Poetry Laurels: rose photos

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Friday, February 14, 2020

Poems for Valentine's Day - Will You Walk By My Side?

The question on pink and red Valentine's Day cards and candies is: "Will you be mine?" I think that's the wrong question. The right one is: "Will you walk by my side?" You cannot own another person, that's slavery. But you can walk together, not in front of each other (leading), not behind (following), but together, side by side, on the path of life. To do that, we have to focus on what's truly important. As T.S.Eliot said, "the still point of the turning world" - Light, Love, Christ...

The Still Point

I like the way you look at me,

drinking me in

with quick, short glances,

as if it were too much

to see me whole

Very thirsty for love,

aren’t you?

You are the matter of a man

I’m the spirit of a woman,

we belong together

From all the possible futures

I pick the one

where you are with me

The space-time cone moves,

the options shift and shrink

every second

I place you at the still point

of my turning world

There are so many delightful, meaningful stories, endless truth hidden in fairy tales. I've always loved fairy-tales and folk-tales, and have a nice collection of international stories. Only Brothers Grimm are so truly grim... others have discoveries of the walking kind, for instance, the princess that walked the world for three years in iron shoes to find her beloved (Slovenian "Pigeon Prince" tale). Or the Prince Charming who climbed over ancient thorny hedges and walls to find his Sleeping Beauty and wake her up with the kiss. That's the kiss of Love and Light, of course, true union of their souls.

Up, Up, Up

With you, I’m a fairy-tale princess,

a Cinderella, perhaps, with her gold

spun-glass slipper on my nightstand

by the Polish Bible I use each day

to find out if I’ve been good.

I really do not know.

Sometimes, I’m a sleeping Beauty

with rosy cheeks, awakened

by the lightest touch of your lips.

Why are you my Prince Charming?

I really do not know. Why

did I have to cross the Great Plains

fly over oceans, wear out

three sets of iron boots, defeat

the Leviathan and the dark

Chameleon in my dreams?

Here I am – here we are

together. Step by step,

holding hands, we climb

the inaccessible heights of God’s

white mountain, its snowy peaks

dazzling with the brilliance

of the sky – song – light –

Heart

…petal by petal, the flower of our heart

~ Amy Lowell

drawing together

the vine of heart leaves

stroke by stroke

from darkness

into light

intertwined –

with the vine

of love

As love grows, its meaning deepens, beyond passion, beyond infatuation, towards endless delight and admiration, arising from the true clarity of a shared purpose, shared light... The more we know the profound beauty of the beloved, the mysteries within, the more love there is. Love is truly endless, the more we give, the more we have to give. It never stops, never dies.

Amber

Red gold of falling leaves

and amber, liquid amber

engulf me with the intensity

of our love for all seasons –

Even the invisible California winter

without snow, with bright sunshine

and birdsong each morning – in time

for Darjeeling tea, Columbian coffee

and naleśniki, flat Polish pancakes

with a touch of maple syrup from Vermont.

The whole world celebrates with us

for we know true meaning of attachment –

not the pink blush of infatuation –

not the wine-red rose of passion –

but this, only this – pure clarity

of azure skies – clear radiance of red gold

and amber – liquid amber

Forever - is made of "nows"- wrote Emily Dickinson in one of her timeless poems. Indeed, forever is nothing but a string of moments, each more precious than another, each shining with a warm light of love within.

Afterglow

you taste of sunlight

sweetness, soft swirls

of ice cream melting

on yellow rays of mango slices

the golden glow of honey

in your eyes

you surprise me

I turn my head and

there you are, looking at me

over your oil-smudged fingers,

engine parts –

smiling

you know what I think

you taste of sunlight

Lost and Found

… the sky of the sky of a tree called life

~ e.e. cummings

I found myself

in a perfect place

I laugh to tears

and I like what I see

after broken pieces

of Devil’s mirror were

washed away from my eyes

There’s no torment here,

no limits, only the infinite

glory of becoming One

with Universe, One with

the Divine, endlessly delighted

No anxiety, no desire –

I live right here, right now

Thank you for the key

that opened my door to Paradise –

Serene, fearless, I’m wholly

and whole made of Love –

Twin Flame Promise

to have, to hold, and to cherish

~ old English wedding vows

I take you to be my beloved

for today and tomorrow

for all days and nights

for a week and all weeks

for a month and all months

for a year and all years

for all eternity

wherever we are and will be

in rain and sunlight

in joy and happy togetherness

of our most holy marriage

our divine union

I promise you solemnly my love

faithfulness and honesty

and that I will not leave you until my death

I will be with you as long as I exist

I promise you the love of my heart

because you are my heart –

and the love of my body

because you are my body –

and the love of my eyes

because you are the light of my eyes –

and the love of my soul

because you are my soul mate

my being’s other half

my fulfillment now and forever

In God, our Divine Source, Way and Life

sharing our love for ever and ever

And so let it grow and last and be

my promise for you and yours for me

I Did Not Dare To Hope

Yet I know it is true.

