Friday, March 25, 2016

The Egg








The egg, elliptical, luminous, whole,
separate, indivisible, complete,
nexus of life, invisible, unspoken,
unnamable ancestral pearl of power,
chosen one: you are my pride, my treasure.
I nurture and guard you with all my life,
a green dragon whose jewel lies hidden
in the humming recesses of her dark-red cave.
I share you with the mammals, and the fish too,
the birds, amphibians, insects, snakes:
our common inheritance, our common being.
All of us, whether we fly or swim,
trot, slither or leap beyond our height,
we all love you the same, and commend you
with lifetimes of attention and lavished care.
There are others, too, ferns and firs,
and maybe fruits, too, our cousins
guarded within the muscled trunks
of our rooted green sisters who grow in the Earth.
There they pull from the black nutrition
the crystals of power, the amino molecules,
fuel from which you radiate light
in fruit, in flower, in ovule, in shell.
I feel you well, with every moon,
through thirteen moons in every year.
You arise and make yourself plain,
crown jewel in the parade of our homeland,
flowering, intoxicating, odoriferous, fecund,
temple priestess of life everlasting
in burgundy velvet, concealing and beckoning.
It is easy, and not easy, to court you, egg,
and find you whole, enthroned in all life,
at once at the center and imminent in all things.
It is easy, and yet to properly seek you,
one must have peace, and presence, and life,
abundant life, and love without question
that leaps into the future, many times ones own height.
I bought a dozen of you today,
to boil you and color you, an essence, a symbol,
a ritual item more real than words
and you’re everywhere, among baskets and bunnies,
colored and white, foam and fluff,
and children’s hands under the bushes.
It is Eostar, your long-ago day
when Russian mothers baked you into bread,
and Czech mothers painted you for hours,
and my own ancestors walked for miles
to gather you one by one from afar,
all of us looking to the reborn world,
the flyers, the creepers, the unfathomable sea-swimmers.
These eggs are ours, our hours, our years,
the perfect pearl of our lives.


Annelinde Metzner
March 19, 1989














Tuesday, March 1, 2016

The Peace Choir




Some of the members of Sahara Peace Choir



Sing, O heavens, shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!    Isaiah 44:23



The women come to sing.
In the cold and icy dark, we gather
to rehearse the songs of peace.

“I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield...”

Putting aside aches and pains, and serious ills,
we come to sing with that wee bit of faith,
that last urge somewhere hidden deep in the heart.

“Oh, if I could ring like a bell...”

The great Black Dome, the great mountain
hears them coming, the mountain heart leaping.

“a song of peace, for their land, and for mine...”

until we arrive, there at Black Dome’s feet,
to open our mouths and hearts for Her love,
leaving our homes with all our annoyances,
to sing, to wail, to cry out
for the world we can see, within reach.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who publish peace.  Isaiah 52:7



Annelinde Metzner      

April 10, 2010


 In 2008 my friend Roberta Newman asked me to start a new choir to sing for a program sponsored by the Friendship Force to bring together Christians, Jews and Muslims on a trip to their common Holy Land.  I had made arrangements of music from all three religious cultures as a way to bring them together in spirit.  We've been singing these songs ever since, including many songs that help nourish the human spirit and honor women of all world cultures.
      I wrote this poem for our yearly concert for International Women's Day, which we will give this year on March 12th.  We will be at Ten Thousand Villages in Montreat, where I can feel the strong vibes of Mount Mitchell (known to the Cherokee as "Black Dome,") highest point in the East, very nearby.
     I quote a number of Bible passages, in italics, as well as some of our song lyrics, to give this poem my wholistic vision of what our concerts are like.





Sahara 2014





Sahara 2010




Singers on the water