The bone drum

Peter Metzner

The bone drum                                                    

On my living room floor sits the Bone Drum.
One Christmas, long ago,
my bright flaming son Peter,
all of seventeen,
brought home this gift for me.
A slit drum of wood, meticulously carved
so that the rounded joints of the bone
play tones!  One side minor,
one side major, all interlocked,
drawing the player into a numinous soundscape
of warm, rounded maple.
In another room, in a small wooden box
are little bones, tiny pieces of bones
too big to burn in cremation’s fire,
all that’s left of my bright flaming son.
How this world is a mystery!
My bone drum speaks from my living room floor,
calling, calling,
saying, “Play me! I am not just pieces of maple,
polished and pretty.
I will carry you with my magic tones
beyond and beyond and beyond.”
My son’s bones sit in their tiny box, calling to me too.
“Fly, Mom, fly!  We are not just bones! 
We are so much more.
We rise like the Phoenix in orange and gold.
From this one tiny point, this bone, this life,
we expand, we dissolve into everything!
We are everywhere, Mom, do not forget,
Augra was right, I’m the drum, I’m the tree,
I’m the eyes of a child, I’m a doorway.”
Out of this amalgam of minerals and ash,
borne from the shape of bone and drum,
we fly, we fly, we sing!




Annelinde Metzner
November 16, 2012

The bone drum

Jubilation in Kenya

At 3 AM, I awake, remembering the day,
and turn on the radio.   Jubilation in Kenya!
Barack Obama has won again, in the USA,
Kogelo village’s own “greatest son.”
A night of dancing and ululation
has given way to a bright morning,
more dancing, more of this joy.
“He has the knowledge to love all people,”
says Mama Sarah Obama, the president’s step-grandma.
“He doesn’t have the knowledge of division.”
Sitting patiently together, watching the results come in,
the people lift their plastic chairs in rhythmic celebration.
“I am beyond joy!” says one.
“God chose Barack, it is his time,” says Mama Sarah.
“I had full faith and confidence he was going to win.”
Laughter and jubilation, confidence and joy.
Schools close for the day, a giant feast is planned.
“Obama cannot forget us.”


Annelinde Metzner
November 13, 2012

I cannot grasp Her power

Hurricane Sandy from satellite

Beneath us, quiet as it is, this power

links directly to my heart.

Fresh, cool, down in the layers,

the emerald, the sapphire:

the power of the mountains is with us, everywhere.

Today, as if posing for a portrait,

She is holding still, so still,

holding each branch forth with her immense grace,

available to us, almost shy.

The mountain, enshrouded today, is retreating in heavy fog,

head in the clouds, really.

She is seen, and She fades.  She is seen, and She fades.

As for me, I’m but a puppet, magnetized,

a whirling skater upon a mirror,

a slave to Her power.

Autumn and Winter, Spring and Summer,

pulling the Moon, and being pulled,

She turns so slowly, so beyond our ken,

each minute shift is an avalanche on Denali,

a hurricane in Cuba, a rock slide in Tennessee.

I cannot grasp Her power.

Now and then, a turn in the path, a change in the weather,

and I glimpse the mountain’s power, the ageless magnetism.

I feel Her pulling my eyelids down at night,

pinching me to leap for joy in the day...

but She is so far beyond me to know,

I am only here to witness, to glimpse and guess,

to be propelled through my life, a leaf on the wind,

at the mercy of Her grace.

Annelinde Metzner

Wildacres Retreat

October 29, 2009 

Grandfather Mountain in clouds

 

Autumn Samba

The bite of fresh compost,
sharp leaf mold in the wind.
Goodbye to the galax,
farewell to the creeper,
“Adios” to the chokecherry vines.
It’s the majestic farewell,
the queen’s farewell.
It’s delicious, it’s numinous, it’s forever!
This is the goodbye of no tears but the rain’s.
Goodbye as relaxed as Guernseys in the alfalfa,
as relaxed as three women in a hot tub.
It’s goodbye, never more be seen,
and it smells like Paris perfume.
It lifts the feet. It’s Fred Astaire.
It’s a lilting “adieux.” It’s bagpipes.
It’s all the cousins waving.
Orange, red, a fandango,
it’s forever, it’s the end,
and if you twirl and spin your way down,
you’ve got the idea.


