THE TASTE OF WAR
She tells me how her father foraged for mushrooms
in the Black Forest, Nazis stalking him as he fled. How
after the war ended, he could never eat a mushroom again.
*
How primal the scent of gunpowder and hunger—
the pheromones of fear, the fierceness of love making
when we know all could lost. And in our moment of history
*
Mars rises with the harvest moon—and desperate men
raise flags hoping to fill the ache with feasts of power.
But they are not sated—not with the burning of the Amazon,
*
or with militias that steal people away in the night.
Not with women on their arms who have gone vacant
and forgotten the curve of the moon. Not with stealing
*
piles of gold and wheat and rounding up starving children
on the borders. This is a hunger that wants war. Perhaps
these men never tasted the sweetness of earth’s milk.
*
Perhaps beauty never cracked the heart, or perhaps tears
could never flow to wash the soul clean. Instead, the charge,
the threats, the posturing that rips countries apart
*
and builds walls against our own nightmares. Instead,
this hall of mirrors where there is only one face reflected—
for all others have dropped their guns and run home
*
to their lovers to grow gardens and bake bread. Yes, the others
have grown tired and thin with the taste of war on the lips—
a bitterness no sweet cannot dissolve. What is it that will finally
*
return the war hungry ones in all of us to the awe of northern lights—
the beacon of the pole star, to sun on bare skin, to a moment
when we knew we belonged to something beyond the too steady
*
beat of machines? For we have become toy soldiers
in fantastic war games. And yet even the toy soldier trembles,
cries out in the night, remembers the prayer it was born with.
*
Yes, even the toy soldier longs for the kapok trees full of monkeys,
the true kiss of a loved one freely given—this kiss that heals.
For perhaps it is in this longing that the toy soldier can remember
*
he is not real, that this armor is only artifice, that this ash on his hands
from this burning can be washed clean. And freed from the spell,
he can run back to the forest of his own heart, foraging
*
for what has been lost. And in time he can look into the eyes
of the stars and rock the babies of the world against his chest.
Yes in time, he can exhale and simply rest in the arms of love.
***
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
Where the Honey is Stored
Photo by Archana on Pexels.com
Beloved, we do not have to do anything to deserve you.
And yet we are always trying to prove ourselves—
asking about purpose, looking for meaning,
when all along we are swimming in the coral reefs
of your warm oceans and tilling the soil for the next
season of waving green rye. This is the home
we have always dreamed of, the garden where we once
saw a no trespassing sign and believed it! The drill
of the mind bores down layers and layers in search
of a non-existent core. Meanwhile, a dance is wildly
unfolding just outside our thoughts. Nothing to do but love them—
these bees of the mind that buzz in summer flowers.
Quick! Run past the construction sites of the self
to the hive where all the honey is stored!
©Laura Weaver
From the collection LUMINOUS
LauraWeaver.org
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
The Feast
It is green and teeming again,
the soils supple after years of drought—
after the parched places
called like a lover for rain,
after empty reservoirs
filled overnight, and the earth
offered her great generosity
so that everything is opening,
blooming, gleaming
with sweet golden light.
*
There is so much
we could resist in this life—
drought and famine and flood,
the turning of every season,
the arrival of each decade,
the falling away of a beloved,
our own aging bodies, every betrayal
or hurt we have ever held close.
We could spend every moment resisting.
*
For this mammalian heart aches—
we attach, hold on, scan the field
for potential loss. We love so intensely,
we push love away—lest it break us.
And yet to inhabit this body
in every cell, with no holding back,
we cannot avoid touching those
trembling notes of our impermanence—
those strands in our lives which
arrive for a time, but cannot stay.
We cannot avoid risking everything.
*
For in this exquisite love affair
the world will court us again and again—
and in this awakening of spring,
we will forget the other seasons of lack—
as we are reborn, renewed, unwrapped.
And the heat of earth’s wild eros
rises through us—the peony blossoms
bursting their seams, the fillies cantering
in the just born grasses,
the creeks racing high and fast.
*
And we think—yes, perhaps it will
always be like this—now that I have
emerged from this final winter of my soul.
But all of the visitors will come again—
grief and passion and fear
joy and loneliness and ecstasy—
they will all knock on the door.
And perhaps, in our forgetting,
we will be surprised by these old
familiar visitors who come
in the dark hollow of the night—
or perhaps we will remember this feast
we were invited to long ago—
and we will lay the table generously,
pour the wine, and laugh with delight
with all that is offered,
here, now, for all time.
