Grossmutter Comes Flying

Metzner family, circa 1921: Elsie, Bruno, Alfred, Sophie, Rudolf, Martha (left to right)

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

October 28, 2009

Today I'm once more honoring my Tante Elsie, pictured above with my father Rudolf, uncle Alfred, aunt Martha and my grandparents, Sophie and Bruno, shortly before their arrival in America.  This weekend Elsie is celebrating their arrival date, February 22, 1923, when the family arrived in New York City, reuniting with father Bruno and sister Martha who had come earlier to pave the way. 

My maternal grandmother, Louise Soldano (Nana), who appears in the second half of the poem!

Elsie today in her winter hat, at one hundred years old.

Please leave a comment here below!

The Canada Geese Return

Even though the world is harsh,
violence on the rise,
the rich hoarding, the poor suffering,
the children forgotten or worse,
the villages dormant,
the neighbors unconnected by smile or kindness,
still, the Canada geese land on the lake,
bending their long necks down close to the Earth,
their beautiful necks black as a moonless night.
Still, the Canada geese come to our lake,
just a stop on their way,
the whole brilliant Earth in their travel path,
a vision deep within their bones that carries them here,
a shared vision requiring nothing,
deeply at one with each other in all their bones.
“Land here, eat all you can,
be ready for the next great snow and cold.
Traveling, traveling, on and on,
‘til we can nest once more.”
Though the world is unraveling,
the majestic geese have landed,
with the elegant curve of their black necks
bending to our Earth, here by the side of our lake,
here, here, here.

Annelinde Metzner
Lake Tomahawk
February 12, 2014


Read about Canada Geese at National Geographic and see the goslings!!

Purify me

Let me be humble in Your presence,
Your mysteries, my precious Goddess.
Let me be humble.
In Your pristine silence, in Your crystalline sacred energy,
let me bow my head and gather stillness,
gather stillness into my heart,
so that oneness, connection is all I feel.
Let me find You everywhere!
Let me walk beside Your golden manifestations,
as if beside a deep pure lake,
surrounded by silent mountains.
O my Mother, take my breath away!
Purify me now, make me ready, open me.
Leave me expectant, my heart on fire,
knowing You and Your divine energy
lay just around every turn.
Lead me to you, oh my beloved Mother,
lead me beside Your still waters.
Let me await, pure enough to see,
to feel You everywhere
as You lie golden before me.

Annelinde Metzner
Folly Beach
June 10, 2013

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!


Annelinde Metzner
November 4, 2012


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

Click here to keep up with the ever-growing doings in Todmorden, England, the little town that could.

The Forgiveness of Snow

The Forgiveness of Snow   

Three days of deep snow.
A pillowy meringue has met each branch,
has danced with the meadow grass,
has floated into each niche, soft and hard,
until today in the final sun
all is brilliant, brilliant.
Walking, there’s an insulated hush
so in the cove, each argument, each compliment,
each complaint and daily praise
is gone now, as if never been.
A forgiveness in this, the starting anew.
Each white pillow says, 
“I’m forgetting the car crash,”
“I’m forgetting the toppling of trees,”
"I’m forgetting the soldier’s fire, 
and the theft of a village’s water.”
Each six-faceted flake encapsulates
something of those horrors,
something of the looming offensiveness of this life.
“I contain your great grief,” calls the brilliant snow,
“and don’t I make a pearl?”
Over there by my fence-post is some mother’s wailing grief.
Over there in the white-trimmed fir tree
is the diesel exhaust of a thousand semi trucks.
This morning in the quiet, quiet,
I know what forgiveness is.


Annelinde Metzner 
Phoenix Cove       
February 13, 2006

 

Saule, Saule

Saule, Saule, pretty Mother,
Shine on me with all your might!
Come and shine in through my window.
Warm me with your Winter light.

Saule, Saule, lovely Daughter,
Touch my bed and curtains white.
Wake me with your joyful singing.
Brighten my heart through the long, cold night.

Annelinde Metzner
January 17, 2014



      Saule (Sow-lay) is the Latvian/Lithuanian Goddess of the Sun.   I welcome Her warmth in January when we need Her so much!   Learn more about Saule.
     An ancient Goddess of the Sun!   Marija Gimbutas spoke about her:  Because Lithuanian is the oldest extant Indo-European language, it is thought that the Baltic mythologies hold clues to the original beliefs of the people.  But scholarly convention has it that the Indo-Europeans worshiped a sky father embodied in the sun.  Whence, then, this powerful sun mother? Marija Gimbutas, herself Lithuanian, believed Saule to be an Old European Goddess of that woman-honoring culture that preceded the Indo-European invasions.

