Poems – THE BAYOU MYSTIC

Artist Statement

The Empty Circle with art final

Writing is a calling from a deeper place than my undisciplined mind can fathom. I cherish life so I pay attention to it. My writing has spiritual overtones because I believe that spirit is the biggest part of creation. There is more mystery in the unseen and it delights me to explore things that can’t be understood with intellect alone. I know that a part of me loves the theatrics of the spoken word but most of my joy comes from the satisfaction of completion. I start with a seed of thought. When all the components, the lyricism, the word play, the images, come together into a completed work, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I am delighted. Now, if others are delighted by what I have written, then that’s just lagniappe.

Change

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19

Change

The earth is stretching out of her shell,

Cracking open to let the light in,

Wielding fire and oceans of suffering

Held deep below tectonic plates,

Gathering all our transgressions into

One projectile aimed at heaven.

When its fire falls back to crackling skin

Brandishing a mighty cleansing sword,

Will we run in fear or welcome its destruction?

The wings come first into the breech.

She will fly but who or what will steer the flight,

A dark angel? Or a saint?

Who will be the architects of a new design,

And who will be the builders,

Dreamers? Or survivalists?

For thousands upon thousands

We have destroyed and rebuilt

Never before or even now

Understanding

How much is lost or

What could be gained.

Inside My Shell

IMG_20170604_105423

Baby on the Beach by L. Clarkson Circa 1870

Inside my shell I am still a little girl

Hiding from the boogeyman

Hoping the sound of the sea doesn’t wake him.

Today—the shell against my ear

There is no sound

The sea isn’t singing

Its swishing song.

Another song fills the well

Familiar and haunting

From the center of the spiral

A low, rumbling, wail.

Still a little girl

Afraid of the boogeyman

Hoping the sea

Won’t wake her.

The shell I choose

Could be the nautilus

I spiral down into its center

Revealing only a tiny sliver of me or maybe

Shut tight as a clam

Filtering the brine of you

Are you real?

Are you safe?

Perhaps, opened wide

As Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”

Revealing the pearl within

It all depends on you.

Holding a bright pink, plastic bucket,

She skips along the water’s edge

Looking for seashells,

Finding dead fish and crabs

Baking in the summer sun.

She stares at their death

As though she understands

The sands’ murderous burning.

This beach was littered with seashells once

Sand dollars half buried

Could be lifted whole

Before the Grand Isle shore

Was littered with oil derricks

And foreign fishermen.

Now the beautiful shells are gone

Replaced by dead fish and tar balls

She still skips along

Empty, bright pink, bucket and all.

Baby on the Beach by

Clarkson Circa 1870

November Musings Harvest

Harvest

It has taken an extraordinarily

Long time to come to this harvest.

Pulling plow through timeless alluvial soil

Once rocky and frozen with resistance.

Encouraging worms and discouraging slugs

Laboring for fertile ground.

To nurture this soul’s harvest

I have been busy bending nature.

Planting love seeds and tending experiential fields,

From this bounty I now harvest.

I choose carefully the most delicious fruit

Not because I am deserving of this ambrosia

But because I am the author of it.

This wisdom did not come to me by chance

But certainly by thoughtful design.

Wendi Romero, Photo: Fiddle Fern

October Theme: Falling Part 2

Photo by Carole Lancon

As a child, my favorite time of the year was fall especially the first cool, windy day usually occurring in late September. I would sit watching with my gooseflesh legs dangling from a thick branch as the wind blew the mature cane sideways until it almost laid flat. The air felt crisp, almost electrically charged and the smell was fresh with a promising harvest. Later, when the cut cane lay across the rows, sometime in the early morning, before I climbed up into my viewing tree, someone would set the fields on fire to burn off the leafy chaff. The combination of burning grass and cooking molasses is about as sweet a smell as I can remember.

Excerpt: ” Cutting the Clouds, a bayou mystic’s poems, musings, and imaginings”

Wanting

Muddled blackberries

Forgotten in the cocktail glass

For want of more vodka

His hawkish ways devoid of compassion for

Those standing on the head of a pin

For want of balance

This binary code world

Calculating risk and profit, wired for failure

For want of success

Bellowing bureaucrats, liars

Beguiling weary souls bereft of wonder

For want of justice

Falling angels, grace abandoned,

Spiral into abysmal longing

For want of wings

Forget compassion’s failure.

Be present only to this moment

October Theme… Falling

The universal theme of a falling dream …

Do I wake in terror unwilling to face the outcome?

Do I persevere and see where I will land?

Do I breakthrough to another theme of flying?

Excerpt from ” Cutting the Clouds, a bayou mystic’s poems, musings and imaginings:”

The Head of a Pin

Standing on the head of a pin

Waiting for the wind to

Send me into the abyss.

I miss those days when

Caring meant sharing love,

Not spending it like coins

Slammed into a slot

On a wish and a prayer.

Not knowing when or if

The investment will see a return.

My concern

Is not for you

Or even about you

But without you

How will I remember

While standing on this pin,

How to trust again?

Only a fool forgets the wind.

A bigger fool still,

Forgets she has wings to fly.

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