Annelinde Metzner 
Phoenix Cove       
September 2001

VOTE

America has a choice, and it’s black and white.
No woman this time, for President,
(but our time is coming soon.)
Even so, who loves the Woman?
Whom do you choose?
Which of the men loves hierarchy,
     loves to be on top,
     must be the top,
     feels entitled to own the world,
     to govern women’s bodies?
(And we know the World and the Woman are the same.)
America has a choice, and it’s black and white.
Which of the men loves and respects Woman,
     seeks what we think,
     knows our bodies are ours to govern,
     expects us to own power, the world over,
     meets us on the World’s stage as equals?
Who will champion us to love whomever we will?
Who will let the soft side rule, let Woman rule,
     and allow Love and Community to return?
Who would rather align the world by rank, with him on top,
     sanctioned by the wrathful god,
     narrowing and narrowing our choices until we all choke?
America has a choice, and it’s black and white.




Annelinde Metzner
October 18, 2012

Holle

Holle

The hard wind tearing through the Nantahala Forest
is the big swift hand of Grandmother,
getting crumbs off the table, thoughtlessly,
readying for the next thing, washing clothes or serving soup.
In the hollow, under the cold wind, you are the crumb!
You may like it here, but you’re gone!
Loud and long the fierce winds howl through the deep forest.
She brushes Her hand, and ancient oaks crash, obedient to Her will.
The Rhododendron stands patient through eons and eons,
accustomed to the Grandmother’s whims.
Her brown and mossy stems meet and turn exquisitely,
solid, rooted, yet reaching for air,
a ballet on the brown forest floor.
Her leathery broad leaves are good for all winter,
each whorl of leaves a brilliant, fleeting thought.
They call this Rhododendron Hell:
Hell, Holle, the Holy, the One Who Lives Death.
Plants and animals die here, ecstatic
to feed Her, to become the next thing.
I, too, would die for Her, here at Her feet in the Nantahala Forest.
“Guten abend, guten Nacht,” sings Grandmother,
tucking me in as I dissolve into nutriment.
Here at Holle’s side, Her perfect whorls elegant,
I’d wash into dirt at the first icy rain, rejoin the family of all being,
sing the green songs of the ages.
Fierce winds tear through here, uprooting oaks.
I sleep at Her feet until whenever She needs me.

Annelinde Metzner
Rattler's Ford, Joyce Kilmer Forest
October 29, 1995

To the City

                                          

We’re going to the City, we would say,
     all of fourteen and thrilled to the core.
My world, my growing up in New York.
Out in the boroughs, quiet, same,
     a drone’s life, just enough money to live.
But get on the bus, get on the train,
     and Eureka!  It’s Manhattan.
Up the subway steps and out into the air.
You never know what might happen!
Every step is an adventure, we learned,
     every street corner a new world,
     every turn opening a thousand possibilities.
Who will you be tomorrow?  Who are you today?
Wearing Nana’s old fur coat,
     dragging and torn, over my jeans,
     I scooted between moving cars, and up into the air.
Open, worlds!  Open, my mind!
What could be next?  The world my chocolate box,
     tripping up and down the streets,
     magic afoot in the City.

Annelinde Metzner
Larchmont, New York
October 2, 2012

Full Moon Over Rye, New York

Boom!  at four AM,
     truck tires slam over the ribs of the ramp
     to the interstate,
     crashing, crashing in their endless push
     to get somewhere.
Bars on the windows of my hotel room,
     as if some thief, agile as a spider,
     would climb up the walls
     to the third floor balcony.
Even in the dark of night,
     all is movement, life at full tilt
     in Rye, New York.
And yet, this night,
     as I creep out in the late-September cold,
     the Moon, white as a billiard ball,
     shines bright, disappearing through a curtain of clouds.
"My Moon is here!" cries the four-year-old.
     And She is!
As if this were some mountain hollow,
     the stars peep through, 'way above the glare of lights.
"You're home," says the Moon,
     pulling at me still, in Rye, New York.

Annelinde Metzner
Rye, New York
September 30, 2012

In September

In September the forest, green as ever,
is like a lover crooking her finger one last time.
She sways, she is still soft and green,
her Earth is still warm...
And somewhere unseen, on the other side,      
is the gray gargoyle Winter, the stone gollum, with a funny grin,
skipping rocks on the water, biding her time.
She comes up to me in the morning and
brushes a bony finger against my chin,
saying “feel this- remember me?”
The hairs stand up on my chin, and
I gasp at her unstoppable impertinence.
I shake her off and turn away, pretending she’s not there.
Up on the hillside, the maples and birch
sway, supple, green as ever,
singing their sweet seductive siren song of Summer.
Behind a slab of granite, Winter
points her bony stone finger
and laughs.


