Oncoming, Ongoing

I don’t know how I swallowed the myth
that life would ease with age, itself,
the oncoming traffic of debts
and obligations never slows; in fact
it seems sped up as we work at carving
out time away to regain sanity lost
in forgetting that all is illusion;
still, the gift of distance allows us
to recapture tender moments that now seem
luxurious in the face of ongoing fatigue;

Meanwhile the lens of memory narrows
until I can view naught but the carefree,
the careworn falling away into mist,
an idyllic life in the woods on a lake
and the ability to shut the world out
once I turned down that dirt road;
the young mother I was then, growing up
alongside my girls as I watched
them pull away into worlds and circles
of their own, bit by bit, until college
conveyed them to a distant shore
for the remainder, running headlong
into partners and jobs and college debt
as their own pirouettes began turning
in the dance of independent creation;

Now I find my own rhythms in gardens
or creating art, meditation in motion,
an outlet for emotion; still I ponder
escape, a prisoner in Paradise, even
as the fount of gratitude fills
back to overflowing and imagining
a better life anywhere else dissolves,
the image shattering, the tinkling glass
falling in shards around my feet
as I pick up the fragments of my future
to compose them into a mosaic
for visions yet to be apprehended.

Cosmos

The world cries out for Mother;
fast food and high heels can
never get us back to hands
in earth, in soil, rich firmament
above, dark umber below; heads
in a clear azure sky and feet
on the goodness of ground;

On the ground we may feel,
can sense a pulsing heartbeat,
the oneness with all; there is
no disconnection, sky from soil,
tree from root, sentient beings
one from another, we all crave
nurture, a lasting sustenance;

We may do others a disservice
when expecting them to stand in
for the Elements, arms seem to
come up empty every time; people
leave our lives, everything changes,
so much loss and toward what end?

Meanwhile as long as we draw each
necessary breath, this dependence
automatic, the Sacred awaits our
intentional participation
in this ecstatic cosmic dance.

All photos ©2019, Bela Johnson

Hold Fast

Hold onto the preciousness of this day, squeeze it
until dawn breaks, fanning out like silvery wings
of a hawk circling overhead, spreading a watercolor
morning across misty skies, eggs cracked into creamy
melted butter in a hot silvery pan;

Hold fast, wind sweeping across undulating fields,
cracking dead limbs from ancient trees, ruffling
whitecaps in this ever-changing oceanic landscape;

Drop anchor, stay awhile with the presence,
the in-draw of breath, the outflowing currents
of busy-ness, postulations, abstractions, suspicions
cast away now, before they clinch and claw
at the treasured peace of bliss held in the moment,
for this, as we make it, this intentional pause
stretches into constellations of ticking time;
We can choose. This is our life.

The Frequency of Home

Perfect timing is universally ordained,
though once I did not believe it so;
perfection was something I could attain
with enough effort, enough input,
by simply and assiduously being Enough
for everyone and for all time;

Then the learning began.

Years of silence, accustoming myself
to feeling the rhythms inside that synced
with the beat of Mother Earth’s pulse;
the drumbeat rolls coming not from others,
who could never fully be satiated anyway,
but welling up from within, unbidden;
swelling and coursing through my vascular
system, cleansed upon every intentional
breath by the ever-vigilant center
of being, my trustworthy heart;

Then it was discernment, and this only years
later after the chaos and struggle had died
down with those umbilical separations, mother
from child, and then, mother from child
again and anon, the multilayered garments
cast off, shell by shell of the crusty cricket
chirping in my head, humming, droning,
dropping steady pools of grievous tears until,
beyond comprehension, my eyes glistened
with clarity, no longer the weeping, wailing guilt
of my own lost youth revisited, as it seemed
in these fragile partings;

I wonder at the endless capacity of women
to mother others, long after progeny
have vanished from our everyday view;
perhaps it was this closeness, this bond
I wished somehow to recreate with those
let into my private sanctuary; and it sounds
as though I knew at the time the quantity
and quality of those who breached the gates,
but I did not; and time and again, life shook me
down and down, human fallibility rearing
its maned visage, facing off, facing down
until I had no choice but to retreat, once again,
into solitary until, with yet more experience,
I began to harvest grain from the chaff,
carefully weeding out if not disavowing myself
entirely of the very species I had come
into this life to embrace;

Nobody said it would be easy.
No one said it would be this hard, or take
this long, or try my sanity so arduously.
What price, maturity? At what cost comes peace
of mind? And yet it arrives in proper measure,
day by day, moment by moment, in the silent
interstices between thoughts, words,
and the inevitable vicissitudes of existence.