19th-Century image of Saule

Watch some of the ancient traditions followed in the contemporary Latvian celebration of Ligo at the Summer Solstice.  Bonfires, hair wreaths, bunches of ferns and oak leaves, songs, dances and fun!  Songs for Saule, called Daina, are loving and intimate, as if sung to one's own Mom.

 

Our Jewell

Sally Jewell, 51st US Secretary of the Interior

Sally Jewell, our Jewel, 51st Secretary of the Interior,
climber of mountains, kayaker, CEO, mother of two,
(“if anyone can do it, Sally can”)
is giving us back our CCC.
Creating work for our young people, women and men,
planting trees, repairing trails, hacking away invasive plants,
good work for our unemployed, work with great meaning.
Connection with the land that feeds the soul.
Thank you, Sally Jewell!
Already securing a million bucks for the corps,
she has her eye fixed on twenty.
“I was scared of animals.  Now I’m an animal freak,”
says Keisha Alvarenga, feeding a raptor with a gloved hand.
Clear vision!  Let’s hear it for clear vision!
Sally Jewell, our Jewel, don’t stop, move clean and true
to this great goal, our Conservation Corps
for the twenty-first century, our youth back at work,
our veterans back at work,
a hundred thousand jobs!
for our Mother, our Earth, our home.

Annelinde Metzner
Black Mountain, North Carolina



Read this interview of Sally and Keisha from NPR, January 9, 2014.

Click for pictures of the 21st Century CCC in New Jersey.

Sally Jewell climbing Mt. Rainier with five women at sunrise

With the founders of GirlTrek.org

Learn about GirlTrek.  Take a walk.  Join a movement!

Sally Jewell in her kayak

The Eaters of Death

Bushy beard lichen, usnea strigosa

The Eaters of Death     

Scarcely a day’s rain 
and the white mushroom emerges jubilant
above the crackle of dry leaves,
opening wide to the light.
On the broken branch, the “dead” branch,
the lovely jade of Bushy Beard lichen, usnea strigosa,
grows riotous, joyful for this moment,
green flowers alien and graceful, exquisitely turned.
The dying tree hosts lichen of all colors,
shapes and textures rivaling Picasso or Matisse.
This is Death in the forest!  What ecstacy!
This is one end of life’s continuum,
one tip of the see-saw, wheeee! 
“We gobble up Death, it’s our specialty,
it’s where we love to live.
Give us Death and let us create,
regenerate, revive, renew!
We’re eaters of Death, alive once more,
and eager, eager for YOU!”

Annelinde Metzner
December 29, 2013
Meher Baba Center




Read about the 20,000 edible forms of the lichen usnea.

 

Solstice Water

Solstice Water   
                                                            
“Forever, forever,” her message,
clearwater spring on Winter’s first day.
Not much light on December twenty-first.
Just the cold, cold quiet of Earth herself,
the illusion of faraway distant Sun,
a long, slow creep back to warmth.
Like a cave, a burrow, is the Winter solstice.
The water almost a paradox,
the bright gurgle like warm brown toes in summer.
This water bears ice,
a layered armor for crawfish and trout,
a dare for the shoes of mittened children.
But the singing call of the spring is not summer’s giggle,
as though only ice makes clear her deeper meaning.
“Forever, forever,” gives she her power,
her presence, her patience, her sustenance, her steadfastness,
right next to cold death, like a mittened hand,
ready for us all.


