Dead Wood

Frost lingers at the fringes

spoils spring’s potential fruit.

Trees lost through the night

lie dormant, become other

beneath blunt blades

the axe hacks

slices still air

splits open winter

cuts deep into dead wood.

Hope splinters into dust

upon frost firm ground

waits to blend

with forgiving mud

the primordial soup

that waits to feed

the seed yet unborn.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott

She Stands

Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash

Streaks of light through cloud
wrap ‘round her curved form
as she stands arms entwined
with others. A living fence of flesh
seems fragile, ready to give
way to force and yet
they still stand.

She stands waiting not willing
any longer to wait for what is hers
for what is theirs.
One half of the race denied.
No more!

She stands so the woman
next to her can have a choice
can have a voice. She stands
so her daughter can scale
the walls, can dissolve
ceilings of glass. She stands
so her granddaughter can demand
what is hers and be heard.

She stands and her feet grow roots
reach through concrete
push down into dark, moist earth.
Her roots deep
become entwined with others.

Sturdy now, she reaches
out and up towards sky
towards a new day when
light breaks through gray
through barriers
through time and everything
becomes as earth in spring.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott

This week I wanted to write about spring, but all this craziness, especially in the U.S., over trying to control women is getting to me. So I offer "She Stands" for all the women, especially those out there making a difference, making a better world and for the first day of spring and the new beginnings it represents.

For dVerse Poet's Pub Open Link Night.

Stranded By the Side of the Road & A Mother's Love

Stranded By the Side of the Road
 

Humvee rattles bones

shakes out seeds
of this once
ripe
fruit.

© 2010 Joanne Elliott

A Mother’s Love

The path strewn

with rotten fruit

of your womb

maddens your mind

tears open the wound

that was your heart

binds you to the moon

and to Her upon it

who stands barefoot

above the desert

waiting.


© 2010 Joanne Elliott

Becoming the Rose

I wait in silence, unknown, becoming.
I awaken to myself as leaf turns to bud.
Greening, I am sun, earth, sky, rain.
I am the secret untold;
I live in the blood red heart.

I come forth in Eros,
in the bursting of life I bleed,
I live; I am born on my way to death
to be born again.

The rose unfurls
and beauty comes to bear
upon this world.
My heart, rose red, opens.
The light enters as petals splay and spin out.
The Divine enters the world,
a red rose enraptured.

I am the rose; open to the Beloved,
my fragrance is my answer to His call.
Where do my petals end and my perfume begin?
Where do I end and my Beloved begin?
In the rose we are one.
In my heart the rose lives and dies and lives again.

I am the rose, my heart transformed.
Blood red my heart beats as each petal falls
to feed the seed in the dark earth.
I am the rose, forever.

© 2011 Joanne Elliott

This poem grew out of my love for the texts in what is called The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Normandi Ellis' liberal translations of these are the most poetic and can be found in a book called "Awakening Osiris."  There are many texts that are about becoming, Becoming the Swallow, Becoming the Hawk, etc. The way Normandi translates them also makes me think of Whitman's way of writing. I wonder if he was an influence. The interesting part is that he was influenced by the Ancient Egyptians, he studied as much as he could about them.
The symbol of the rose is very important to me and my spiritual path. It is also a very important symbol in earthly love. So today, on this day of love, I dedicate this poem to the love of my life, Charles.

A Ship in a Bottle, the Return of the Light

A tiny ship alone on a shelf finds itself
once again born from shadow’s
memory of a time where his hands

longed to reach up hold this miracle
a ship in a bottle forever encased
with masts raised in the night

under a dusty desk lamp.
Rough hands made tender by delicate
placements in glass.

On the floor with clunky wood trucks
and trains he was silenced
by the weight of the moment

when masts were raised
gently tugged by a thread
between thick fingers.

Then slowly the ship set sail
in his imagination
and in his hands now rests.

Hands smooth and used to
keeping books, not sails and ropes
and nets, holds this treasure.

The sun begins to move up. Within
that tiny glass bottle his heart rides
the waves, feels the wind

knows him who now sails the seas
outside time and memory. Stares into
early morning rays. Remembers

harrowing tales of ghost ships
and crushed limbs. Becomes
lost in the swells lit with the light

returning to the dark ocean waters
shining on the early morning calm
bringing him back from the storm.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott

To Dream of Crows

Colm Meaney asks why we are not on the beach.

Our companion says there are too many crows.

Colm says it doesn’t matter; they are coming down

like the rest of us.

I wake to a myriad of caws as crows sweep the morning sky.

My companion does not hear them for he speaks online

about the world and how it will end in a blanket of smoke

with bodies burnt but unpicked by fallen crows.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott

Sky Canvas

Morning reaches out of darkness
hovers on the horizon
graces sky with light.

In that moment I am the dawn
that breaks open night.

Sky a blush of pink
streaked clouds burned onto
pale gray canvas.

Shades of color blend
light bends and shoots
between crooked evergreens.

In that moment I am the sun
etched on eternity.

Then the giant glides higher
becomes too bright
for mere mortal spheres.

© 2012 Joanne Elliott