This certainty is of a bubbly

sparkling kind – it floats up

like champagne in a tall flute

to welcome the New Year

of promises to keep, of bliss-filled

Love that never was, but always is –

always as in a country song of old

shining on pink rose petals

covered with diamond dew

in the morning, under

the periwinkle sky

“of endless possibilities

and our greatest dreams”

that we’ve known

and will know –

together.

Diamonds

In a seashell there is an ocean

There is Universe within my heart

A myriad galaxies dance in my mind

I’m a microcosm of Divine design

In a seashell there is an ocean

In dark coal mine bright diamonds grow

In your eyes I find ageless wisdom

The One Love that sustains us all

In your guilt I see my darkness

In your beauty – radiance and light

In your voice – the calling, the calling

Mountain air on a spring morning

Sparkling diamonds, radiant and pure –

For all forevers you enfold me in Love

So you look within, look inside the rose blossom, admire the infinite geometry of its petals? But what if you looked up? Towards the light-filled sapphire sky that all flowers stretch up to? Roses, magnolias, sunflowers - they all move to the light, and maybe the secret of love is to do as they do?

In the Valley of Yes

I wrote it out in a thousand words

again and again, affirming

the forgotten truth.

You opened your eyes, bewildered,

finally seeing what is to be seen,

saying what is to be said:

We have crossed over into the Soul

now merging into what’s before us.

That is you on the interior, lining

the depth of my heart. You are the center

of my Universe, as we are aligned

perfectly under the Sun.

A rarity found true. You and I.

As we climb the path of life alongside

each other, I am honored to walk with you.

Now, I am looking through the lens of Love

that opens into the landscape of you,

a wildflower that comes alive in me.

I found a slice of Heaven, in front of me.

It is you! I love you today,

tomorrow and

forever

Sapphire

My tiger orchid blooms again

for the third time already

It looks at me shyly

with topaz eyes

thinking, I’d remember

that night, that music

of togetherness –

Expand, expand, forever

expand – our hearts fill

with Cosmic Light of

a thousand Suns –

liquid and flowing

to heal and purify

We thank, we praise

the One Love

that blossoms

in emerald gardens

in sapphire flames

and bright tiger eyes

Sweet Nothings

We are the wings of a butterfly

Dancing in the vortex of time

Ascending to the heart of the galaxy

Flying higher and higher and higher

I love you. You love me.

We are love, love, love, love

One love.

We are the wings of the butterfly

Twirling with a flutter in the breeze of time

Carried by currents beyond what’s known

We swirl and rise up, together

I love you. You love me.

We are love.

What remains of the wings torn apart?

Is the pattern eternal? Does it stay

Once created and outlined in pure light,

embroidered on the fabric of reality

with a sparkling golden thread of memory?

Yes, I love you. You love me.

I love you. You love me.

We are love, love, love, love

True love.

Monday, February 11, 2019

2019 - Love in the Year of the Boar, the Year of Riches

2019 is the Year of the Boar or the Year of the Pig. I never liked pigs. They are too intelligent and too angry with us. And, these days, they suffer too much in huge factory farms where they are endlessly tortured until they die. Not much to be happy about. Actually, something to fight against...

Some people love cute little piglets. The French queen Marie Antoinette did, before her head was cut off. She pretended to be a shepherdess and led her pink, soft, velvety, piglet on a silk ribbon around the gilded splendor, velvet and mirrors of the magnificent palace of Versailles. It was not good for her, and not good for the piglets. Alas.

So, I do not have any poems about Boars, nor any about Pigs, nor Piglets. It seems I cannot celebrate the Year of the Boar, then. . . Even the Boars are too dangerous, too dark and wicked for poetry.

They used to haunt my Grandma's winters on a lone farm at the edge of the tall fir and pine forest. They used to come out of the dark at night in the late fall and winter, to root for potatoes and grain in the fields. They destroyed the carefully cultivated crops. My Grandma, a widow, only had 11 hectares of land, so every square meter mattered immensely. It made a difference whether she had enough food for the winter, or not. She did not sell the potatoes, but used them to feed the pigs on her farm, fattening them for slaughter and sale. Those were the pigs I did not like, feared and detested; those were the pigs that did not like and detested me.

