Poetry :: The One

At this time of the Summer Solstice that the sunlight begins to slowly decrease in our days, I am reminded of this poem I wrote for my dear friend, past roommate, and soul sister who is devoting her life to the study of solar technology. Her dedication inspires me. 

I wrote this poem right after we first moved in and she was on our local community radio station taking about the Solar Home Tour she organized. 

---

The One

Every day we see the light.

Few have the knowledge

to capture it, contain

the life power of a distant star

before night, its absence, arrives.

Some revel in the darkness,

the cool blanket of overall shade

and the unknowingness of objects

even in proximity.

But I am like those others

who honor the gift of morning

and even in my package of pale

skin that needs protection,

I soak in rays of the one

and wonder how long

we can take our

God for granted.

Poetry :: Reinventing Valentine

Reinventing Valentine

I thought my heart

was something

I’d have to stuff

through a straw.

With fists

clenched

to my lips,

my breath

projects this wad

past air like an arrow,

clean and deadly.

But  my heart is

actually

in my hands:

a thousand paper

petals waiting

to be released

into the sun.

What a delicate,

dry trickle,

I think,

     admiring

each

      tiny

            dance

how beautiful,

            how alive

Nyssa  Rhiannon Hanger, As Light Ascends, Beauty is Beauty Press, 2012

Poetry :: The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew 
what you had to do, and began, 
though the voices around you 
kept shouting 
their bad advice-
though the whole house 
began to tremble 
and you felt the old tug 
at your ankles. 
"Mend my life!" 
each voice cried. 
But you didn't stop. 
You knew what you had to do, 
though the wind pried 
with its stiff fingers 
at the very foundations, though their melancholy 
was terrible. 
It was already late 
enough, and a wild night, 
and the road full of fallen branches and stones. 
but little by little, 
as you left their voices behind, 
the stars began to burn 
through the sheets of clouds, 
and there was a new voice 
which you slowly 
recognized as your own, 
that kept you company 
as you strode deeper and deeper 
into the world, 
determined to do 
the only thing you could do-
determined to save 
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.

Day 75: A Beautiful Day

It has been pretty dreary the past few days that I am ecstatic to see blue skies again. There is nothing I love more than green trees with the bright blue sky behind it. Below is the view from my room at the office that I am getting to enjoy while doing computer work.

In fact, I love sites like this so much, I even wrote a poem about it years ago. It will be appearing in my upcoming chapbook,

As Light Ascends

, from

Beauty is Beauty Press

. Here's a preview:

Messages from the Sky

There is something to say

The view from my office window today

...makes work seem less like work somehow

about the contrast of colors

that occurs with sky and trees–

how that buoyant blue

is somehow made brighter

behind branches bursting

with green so graciously. 

Same with the shadowed

egg-shell shade of clouds

that slides with ease of water,

and the airplane in the distance,

disguised as a diamond

perched among peach petals

gently cascading on some

celestial scenery.

Above these sky-scenes

Heaven is sure to prove its transparency;

but from this terrestrial position

the impression is a perpetual fluctuation

between Eden and perfection.