Annelinde Metzner
September 6, 2009

 

 

Grossmutter Comes Flying

Nana around 1923

A wind that could tear off shingles

whips over the ridge all night,

leaving a sky clean and blue as an Alpine lake.

The last few leaves cling low to the maple trees,

the newly bare tree tops scraping the sky.

The sound of an ax chopping wood comes up the hollow.

My uncle’s spirit is chopping wood, a chore that’s never done.

The ancient and everyday repetitions of labor-

splitting firewood, canning fruit, patching clothes, knitting hats-

the ancestors nudge us, saying “listen to the wind!”,

reminding us to keep moving, prepare for winter.

No tender admonitions here!

Grossmutter comes flying over the trees in a vision,

braving vast expanses of the sea,

four children, one just a baby, wrapped in her skirts,

my father pushing out from her embrace

to gaze beyond the ship’s deck to the New World.

“Fly!”, she says to me. “What holds you back?

None of us know what that first step will bring.

It is your Grossmutter in the spirit world

and I tell you-

the world changes shape with every step you take.

Just go!”

A russet maple leaf

lets go, and spins out of sight.

Nana appears.

She has thrown off her rose-colored apron and put down her wooden spoon.

She is twenty-five, pin curled and all brand new, eyes opened wide.

“Granddaughter, yes, go!  With each step, the world rearranges itself before you,

a Rubik’s Cube, a house of mirrors.

Take that step!  As we live and breathe,

other souls live and breathe too,

and arrange their lives to respond to you.

Step into the dance! The music you call,

and the next, and the next under your gaze will fall.”

At this she spit-polishes her new red shoes,

steps on board the trolley car,

smiles wide at the driver,

and spins off into the skies.

Annelinde Metzner

Wildacres Retreat

October 28, 2009 

Listen to Annelinde reading "Grossmutter Comes Flying" during our concert, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names" on August 18. 2012.  (CDs and DVDs of the concert are at the BUY tab.)

 

Metzner family shortly after emigration to America

Coming Out from Under

Barack Obama at 2012 Democratic National Convention

for Barack and Michelle Obama


The people are coming out from under the pall of abuse.
Bad leaders, the worst, have us dizzy, tired,
unused to independent thought.
When our leaders are bad, we say “Is it me?
Am I dull and stupid, intolerant and unaware?”
The people have watched their tender firstborns
sent to war,  year after year,
to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for blood
of one bent solely on blind revenge.
We were not permitted to watch our sons and daughters
return home dead.
Maimed or incoherent, we housed them as best we could,
in the face of pure denial all around,
as their memories of senseless cruelty abroad
invaded their dreams.
The people, American people,
had to watch as their country
engaged in torture behind closed doors,
in a rule of no-law, where, like beaten children,
we all viscerally feared for ourselves.
The people have watched as loopholes emerged
in affairs of money,
banks developed the “liars’ loan”,
where you and I will lose our houses,
our jobs and all we have
just to let the government-sanctioned fat cats
keep their wealth and all their entitlements.
Like children who have seen all this,
like beaten women with nowhere to go,
we stumble now, still, unaware of the light,
as if light itself were too harsh to bear,
while deep, deep within, our souls know it’s time to sing.

Annelinde Metzner     
April 14, 2009

Michelle Obama at the DNC 2012

The First Family

Thank You's at the 2012 DNC

Mass Hypnosis

Hurricane Isaac storm surge 2012

“They had dead bodies in the water, and dogs swimming by. 

 The water was up to my chin”.    New Orleans, August 2005

And here we are, American people,

dreaming ourselves along in a media-induced haze

where all of us are wealthy, dress snappily, style our hair.

Doesn’t all America speak like a Valley girl, like, like, like?

“They was women and children, little bitty babies on that bridge.  

 I went for water and it took me seven hours.   

When I got back my wife and five kids was gone.”

Do you know people so poor they never look you in the eye,

as if you were some apparition, too wealthy, to glib to be seen?

Does it take a giant storm, a spinning whirlwind of natural fury

to tear off the facades, to leave exposed our men and women,

our everyday people in their great numbers

who would have gone on voiceless, waiting, waiting,

until you and I could, at last, see ourselves there?

