Of Passion and Restraint

Well I’ve finally done it, I’ve published my first book of poetry. The title is the title of this blog and it’s a collection of nearly two hundred poems about love, lust and loss all of which most of us have been intimately aquanted with at one time or another. It’s filled with very personal thoughts on these subjects with a generous sprinkling of nature and spirit. It is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PHHC22X?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

And now I will share one of the poems from the book to give you a small glimpse into the book and my deep personal thought therein.

Believer

You are a believer

in magic

the kind that winds bring

while waiting hovered

above snow drifts,

You are a lover

of beauty

that quakes above in tethered limbs

hands of the tree gods

applauding

your passion,

You are one with

the four legged

relatives of my ancestors

their spirits filling

your human heart

with wisdom,

You are a believer

in my reasons

for being cupped here

in the glow of

your eyes lighting

the fire of my belief.

Johnny Depp and The Bees

Johnny Depp and the Honey Bees

I don’t know him, but I do. Maybe it’s a past life thing, maybe it’s a brown eyed thing (we both have them). Or maybe it’s just a thing but I dreamed of him last night. He told me there was eccentric and then there was me; he said I was just crazy. Then he smiled. I said, ”That’s what everyone says about you, you know.” Then he laughed, said us crazy people have to stick together. We made love then he fixed breakfast while I attempted to fold the sheets. It was fun.

Dreams… Huh. I have my theories but first about the bees.

So I have been waiting for the honey bees to return. I had a couple of hives a few years ago but anyone that keeps up with environmental news knows that it’s getting really hard to keep them alive. So, of course, they died. But I’ve never given up. I have two trap boxes set out for them, one between my garden and a large field and one at the edge of my woods. They have been there for three years and have not seen any activity. In fact, during that time I have not seen any honey bees in my garden. There are plenty of native pollinators but no honey bees.

This morning after that dream I wandered through my garden like I do every morning. I went to check on the progress of my small pumpkin patch and found twenty or more big, bright yellow pumpkin flowers, their faces open like smiles toward the sun. The familiar buzzing of insects surrounded them sounding like a miniature chorus. Closing my eyes I let their symphony soothe my dream addled mind when I realized there was a new yet familiar song being sung around the pumpkin blossoms. My eyes popped open, wide, as I realized there were dozens of honey bees busy gathering nectar and pollen from my humble little pumpkin patch. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes as the gratitude unleashed its self. I watched in awe as my old friends worked happily in my garden once more, their droning song filling the morning air. It filled me with hope, something that has been sorely lacking in my life of late.

Then I trekked out to check my trap boxes, put in some fresh lure – just in case.

So, what, you might ask, has the dream to do with the bees? It could, of course, be just the typical birds and bees symbolism, a very viable option. Or just a simple escaping the ordinary dream. Another viable option. My dream dictionary says that sex in a dream can be a symbol of two energies joining together and with a stranger can portray joining with one’s own anima or animus. In other words, he could simply be a projection of my inner self attempting to bring me some comfort. Well, all I know is both the dream and the bees made me feel – well – joyful! Both gave me much happiness and hope that life can still be good, fun – exciting, even. Feelings many of us have been thinking of late could be lost forever.

There is also the theory that sometimes when we dream our spirits travel, wandering through this world or others in search of adventure. So I will be forever curious. Did he wake up this morning and wonder, who was that crazy old woman I made love to in my dreams last night? Then maybe he shook the cob webs from his dream addled mind and heard some bees outside his window.

Dreams… Huh. You just never know.

 

The Return of The Muse

He climbs the hill behind her house wondering if it can be true. Did he really hear her voice, the voice he knew so well from so long ago? Her song fills the air around him, blue and misty like the twilight that he pushes through on his way back into her life, a life she pushed him out of when her fears became too real, when she convinced herself she wasn’t good enough. Then when death came knocking, knocking so hard it broke down the door and she was never the same after that, no amount of prodding or cajoling could convince her otherwise. She simply put away her brushes and her paper, rolled up the unfinished canvases, closed the pan of watercolors, tucked her guitars and drums in the closet behind the winter coats. She was finished. He was abandoned to wander the green lands where they use to meet, where he whispered in her ear of the beauty she could create with her mind, her heart, her hands. He could still feel the hole it left inside her, see the hollowness in her eyes that only knew how to weep after that, could not see any of the beauty they use to, only the fear and the grief – only the emptiness in her heart where love had once lived.
His hands dig into the soft cool earth as he climbs the last few feet out of the ravine. Then he sees her. She is sitting in the flowers singing so softly he knows he is the only one who can hear her. He knows he is the only one she wanted to hear her. So he sits down beside her, fills in the words she can’t think of, touches a few notes she hasn’t thought of, fills her head with all the lost days between them, whispers his joy to be back in her thoughts again, back in her life.
Colors of dawn and summer wrap around them shielding them from the past and a life that could have been. Her music is golden yellow with wings taking it up into the early morning sky, a song of renewal. She is the phoenix and he the ashes. They soar into the rest of her life and neither of them cares anymore if anyone notices their creations. They have the trees for their museum, the birds for their audience. The wind applauses a standing ovation.
He follows her inside happy just to be floating next to her again, filling the hole in her heart, drying the stale tears that have left stains on her cheeks. A whisper, a touch, a breath of midnight blue and she pulls out her brushes, dusts off the yellowed paper, smoothes color and life across its surface. When she is finished he looks down at the image, she whispers and he hears,”For you my beloved Muse – for you.” And glowing off the paper he recognizes the face he has seen reflected in pools of water, off dragonfly wings and her glistening eyes. He sees himself. He sees her muse. And she picks up a river cane flute she has made with her own hands and plays for him.