More poetry…

I’m giving them away, I know it. Instead of saving them up for some bigger purpose, I let them trickle through my fingers like sand. Time passes so quickly, and these are only words. Why not say them now.

Sub Zero

The fridge trickles and pops,
the ice maker oblivious to the deep freeze
outside, and our growing thirst 
for wine, and flames.
The lake is thick skinned with ice.
Like our winterizing bodies layered in
blankets, Fazl socks, and comfort foods,
water is a memory of itself,
a dream of what comes next.
We have done this before, hunkered down
in tired horizons when darkness comes.
We will wait it out,
try not to think about
four season sleeping bags
or Fentanyl
or our saviour complex.
On a night like this
our hands are empty. We need
mercy. We all need mercy.

LAE2016

 

Enough

You come to conclusions
like you know
the end from the beginning 
have the verdict from the judge,
are a presiding member
of an end-times jury.
You call it child abuse,
and murder – you are
a character assassin,
your slogans a series
of slicing pronouncements resulting in
curbside fatalities, pedestrian
bleed out. 

He was silent
and then he said, let you
who has no sin cast the first stone,
let you who has no sin.

I try to look away but see
you are an elder, with a time worn face
and commitment to a particular flavour faith.
I see sandwich boards and signs,
team huddles on your gang turf
railing against the other side
where girls walk, drive, and ride
a gauntlet to the clinic.
I imagine they have tried
to find another way through tears
and bargained prayers, lost sleep,
arrival at a cross-road and
a choice. This.
And you choose. That.

I drive by. Each Tuesday.
I want to drive through… my over-righteous
indignation, then I am ashamed
I am not blameless, yet I blame.
I once shared your state of mind.
No longer sure, I am witness while I drive by,
every Tuesday, before 9.

He was silent, finger marking dirt
with what…a symbol of his throne?
And then he said, let you
who is without sin cast a stone,
and the righteous weaponed ones all left.
And only he and she remained.
Neither do I condemn you, proclaimed the voice
of overcoming Love.

How then does it end,
me judging you judging them?
(apart from any conversation about sin
which I am clearly choosing not to enter in
because it is bigger than I can entertain.)
My commentary though cathartic is just the same
as you. This is how we cancel love. Enough.
Enough. Enough. Enough.
Dear God forgive me I have said enough.
Forgive me for what I do not do,
and what I do, not knowing.

LAE2016

A year in review

It’s interesting when I reflect on things, how I feel that I stray far from my original intentions, yet in reality, I orbit around a thought or a thread of one, and come back to it time and time again. Such, I think, is the case with ‘Buddy Breathing,’ the blog and the concept.

When I think of what inspired ‘Buddy Breathing,’ it was for a large part, my friend Art Suke. Art is in the DNA of this place, and never far from thought when I hear of others who have battled ALS and lost valiantly, as he did. There was another battle lost last week. Another man cut down in his prime. Another celebration of a life. It still sucks as much now as it did then.

Still, there were specific ideas percolating in my mind last January when I posted my very first inspirations here, and some of them have flitted away into the recesses of my mind, while others are coming front and centre again. I consider how I have cast my nets in many different directions, and how God has brought me many good things.

Art is gone, and he won’t be back this side of heaven. He remains part of us. Like the other day when Bob and I were talking about a certain situation and I remembered Art saying, “Take the high road,” even though he’d never tell anyone he was taking that particular route. He just chose it. Spoke well of people. Thought well of people. Kept his expectations of people within limits. He taught me things. He questioned my thinking. He is still here, impacting, in so many ways.

I’ve been asked to speak at an upcoming Okanagan Express, about how my writing, poetry specifically, aids in the process of healing and wholeness in my life. So, immediately I began reflecting on how I walked through the final year of Art’s illness by doing just that… writing. Many poems were birthed on the way to or from Hospice, and even though writing was part of my life long before the complex experience of losing Art, it blossomed into something bigger, deeper, and more meaningful during the time of his illness and death. Publishing a collection of stories for Art was the seed for the first ‘Buddy Breathing’, another experience in giving and receiving words of hope. Landmarks, such as my poem, ‘Scotch Mints’ being published in UBCO Lake Journal, were because the depth of my journey somehow magnified my words into something more. Something that resonated with others.

And without getting into the details of what I’ll be presenting on March 17th at the Bohemian Bagel, I’ll be trying to summarize all that has happened in my life since I first discovered the power of creative expression. I’ll be trying to put into words the way that God has allowed, blessed, opened up, amplified, unearthed, worked out, this gift of poetry that continues to shape who I am. He continues to heal me and give me hope through this gift. And in thousands of other ways, God continues to give me exactly what I need. Hope for the moment. Hope enough. Breath by breath.

Thinking… (that’s nothing new!)

Peace,

Lesley-Anne

Related Articles

• Buddy Breathing 2010 in review (buddybreathing.wordpress.com)
• http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com/why-write/

Considering creativity…

Image via Wikipedia

What is the relationship between Creator, creation, and the act of creativity? Not pro-creation, in this case, but the art of creating objects of our desire. Be it a painting, or a sculpture, or a piece of music, or a home-made card, or a poem, what is the process that leads us to this place of desiring to create something of lasting value.

Why is it that when we learn to create (yes, some need to be taught how to do this), we feel entirely more whole, more well, more about what we are ‘supposed’ to be doing? Perhaps creativity is hard wired into each of us. I can’t help believing that it is. I’d like to believe that each of us, carrying the Divine fingerprint of God inside our souls from the moment we were conceived, also carry within us (to a much lesser degree, of course) his ability to create. And, through the art of creating, he draws us closer to him, allowing us to find fulfillment in what he made us to do from the start?

Now this is all supposition at this point, and I obviously need to do my do diligence, and back up what I am saying with some strong foundational truths, but, I’d just like you to consider this;

That we were created by a Creator with the inherent and uniquely human ability to carry on his creative work, in perpetuity, for the purposes of his and our pleasure, and the ultimate discovery that he is all in all.

Just wondering…

Lesley-Anne

Poetry Friday 001

I used to have a poetry blog called My Grace Notes, where I posted my poems along with interesting photographs by some of the creative photographers in my life. And, I used to have another blog called Sometimes Suicidal Mama that was about life… all writing. You can still visit both of them to have a look at the postings there.

After a year, I found it to be too much writing and too much time involved in keeping both blogs current. Now I have only one blog… this one… and it’s so much better. I do miss posting poetry though. And the photographs too.

So, today I’m posting a recent poem for the pure delight of expressing thoughts in this form. And a surreal and beautiful photograph by my brother, Joel Clements, who has a new a photography blog ‘Follow the Dust Cloud’. I hope you enjoy them all.

 

The complexity of being human

Good mousers can smell a trail
Long gone cold, and will
Persist with haunches quivering
Tail erect and short inhalations
More like snorts, noses
Pressed down into wet, mouldy tunnels
With enough memory of mouse to illicit
Pavlovian response and anticipation of
Warm bodies, scratching, scrambling chase, blood letting.

On the other hand, desire leads down rabbit trails of
Mysterious occurrences, confusion and disappointment
Forks of indecision where one trail leads to ecstasy
The other, a cold grave.
Blood-warmed bodies become comfortable in their skin
Numb. Complacency is a dead end trail.

Yet, sometimes, on a sleepy Sunday morning
With the house shifting and creaking and ticking a lullaby
Stirring possibility timidly presses its’ nose to the ground
In search of the scent that remains.

Lesley-Anne Evans
February 14, 2010