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
From the upcoming book….
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
p.s. Giving away 10 copies of Luminous to local Boulder folks-ping me if you’d like to pick one up. xoxo
Sing Back the Light
Because you have gone diving
into the darkness, explored the cracks
deep in the earth and swam
in the underground rivers of your soul
*
Because you have traversed
the tunnels between worlds
to find your own heart’s pulse and longing
*
Because you have written story after story
for lifetime after lifetime
and arrive here, now—
quaking in your naked truth.
*
Because you have walked through
fierce fires and watched parts
of yourself turn to ash—
*
Because you have alchemized your wounds,
metabolized your grief, and danced your love,
against all odds, in the midst of ferocious storms.
*
Because you have planted seeds
in the still heart of winter
and believed in the harvest
when you could see no signs of life.
*
Because you are a divine lover of the fertile dark,
and the Beloved mystery–and know the way
she teaches us to see with the inner eye—
and trust our inner compass.
*
Because you have the courage
of the first morning star~
*
Sing back the light
*
Sing back the light
to the places that have forgotten—
sing back the light
to the places that are numb
*
Sing back the light
to all that has been desecrated
and abandoned
sing back the light
to the desperate and hungry ones
*
Sing back the light for the ancestors
who encircle us,
whispering instructions
while we sleep
*
Sing back the light
to our children’s children’s children
who remind us –
everything is at stake
*
Sing back the light
at this time of Holy Revelation
*
Sing back the light
that heals the wounds of Separation
*
Sing back the light—
because tonight
the whole world says—
I am tired, will you stay with me
when the flame flickers
in the darkest moments of this passage?
*
Sing back the light
because you are the medicine
the new world is thirsting for
*
because you are a star traveling
at the speed of love
*
because you wear the wings
of the Dove who takes flight now
in the darkest hour.
*
Sing back the light
because we are a mighty forest
growing up through scorched ground—
yes, we are the seeds
that open with just this kind of fire.
*
sing back the light
because your song ignites my song
and the chorus is a swelling ocean
of Awakening—and we are just beginning
to hear our own roar.
*
Sing back the light
because this is how we remember—
this is how we remember ourselves
past this ending
into the beginning….
*
For in the beginning
there was the Word
there was the Song
and we are here now
to sing ourselves Home.
*
Sing back the light!
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
Bearing Witness
*for Malidoma Some
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Sometimes we are asked to stop and bear witness:
this,the elephants say to me in dreams
as they thunder through the passageways
of my heart, disappearing
into a blaze of stars. On the edge
of the 6th mass extinction, with species
vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people
gone mad, if we did not grieve.
*
This unmet grief,
an elder tells me, is the root
of the root of the collective illness
that got us here. His people
stay current with their grief—
they see their tears as medicine—
and grief a kind of generous willingness
to simply see, to look loss in the eye,
to hold tenderly what is precious,
to let the rains of the heart fall.
*
In this way, they do not pass this weight on
in invisible mailbags for the next generation
to carry. In this way, the grief doesn’t build
and build like sets of waves, until,
at some point down the line—
it simply becomes an unbearable ocean.
*
We are so hungry when we are fleeing
our grief, when we are doing all
we can to distract ourselves
from the crushing heft of the unread
letters of our ancestors.
Hear us, they call. Hear us.
*
In my dreams, the elephants stampede
in herds, trumpeting, shaking the earth.
It is a kind of grand finale, a last parade
of their exquisite beauty. See us, they say.
We may not pass this way again.
*
What if our grief, given as a sacred offering,
is a blessing not a curse?
What if our grief, not hidden away in corners,
becomes a kind of communion where we shine?
What if our grief becomes a liberation song
that returns us to our innocence?
*
What if our fierce hearts
could simply bear witness?
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me
Pilgrimage to Blue Lake
For so many years, you have built elaborate cairns
along the trail to the house of your self.
You have found just the right rocks for balancing,
just the point along the path where you might get lost—
so that in every season, in the deepest snow,
you can find your way back. Each time you come,
you lay a fire on the shoreline with the kindling
of your grief and delight—watch the flames burn slowly
at first—then fast and high as they quicken,
bringing light to dark spaces. And so it is this day,
as you arrive on the shores of Blue Lake, you hear
a different cadence pulsing from the land—
and you wonder if it is time to build a stronger nest
for this next round of seasons, or if it is time to fledge
all together. You stand shaky, barely balanced on the edge
of this and that—while below stretches the great horizon
you long for, though you never believed you could walk
beyond these cairns you have so carefully tended.
