother!", they seem to say,
inviting me to let fall,
to give it all up,
to let it go and be Her baby again,
renewed, crazy drunk with love,
waving my green branches
as though all were perfect,
all were intoxicated,
all were full.

Annelinde Metzner
July 3, 2020