Cascade #writephoto

A cat crouches low in the shadows
of the rectory, and it has been long since
I have been in the company of cats; dogs
sprawl lazily outside monolithic stone walls
while snakes coil under rocks and birds light
gently from branch to branch;

The sun rises, sets, rises again without
forethought or trepidation, simply and solely
to beam golden warming rays upon bodies
spinning within its orbit, conjoined with life
as life is with itself;

Like our own existence, creation
of a physical universe is comprised of flow
and ebb, light and dark; while we clip
and prune neatly manicured gardens
and lay flagstone pathways to enforce
our human imprint, animals being
the mitigating factor between a world
of nonresistance and us with a will
to manipulate all we behold, if only
to flex our considerable creativity;

And so we seek safety, a cup of tea,
a fire to warm quaking limbs, the kindness
of friends or strangers, connections sought
causing ripples in the fabric, influencing
events that cascade, regardless of intention.

All photos ©Bela Johnson

Written in response to Sue Vincent’s Thursday photo prompt

 

Mother

Waves lap at my feet as I stare down sunset,
myself a fixed object on the shore, bringing
to mind reclamation, our oceanic mother
calling me back and through time, sloughing
off my scales, crawling onto the sand
to admire her from another angle; perhaps
only this, in the end, shall redeem me;

At the very least, I know my place now,
fragile feelers in a complex web
of interconnection, taking time at last
to resonate, cell to cell, with the vast
and shifting body of my origins.

All photos ©Bela Johnson

Common Ground

I go down burrowing, a badger unearthing
for the sake of it, a sort of mining known only
to the creature and sometimes the human heart,
the latter less willing to surrender its complexities;

On the surface doves appear to assert territoriality,
the movement stitched to their DNA, do the dance,
wings loosen, shrug and sidle as feathers ruff out;
the pup tracks likewise, older now, more apt to
shake it free than to assert his alpha dominance,
respecting, as may be, the gods that surround him;

Scanning the horizon, a single humpback breaches
fully out of water, distant upright dirigible crashing
again and again, only to propel itself upright nearly
a dozen times before it submerges; sated, it seems,
for the time being;

Sublime teachers all, critters of which we are kin,
bipedal human animals preferring drama over quanta,
emotions, life in the head lands; yet tune in silently
and there you are, come back to the earth, bosom
of creation, return to the senses and simply be.

all photos ©Bela Johnson

All One

Time slips by, a wisp, a wrinkle,
and soon we are dust, unremarkable,
insignificant; as one, at long last,
with the beauty that surrounds us.

 

Waialea Bay

Old Kiawe, Waialea

Sunset, Kohala Coast

Kohala Coastline Mauka View

 

All photos ©Bela Johnson

What Has Been

This post is entitled appropriately as my ode to 2018. 2019 seems downright revved up, as we begin with the first dry weather we’ve had in some time. And the energy to clear up what was muddled most of last year! Aloha, All:::

Rain streams now in sheets, curtains sweeping,
drumming over metal rooftops, drawing me out
of slumber, winking like a mole as I snap
on the light, settle onto the spare bed
and begin to write, for there will be no sleep
in this sudden pitch of restlessness;

The waters of an uneasy spirit are drawn down
from overhead clouds masking what can only
be known when night filters out distractions
of the day; too much chaos, obligatory
conversations, automatic responses triggered
by years of people pleasing, dishonoring
my own deep need for less of everything;

And how could I have known this was
a requirement for sanity in glaring headlamps
of the world’s demands, as if Creation itself
could not possibly move forward without
my constant input;

Ironies abound as ends have overtaken means,
while the stark realization that life goes on
with or without me is finally the liberation
sought all along, freedom arriving,
at along last, unfettered and perpetual.

Waning light, Kailua-Kona

Around the bend, Kailua-Kona

Nishimura Bay view, Kohala

Lucy ponders the end of another year

All photos ©2019, Bela Johnson

Flux

I never wanted famous, though it was proffered
more than once; did not want to grow up
in public, recorded on the cortices of admirers,
on film or stage, no; talent may, through its
own merits, ease its way into hearts to pause
or to remain;

In the shadows or in the streaming blue daylight
I have roamed, senses piqued, attentive, bright-
eyed bird or a conger eel poking tentatively
in and out of its rocky burrow, seeking connection,
but then again wanting nothing so much
as to be left solitary, only the rushing sound
of waves overlapping, shards of sunlight slicing
through the columnar clusters of its coral cave;

In the balance it was nature that saved me,
shaking me down, down, until, touching bottom,
I was free to surface or submerge at will, no fear
of falling nor of what lay in the abyss,
no admonitions from trees or stars; skies did
not loom nor threaten, only sheltered, protected
whether blue or grey; in shrill winds or basking
crystalline stillness it was the same endless
continuum of something grace granted to explore,
within or without that strange flux, perpetual
motion drawing me into its rocking loose embrace,
lulling me, as if for the first time,
into contentedness in or out of the depths.

Puget Sound ferry

Mauna Loa pu’u

Kohala taro patch stream

Mauna Kea

Koa forest, Kohala

All photos©Bela Johnson