And this sacred valley is filled with mist—for the light
has been drinking snow all day long. And in a devastating flash,
you see you must leave this place that has given you all it has.
You have been filled by such beauty—you can no longer stay—
for what is yours to give can no longer be given from here.
And so you take the stones from the cairns,
offer them to the lake and walk off
the edge of all you have ever known.
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!
First Flight
There were edges to my loving—
places where countries clashed along borders
where lovers were not admitted,
where the thicket grew thickly, impenetrably—
designed to keep out the savage creatures
that ambled about in the night, smelling of musk.
There were edges to my loving—
places to guard, gardens to endlessly tend—
the project of myself that took such devotion,
voices in my head I did not want heard
by another who might lean over in the night
and kiss away such tender uncertainties.
There were edges to my loving—
there was the wild one of me
who did not want taming,
the one who thought someone else held
the keys to my freedom, the primal roar
of the lioness who said: I will belong to no one
but myself, so I cannot belong to you.
There were edges to my loving.
But then came the tearing wind,
and the sheets of rain, the storms
on the high seas, the sunlight on bare skin,
and the eyes of god blazing through my heart
at dawn. Then came the beasts crashing
through the thickets, despite my best laid plans.
Yes, then came life softening
the edges again and again.
And one night I woke up from a dream
to my own laughter, to a knowing of my love
rippling out in endless circles—untethered, infinite.
And in my bones I felt what has always been free—
this sovereignty that does not require
guarding or liberating. And from here,
belonging to everything, I walked out of the cage
of my own making, unfurled these gossamer wings
and tasted true flight for the first time.
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!
Canyonlands
A love song to Earth
**
Today I come to the well of an ancient desert—
a place yes, but more of a reunion,
the way you feel when meeting an elder
who has been whispering to you all of your life.
*
Here, the rock is awash with spiral
and wave, with curve and spire.
Here, inland seas have come and gone,
leaving us this library of Beauty.
Here, the silence is so deep
it reminds us of our first mother—
the one whose arms we have never left.
*
And rounding the bend to yet another canyon
amongst canyons, we see this reflection
of our own mystery—the impossibility of this moment
how we have come to stand here, in this particular eon~
as the thunder clouds rumble on the horizon,
as the lightning flickers over spines of juniper.
*
And we so small and full of earnest prayer,
we bow down and ask to enter.
For there are guardians here—ones who weave
the mythos of the ages, ones who hear us
when all seems lost. And when a song wells up
from my heart, I offer it like a flower
to this place—and the mountain says, oh yes,
I remember you. And the storm clouds
scatter and the gates open and we arrive.
*
I know I have played hide and seek here before,
in these canyons of time –in this endless
labyrinth of being, in these cathedrals
of swallows and wind.
For this is the holy of holies—
where moonflowers bloom from red soil
where hummingbirds whir through golden grottos
where rainbows arc over honeycombs of stone.
*
If all of humanity stood under this sky
for just one breath, we would know
in an instant what we belong to.
If all of humanity stood under a starfield like this
we couldn’t help but love each other–
to mend what has been torn,
to surrender to what we truly are.
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!
MEETING EROS
©LauraWeaver
BEAUTY
There is nowhere to hide in the desert
under the full moon, in the blue light
that pours through the body like water.
It as if we are born again in the open air,
to feel our bare skin against the world
for the first time. And from here, eyes untethered,
we see a different kind of beauty that lives
beneath the surface—that quivers in the thorns
and breaks out of the volcanic rock like a song
you hear when your mind has gone quiet.
To meet this kind of beauty, make a slow approach,
a spiral walk to the center. Leave offerings. Show up
in the odd hours of the night—then she may
let you see her fur, her sharp teeth, the flash
of her pale underbelly. For this kind of beauty moves
in the spaces—in the interior of things, in the rivulets
of a dry land that rarely sees rain, in the seeds
that bloom once in a hundred years, in the sap
of a Joshua tree lifting its arms—heavy with blooms—
to the piercing stars. This beauty leaves you weeping
in the blue of the moonlight
with nowhere to hide.
©LauraWeaver
“Beauty”–from the collection LUMINOUS:Poems & Inquiry for the Soul’s Journey
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
****You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!