The pigs were unusually dirty, for one; they stank and they gave you the evil eye, if you came to watch them eat and twiddle their short curly rat-like tails. Or maybe their voices were the worst? All this harrumping, squealing, and grunting? Yes, I ate pork for decades. From the pigs' point of view, I'm a murderer, committing sacriledge. I do not do it any more, as much as I can. Do not buy meat, do not eat it.

So, how do I celebrate the year of the Boar? This is the year of the Earth Boar, so we can celebrate nature, being grounded, serene. The element of the earth is very comforting, here is where we came from here is where we will return (not exactly, our bodies will, but still, bodies are not prisons but freely chosen vessels for the souls)

Instead of Boars or Pigs, let me share poems about foxes. As devious thieves, foxes do not have the best of opinion in most folk tales around the world, nor do they have a whole year dedicated to them in the Chinese calendar. But there are beautiful Chinese legends about nine-tailed foxes, so I wrote two poems after watching a film about that.

Sunfire Foxes

I come from a tribe of nine-tailed foxes
You are a gold fox with nine tails too

We splash in the pools of silver moonlight
We chase bright stars through violet sky

We catch a ride on a sparkling comet
Nourished by nectar of honey dew

We leap through sunbursts, sunfire, sunrays
We rest in the golden glow of noon

Our wisdom grows in spirals, circles
Our joy is boundless, our love is true

(c) 2018 by Maja Trochimczyk

This simple rhyming poem is perfectly suitable for the other focus of February - the Valentine's Day, a commercial feast of pink and red hearts, chocolate, teddy-bears and sentimental or ribald greeting cards. As soon as Christmas is over, the Valentine's Day merchandise comes out. Instead of red roses, and hearts, I thought that smooth, bronze fur of a fox is a lovely metaphor for the comfort seeking and for sensuality. Let's stay in this train of thought, then.

How to Domesticate a Cat

A tiger, really, crouching in the corner of your yard
With bared teeth. Tired, terrified.

You just sit there, read, sit, don’t let him notice
You are watching – the fur so sleek,
The play of muscles underneath,
Chocolate hazel of his eyes.

Sing – no – hum of misty Wonderland,
Love that’s here to stay, whisper
Sunshine into the warm air,
In the receding darkness under closed eyelids
“Who knows how long I’ve loved you…”

Stretch out your hand and pet him on the back.
Pretend you do not notice
How he strains to prolong your touch
With a spark in his eyes –
close, right next to you.

Somehow he gets even closer.
Feed him choice morsels off your hand,
Tell stories, sotto voce – hypnotize him
with an exotic melody of alien language.

Oblivious, he will lean into you,
Warming you with his heartbeat.

Steady – steady – cicho – sza –

Just sit there, burying your fingers
In the blond fur, caressing
The silkiness of his strong, tamed shoulders,
Moving rhythmically with your touch.

Closer – closer – cicho – szaa –

The dance of togetherness,
The fearless, glorious waltz
Of now – only now –

Cicho – cicho – cicho – szaaa –

(c) 2017 by Maja Trochimczyk

"Cicho" means "quiet" in Polish while "cicho, sza" is the equivalent of "there, there" in English, when comforting someone crying, someone in pain... The "tiger-cat" idea finds another expression in a different Valentine-Day-themed poem, also set in the garden of love.

Things Not to Say on a Lazy Afternoon in the Garden

You ask me, what am I doing?
I’m taming the wild foxes
In you, in me, all around.

Their sharp teeth look better
In a smile. They can learn to stop snarling
Eat berries, not meat, don’t you think?

But what about mice? you say,
Ever mindful of the world’s balance, adding shadow
To every good deed? Mice steal our food, true.
Without foxes wed be eaten out of our harvest
by rodents, rabbits, raccoons.

Oh, the seductive beauty of foxes
With their smooth copper fur
White-tipped tails, waving like flags surrender
The bright yellow eyes, smart and wary
Attentive, always ready to run.

I’m taming the wild foxes
In me, in the world, in you.

Every kind thought, word, gesture
Every tender touch of affection
gentles, them slightly, step by step -

From snarls into smiles -
From bristles to giggles -
Kinder, softer -
More, a bit more -

Come closer, let me caress
your glossy gold coat -
smooth, shiny -
so soft to touch -

Come, you will like it -
a bit more -
a bit more -
a bit more -

(C) 2018 by Maja Trochimczyk

Now that we have moved entirely into the Valentine's Day subject area, let me end this paradoxical reflection on the coming year of abundance and riches, with a folk-style ballad about the healing power of love, that provides the undercurrent of both wild foxes and tigercat poems above. Just for fun, let's change the protagonist, here the man is the active healer, and the woman is the healed one.

