Red Oleander

 

 

Red Oleander

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 up 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

Folly Beach

May 2010

Spring in Appalachia

She Heard Me

 

 

 

          
I sang all my songs to Mama Yemaya,
     our Mother the Sea,
     on that bracing and welcoming day at the beach.
How the great water glistened,
     each droplet responding, reflecting,
     rejoicing under our Father the Sun.
Pelicans dove straight down from on high.
Wee children hopped and squealed in the tide pools.
I sang and sang.
I think She heard me!
Our vast and unknowable Mother,
     Womb of All Life.
I think She heard me.

 

Annelinde Metzner

February 13, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

     

 

 

 

 

Stay

 

Don’t run
Don’t do this and that
Don’t get your camera
Turn off the phone.
Stay.
Feel a little uncomfortable, antsy, but stay.
It’s quiet now, but soon
the world begins to reveal itself to you.
The oriole is leaping, up and down, up and down,
over dried seed pods.
The hummingbird finds each and every flower
of the brilliant jewelweed.
The warning call of the raptor,
and the pale-winged osprey
flies clear across the open field, north to south.
Stay.  Grow as slowly as a hawthorne.
Ripen one thing a day.
Be Still.  
Stay.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
August 3, 2011

St. John's Wort

Goldenrod

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