A Communion of Candles

 

No power for eight days,
and now I feel a joyful anticipation,
-something chthonic, something about fire and light-
each night as I sit at the table,
two candles lit.
They give just enough light
so the vast darkness around us
is not spoiled, not violated
with endless, voracious glow.
Just these two halos of light,
wax carefully dripped to hold them,
burning each night to maybe an inch of their height.
My pen feels quieter here, the words flow
as though a pipeline direct to the Universe,
as though the waters of life power through my pen.
I've finished two candles today,
small blue stubs, wax drippings hardened,
but I can't throw them away,
as though those words that flowed from their warm lights
through the ink of my pen
leave traces still sounding in the ethers,
recorded in small lights.

 Annelinde Metzner

October 5, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty Saro

 

 

"Down in some lone valley, in a lonesome place....."

These Appalachian mountains drew me in,
irresistibly enticed me like Calypso calling to Odysseus,
magnetized me before I ever knew it.
I was drawn here to this powerful feminine vortex,
spinning us all inward into creativity,
and a type of madness.
Oh, bring it on!
I knew, in my thirties,
somehow these mountains were giving me that,
giving me the green light,
the giant "YES!" to the new, the creative, the visionary.
I was nurtured in the lap of the Great Mother,
Grandmother Mountain spilling out Her generous strength,
as She has done through millennia.
And yes, we are still here.
Perhaps the wind and the rain are Grandmother's doing,
noticing the dust on the table, deciding to clean it up.
Perhaps this exquisite newness, the painter's palette,
the untuned string,
opened to me as they have to other beings
for thousands and thousands of years.

"Where the wild birds do whistle and their notes do increase...." 
(from the old mountain ballad, "Pretty Saro") 

Annelinde Metzner

October 3, 2024

Here in my beloved Appalachian Mountains, all we beings have experienced the devastation of Hurricane Helene on September 27, 2024.  Many poems have poured from me since then, undoubtedly arising from the ancient soul connection the Mountains have given me.

Rhododendrons at Craggy Gardens