Annelinde Metzner
December 24, 2001

 

 

Coming Back Christmas

Coming Back Christmas                                       

One must leave one’s mountains
one must descend early in the day
through ice and snow, fog banks,
ripped up trees and branches helter-skelter,
one must leave one’s silent warm cabin on Christmas
and descend through the trees
down the long grade in fog, way down.
One must leave one’s silent cabin full of fire, full of sadness,
silent, remembering,
on Christmas one must come to family,
come down through the trees while smoke curls up through the woods,
come down to help old Tante by her stove,
down to a place with children, with messes,
with pots and pans helter-skelter  in Tante’s kitchen,
where there will be singing and jigs playing,
“Ihr Kinderlein kommet” and the Crist-kindl,
chocolates in tree branches and sooty fingers,
the old stove that pops and moans,
family groaning around the table,
with resentments, accomplishments, aches and pains,
medicines and red wine and forgotten addresses,
all of us elbow-to-elbow, hunters and hairdressers,
poets and plumbers,
day-to-day survivors making do.
One must come in a hurry on Christmas,
come gladly to the loud rooms of one’s family,
full of judgments and kind advice,
full of wariness and unspoken joys.
One must remember to leave one’s quiet warm cabin full of sadness
and come down each Christmas, be pulled magnetic
to let one’s heart warm again unbidden,
with no plan, just you, and nothing else.


Annelinde Metzner
December 25, 2005

Just Friday

Just Friday                                                                  


(a spontaneous poem from the beach)


It’s forty-five degrees, and the water feels even colder,

But I splash in the foam like Aphrodite, even though I’m almost sixty.

And I’m NOT SHOPPING.

A kite is suspended in the sky,

so much wind that no one at all is holding the string,

and it stays suspended for hours,

and the kite is NOT SHOPPING.

A child builds palmetto fronds into an altar in the sand,

a  child NOT SHOPPING.

A boy out in the ocean paddles by on some board,

standing straight up in the ocean, looking for all the world like Jesus,

and certainly Jesus would not be shopping.

Two dogs whirl around each other,

joy sparking off of them like the flash of Venus in the night,

like the Pleiades in the dark moon night,

and today is just Friday, and no one is shopping.



Annelinde Metzner

Isles of Palms, South Carolina

November 25, 2011

Alone on the Earth at Hawkscry

Bird bath at Hawkscry

Alone on the Earth at Hawkscry 

Alone on the Earth at Hawkscry, all quiet,
     a fullness of beauty, of light.
In sun and shadow on the mountain peaks,
     a circle of love.
Lying here long upon our Mother’s warm skin,
     one feels a sound, deeper than any sound,
     energy reverberating from within Her Heart.
It is late summer,
     when the Earth speaks through singing.
Do you hear Her song?
A soft warm cradle of Her singing,
     this hum of the Great Mother
     we can only feel.
In Her soft warm cradle, in the circle of Her arms,
     She sings for all of us,
     the finned, the furry, the feathered.
She sings, too, for the Stone People, Her most ancient ones,
     the peaks and valleys and rivers where Her waters run,
     Her oceans and Her air.
Can you hear Her song, so huge, so wild,
     so deep within, yet immanent in all things?
That song is for us, for you and me,
     here where we lay close to Her on the Earth,
     and where e’er we walk,
     each step springing from Her deepest heart.


Annelinde Metzner
Hawkscry
August 25, 2012





On Saturday, November 16th, I will read this poem at "Tell a Woman," where I will perform many of my poems along with my guest, poet Susa Silvermarie, and Sahara Peace Choir, who will sing songs from my compositions for the Goddess, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names."
      We are celebrating the launch of We'Moon Datebook 2014, in which Susa and I have poems.
  500 Montreat Road, Black Mountain, 7 PM- admission $10.


    Many thanks to Jane and Will Stanhope who gave me encouragement to write at their beautiful retreat, Hawkscry.

Writer's cabin at Hawkscry

Her Winter face

Her Winter face

She wears Her Winter face.
Cold, cold, cold and clear,
layer upon layer of skeletal trees
lead us up to Her summit.
This is a Bone Forest now,
the land of the Dead.
The air an oceanic indigo blue,
deep beyond knowing.
It is quiet, all quiet,
the people home by their quiet hearths.
She is powerful now, today,
showing Her Winter face.
The clear lapis sky and the unstirring air
offer no resistance to Her divine emittances.
She is in Her element, the Earth,
Her arms extended above Her,
giving, giving us of Her power.
My Grandmother, undisturbed,
goes about Her business, Her divine charge,
replenishing the Earth with Her energy.
Still, She smiles at me.  “Welcome, daughter,
dancing one, my beloved, poet and friend.
Take my warm love into your heart.”
I sit beside my Grandmother, basking in the sun,
grounded in Her giving,
at one with all my Earth.

Annelinde Metzner
November 9, 2012