Annelinde Metzner

Hurricane Katrina

September 12, 2005

Hurricane Isaac flood 2012

Little girl at Red Cross shelter, 2012

Man overwhelmed, Hurrican Isaac, 2012

Gratitude for Water

Water will flow to you, lucky blessed Human
      straight down the mountain, clear, crisp,
      almost white with coldness on a July day.
      You can drink this!
Water will flow for you, fortunate one,
      over rocks worn beautiful with the
      eternal wearing-away,
      the rush and gurgle, the pounding of water
      unending, abundant, all-powerful.
      You can bathe in this!
Water will run through your arteries and veins,
      dear blessed one,
      making all your body sacred, connected,
      healed in itself, and in each other.
      You live because of this!
Here we are, Human, on our blue-green Water Planet,
      spinning through the galaxy, evolving over eons,
      because of Water, Water!
Touch Her to your forehead, your most sacred places,
      blessed one.
Greed must not come near Her!
Never attempt to control Her!
In every blade, in every vein,
 in every rock and stone, we share Her.
Do homage to our most beautiful, singing Mother,
Water!


Annelinde Metzner

Catskill Farm 

August 2011

Listen to Annelinde reading "Gratitude for Water" at our live concert, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names," on August 18, 2012.  (CDs and DVDs are available- click on the BUY tab. )

Homage to Ereshkigal

Dark sister, my blood, my DNA, my other half,
Remind me of all that I am!
Messenger from the other worlds that I so crave,
calling to me, calling to me...
Ground me!   Pull me downward,  inward,
Let me never scorn you,
you dear sister Goddess who represent
all that is hard, all that is besmeared, difficult, ugly,
unplanned, unforeseen, all that, deep down, is life itself.
Remind me of all that I am.
Hold me close within the dark Earth,  Ereshkigal,
close to you.

Annelinde Metzner

December 2009

Ereshkigal (pronounced ay-RESH-kee-gal) is the Sumerian Goddess of death and Queen of the Underworld. She is the daughter of Nammu, Goddess of the primordial sea, and Anu, God of the sky, and twin sister of Enki, God of the waters. Shortly after her birth, she was carried off by the dragon Kur to the Underworld, where she became its ruler. She is also said to be the older sister of Inanna, Goddess of love, war, and fertility, and she is mostly known from the myth of Inanna’s descent to the Underworld. Ereshkigal’s husband Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, had been killed after Inanna sent him to punish Gilgamesh, and Inanna went to the Underworld to pay her respects to her sister. Ereshkigal feared that Inanna was actually coming to take over the Underworld, and had her servant remove an article of Inanna’s clothing at each of the seven gates that she had to pass through. When she finally arrives naked at the foot of Ereshkigal’s throne, Ereshkigal strikes her sister dead and hangs her body from a hook behind her throne.

Medicine Wheel

Medicine Wheel at Mountain Light Sanctuary, photo by Susa Silvermarie

Stepping slowly around the Medicine Wheel, I gaze across,
breathing with each Sister there, my other Selves.

In the East, all wet and newly sprung,
just cracked from the shell in dewy wonder,
I gaze across the wheel: myself in the West.
How can it be? She knows so much,
too much, maybe, of self hurt and other’s hurt,
unexpected turns, no hope, no help, the darkness.

In the South, from my place of staunch will and fiery passion,
I gaze across the wheel: myself in the North.
Can this be me? I am cool, analytical,
I’ve learned something, I see two sides,
I weigh, I discern, I know.
My wisdom cools my ardor and gives me choice.

In the West, place of Death, place of the deep sea of fears,
the lurking shadows, weariness, pain and loss,
I gaze across the wheel:  myself in the East.
Baby girl child, wide-eyed with wonder, fresh.
How I love this girl, as I stand in my pain,
reliving Her, being Her, child Self!

In the North, cool abode of wisdom, hard-earned knowledge, awareness,
I gaze across the wheel: myself in the South.
How I love that dynamo, the me that demands, the fiery one, the sure one,
stirring up the world, her cauldron, sure of right from wrong.
How I love that woman of passion.

Stepping slowly around the Wheel,
how I love each Self there, my other Me,
each Sister on the other side, played out each day in my one soul.
We reach for each other, Sisters all,
me and me, and me and me,
and make one whole.




Annelinde Metzner
Mountain Light Sanctuary

July 14, 2012

One of those days

On one of those dappled August days
     back-lit by winter,
     blended of cool light and warm air,
my brother picks his way slowly
     along the river bank,
     unhurried,
     comparing the level to last year,
     the placement of stones,
     the blend of colors on this bank of flowers,
     the number and size of fish.
I doze while I wait for his return.

Next morning, strewn over the wooden table,
     six or seven sketches:
     the wood stove, the bricks, the gas lamp,
     the worn places in the ceiling paint.
My heart leaps.
I weep.
My brother, my blood,
walker, painter,
kin.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
August 24, 1997

My brother Dick Metzner