Being With What Is

Sun rays through the mists

I worried for months.
I couldn’t sleep.
I trusted no one.
I lived in fear.
And here today, this green,
the last green of September against the deep blue,
I am here, just here,
being with all that is.
Looking up, I love the leaves of the hazel,
the sourwood already going bare.
In all my loving,
I often forget
how much they are loving me!
My bare feet crunch in the new-fallen crackle
of brownness,
the ash leaves dropping like happy kids,
crying “Watch me!  Watch me!”
The tree frogs clickety-clack,
the chickadees hanging upside down
on the sourwood branches.
And here today, the breeze on my neck,
the green breathtaking as ever,
I am just here,
my feet on the Earth,
just me,
being with what is.

Annelinde Metzner
September 6, 2010
Light Center Labyrinth

Listen to Annelinde reading "Being With What Is:"

Black-eyes Susans

Slightest turning

Milkweed

Milkweed pods

Milkweed    
                    
September in this magic, open meadow- Milkweed pods!
Full and fat, ready to burst
     into their feathery seeds and float away.
"Welcome" to even more beauty,
     the noble Monarch butterfly,
     who needs the pods so dearly.
It's only September, feels like summer.
     Bees float voluptuously from aster to aster
     in this magic meadow.
I hear, "Welcome, daughter,"
     
as breeze bends milkweed stems.
The Sacred Mound reminds me to walk in beauty.
Truly these are all my relations!
The familiar scent of wild strawberries.
Goldenrod mimicking the Sun.
That persistent sound, ephemeral,
     like a tender tap on my shoulder
     from that place in the woods.
My spirit sings with this connectedness,
     my family, my joy.

Annelinde Metzner
September 21, 2018
Sacred Mound  

Monarch who posed for my camera

Asters

  

Golden rod

 

Grandmother, September of 2018

She's Still There

Grandmother in the blooming rhododendrons

Poison ivy blisters our legs,
bugs get in our eyes, under our tongues,
it rains on our best notebooks,
it’s too hot-
and all the while,
even as we scratch and slap and spit,
Grandmother lies face up in the sky sun,
arms spread in the daisies
and the blood-red myrtles,
nose in the clouds,
inhaling and exhaling our lives,
breathing our lives throughout the millennia,
infusing stone with the spark of stars,
singing mystery into the hollow spaces
where the thousand things
daily vanish.

Annelinde Metzner
July 1, 1994



Recently at a retreat at Wildacres, I reviewed my many years of poetry composition and came across this one, one of my first "love songs" for Grandmother Mountain, known popularly as Grandfather, whom I experience as an ancient, wise, feminine presence, grounding and offering energy to the Earth with Her arms outspread.

Grandmother's View of the world

Daisies

Wreathe of abundance at St. Mary of the Hills

Grandmother in Her glory from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Incredible, Edible Todmorden

Garden in Todmorden, UK

“The industrial revolution came... and went.”
Thus begins the story of Todmorden, England, 
the little town that could.
Food grows free for the picking, everywhere,
at the police station, the fire house, 
the schools.
Yum, yum!  Fresh and free, 
festivals and street fairs,
recipes traded from around the world.
All grown here or right nearby.
“Everyone’s got to eat,” they say, 
and so they do!
“The time to act is now.”
Creating a world truly nourishing, 
for their children,for us all.
Food production begins 
in the garden of every school,
vegetables, chickens and fruit trees.
“The joy of connecting people is fabulous.”
Training the young people to grow food 
and market it,
small sustainable jobs 
where despair and depression had been.
In every nook and cranny, an apple tree.
“Go ahead, take some, it’s free!”
Poultry raising, bee keeping, dairy.
“You just have to give a damn about tomorrow.”
Dear little Todmorden, 
voting for life with all your being,
keep those three plates spinning in the air!

(The foundation of the philosophy of Incredible Edible Todmorden, England, is to keep these three plates in the air: community, education,  and business.)

Annelinde Metzner
November 4, 2012

   This poem about Todmorden has been selected to appear in the 2019 We'Moon Datebook!  Thanks We'Moon!

You can see lots more that is currently happening in Todmorden at this link.