A Ballad of New Star

She came out of nowhere with head bowed down low
in shame and in sorrow, contrite.

Her face wrapped in shadows, cloak black as a tombstone,
she came out of nowhere at night.

She stood there before him, with head bowed down low,
asking silently, asking for love.

His hands on her heart, her lone heart beating wildly,
steady current flowed out from his palms.

Light and Love, Light and Love, so much Light, so much Love:
The black cloak broke stiffly in half.

Rays of bright light exploded: she flew out of her cage
in a lightning, a flash of delight.

She was free, he was thrilled. Two halves of dark shell
fell down on the ground far below.

In brightness most fine, with high outstretched arms,
she rose up, the birth of new dawn.

But did she have wings? We don't know, we can't tell.
It looked like, maybe, she did.

Could she fly? She did fly, bursting out of her shell
like a phoenix, a comet, a kid.

In a lightning of love she ascended so free,
shining true, a phoenix of might.

He was happy, so glad. He laughed out so loud -
such miracle, the dream of his heart.

In a whirlwind of rays, comets, stardust and sparks,
divine brightness, more dazzling than moon.

There's a new star, new sun as she glows, laughs & shines,
turning midnight into high noon.

She's his sister reborn, golden princess of dawn,
floating on weaves of fire and air.

Now his job here is done, his two hands on her heart
healing, breaking the spell of despair.

Oh, sweet love has healed her. Oh, sweet love has freed her.
He let the One Love flow through his arms.

No matter how dark, no matter how lost,
we can wake, we can all become stars.

We are free, we can fly, high above midnight sky.
So much love, so much light, so much care!

It's for us that this Love flows so brightly tonight,
and we sing of new life of new world.

(C) 2019 by Maja Trochimczyk

It would be hard to describe this vision of a magical healing, a transformation from imprisonment in a shell, a coffin of sorrow, into interstellar, galactic flight of freedom and joy in a different poetic form, like free verse. It seems to me that such a poem would have been either too repetitive, or too brief. The folk ballad rhymes and rhythms provide the myth or fable with enough space to grow; they also place it far away, elsewhere. The use of the third person for both the healed man and the healing woman in this poetic narrative also serves to distance it from the reader.

What could happen if the third person, objectified and distanced, were to be replaced with the first person, first just for the woman. So the poem would be about "me" and "I" and "him" and "he" - told from the point of view of a lonely person narrating the unusual adventure to someone else, a sympathetic listener, such as the poet's audience. It would not be easy to change the third-to-first person for the man, mostly because of his silence at the outset of the poem, and the role of a "receiver" of the healing, an "object" to be healed, rather than a "subject" that acts. The use of an occasional "we" as well as ending with all of "us" makes it a universal story that applies equally to everyone.

What if we changed both personas to first and second person format? It could be from the point of view of the woman ("You stood there before me..." "my hands on your chest/your heart beating wildly") or from the point of view of the man ("I stood there before you" "your hands on my chest/my heart beating wildly").

Both have advantages and disadvantages. In the first option, the woman comes across as too smug and conceited: not only did she serve as the conduit for the man's healing, but also insistently described the process and took credit for the miracle. In the second option, the difficulty starts from at the beginning, when the imprisoned soul arrives out of nowhere, asking for healing.... It simply makes no sense for the "object" of the healing to describe himself at this moment, as if he could see himself from outside.

Back to the third-person account then, and a delightful love story that is not a romance made just for two, but rather a universal story of healing - people can and do heal each other all the time. They can and do, if their action are not based on selfishness, greed, desire, or control of others, but rather if they exchange their gifts freely, openly, and with joy. In the version above, the woman is the healer, the man is the one to be healed. These roles could be reversed: we are all healers and all in need of healing...

Love is the glue that holds the world together. We are in an avalanche of pinks and reds, for St. Valentine's Day, piled up in all stores, so soon after Christmas decorations have been put away.

But to me, love is not associated with red. It is best captured in the color green, the color of plants that give us oxygen, food, and beauty. It is green and jade that should be everywhere on Valentine's Day, not red and pink and mauve. It is also the color blue, and its manifold variants - the sky, the lake, the ocean... Water and air, love personified...

Poetry Laurels

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Friday, February 14, 2020

Poems for Valentine's Day - Will You Walk By My Side?

Monday, February 11, 2019

2019 - Love in the Year of the Boar, the Year of Riches

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