Our Heart Our Mother (For Our Lady or Notre Dame)

Photo by bogitw on pixabay

Our Lady of Paris, icon and soul of a city

we believe we’ll always have.

Flames flicker across screens, across borders

across religions and as always

you are full of grace as nearly a thousand years

of prayers are released.

Smoke rises and lingers over this moment

like incense awaiting more requests.

You were here before cathedrals rose in the

river of our imagination.

You were here before rose windows and spires

that reached into sky.

And still, you are here. You are here, always

our heart, our mother.

© April 15, 2019 Joanne Young Elliott

The Offering

Photo by Free-Photos on pixabay

I gaze into the distance,

beyond palm fronds waving in the warm breeze

beyond the valley floor covered in smog

beyond even the mountains

rising in the distance,

snowcapped and cold

beyond the day and night of it

beyond earth and sky

beyond the moon, the sun, the stars

beyond swirling galaxies and the mystery

of imploding and exploding stars,

dust most brilliant.

Beyond all this,

I realize the offering is

me

you

us

this

and with every breath I serve.

© 2019 Joanne Young Elliott

Butterfly, Butterfly

Photo by OlinEJ on pixabay

Before me you flutter by.

Again and again I see you.

In a blur of painted wings

and spring energy you rise.

It is as if by magic you have

multiplied, become millions

hovering over the land that has

become sun once again.

Weeks upon weeks of rain

have nourished broken ground,

brought forth wild blooms.

Deserted land has risen in

bouquets of petals and wings.

I turn and turn in fields of

flowers as I walk down the

street in a dream of butterflies.

©2019 Joanne Young Elliott

The Song of Imbolc

The finch sings his song of longing

from the balcony lamp.

Every end note drops like the rain

upon the sheltering canopy.

The wind renders tree branches unstable

and so he sings and sings from his brass stage,

breaks into the cacophony of gusts and pelting rain.

A solo for Mother Earth’s awakening.

©2019 Joanne Young Elliott