Releasing the Green Dragon

Releasing the Green Dragon

Felis (Wild Cat)

We take your wildness
into our home
our civilized life,
attempt to domesticate you.

Yet our eyes are drawn
to your cousins
larger than our life
as they prowl
through documentaries.
Find ourselves mesmerized
by shoulder blades
fluid under fur.

You drape yourselves
over our desks
tails tapping keyboards
eyes sleepy
yet aware
you watch…

our rush in and out
a bite to eat
in front of a flickering
screen
our silent
screams.

Your wild eyes
capture our slink
as we sift through life
wanting
needing
consuming.

We don’t see
our own mouths
fall open
muscles tense
backs ripple
ready
for the next
kill.

© 2009 Joanne Elliott

Forever

A poem I wrote before I met my husband. It seemed to be call out for a soulmate and I found him in 1998. I married him 10 years ago on July 4.

Crash upon the rocks
of my shore
like an ocean’s
rising
tide.

Forever charge
into fires
long buried
in the bedrock
of time.

Be the one dancing
the forgotten memory
fanning the flame
to infinite fire.

Worship my being
so that I may learn to love
the divine that resides
inside my soul.

Beams may spread over
a satin silken sky
never setting fire
to eternal darkness
but your light
your light will
burn through the ebony
of my starless night.

©1997 Joanne Elliott

For Steve (January 26, 1947 – November 6, 2009)

My wedding anniversary is tomorrow, July 4th. I want to thank someone who is no longer with us in person who made a great contribution by taking photos of our wedding ceremony. The official photography didn't turn out to well and Steve, a doctor of epidemiology, unknowingly became the official photographer.

Blinded by technique
planned photography failed.
Meaning not seen, not captured
left us with only memories
fading fast as footprints
beneath the tide.

You took up the task.
A natural with the camera
unasked you framed friends
family, the interplay of lives
against sky, sea, surf,
sand crystals in sunlight.

Your eye trained to see microbes
could discern the details of life
see miracles unfolding beneath
the veneer of motion,
the flow of bodies and water
on sand under sky,
the intensity of light
refracted and reflected,
events fleeting on into
the fog of memory.

Time moves everything.

Thank you for those eyes
that could save lives, that also
saved moments of life.
For you saw us that day
as our hearts would recall.
You saw beyond color and light
beyond shadow and form
deep into the molecules
of meaning
you travelled
and travel, still.

©2010 Joanne Elliott

May You Never Thirst

We are mostly water walking
encased in a thin membrane of skin.

Drawn to our like, most of us live
at the edge of wind-rippled surfaces

bodies of water lapping land
cooling air, slaking dreams as we

pour ourselves into their being
pour their being into ourselves.

No wonder this land of ravaged rivers
now mostly dry beds of concrete

repels

does not quench the longing
for the porous land

filled to brimming with life.
I never thirsted as I do now

watching the narrow trickle
upon the heated concrete

evaporate before it can reach
the ocean, before it can return.

©2011 Joanne Elliott

Ancient

Ancient stones of ancient fire
call to my heart
filled with ancient desire.
Circles once danced
we dance again
charging to life
the desire within.
Slowly it turns
slowly it burns
stone returns to fire and then
the heart memory sends
all stories raging in time
to the one now
collective mind.

©2008 Joanne Elliott

Dust In Beams of Life

Dust speaks.
Dreams of mingling in mist
like an endless wave of
blood moved by the beat of
drums. Language that vibrates
in shadow.

At the center
eternity hovers like wind
in the tremble of wings.
Earth its metaphor
(shape now released)
exists everywhere.

© 2002 Joanne Elliott