Be Water

Here is the gift of these magical days:  water, water.
You!  Be water!
This water is clear.  Swim in it!
Float in it!   Breathe water!
You!  Water is our element,
the place we live, the air we breathe.
Touch me, bathe me,
rock me, cradle me.
There is nothing to separate us.
No walls.
Nothing holds us back,
for we are Water!



Annelinde Metzner
Meher Baba Center,  South Carolina

My musical setting of the poem "Be Water" will premiere at our concert on February 24th, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names," at White Horse Black Mountain.   It will be sung by Stephanie Heidemann with myself at the piano.

Songs of Love

For Valentine's Day, Annelinde is changing formats a bit in order to acquaint readers with my Custom Song service.   I am posting two sample songs from four happy clients who were and still are very much in love.    I can compose songs for all types of love-   familial, romantic, personal, spiritual.   Send me your ideas and I will turn them into beautiful, unforgettable lyrics.

      Deb and Robert always got a chuckle about how different they are, and yet their union has grown and thrived throughout all the years.   I composed this song for their anniversary, which they celebrated in their beloved Colorado mountains (the dog is admiring the view.)


ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOU        
Words and music by Annelinde Metzner   c. 2005 

VERSE I
You're Vermont and I'm Indiana.  I like to holler;  you like to banter, 
But anyway, ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOU.
You say to-mah-to, I say ta-may-ter, 
But I'm gonna getcha sooner or later.
What can I do?   ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOU.

You see things your way, and I see them mine,
But as long as you're with me, that is just fine.
I'm a new man, whenever I'm with you, honeydew.

I found you marchin' and carryin' a sign.  
You found me drinkin' whiskey and wine, 
But to heck with all that.   ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOU. 


Listen to Tom Hendricks singing "All Roads Lead to You,"  composed by Annelinde Metzner for the wedding anniversary of Deb and Robert.

Deb, Robert and dog admiring view

TO ORDER YOUR OWN CUSTOM SONG OF LOVE, OR A SONG FOR ANY OCCASION, 
EMAIL ANNELINDEMETZNER@GMAIL.COM   OR    CALL 828-712-6745




Annellinde-  I can’t thank you enough for the time, energy, love and light that I know you gave to Clement’s Wedding Homily.
       So glad I joined Womansong and learned of you and your talents.  I am BLESSED to know you... your spirit and joy give so much to others!             Nita Walker







For Jan's wedding proposal to Beth, Annelinde composed three verses for Jan to sing and play on guitar, along with a piano accompaniment.   
     Enjoy the surprise marriage proposal which Jan gave to Beth at a rehearsal of our Asheville women's chorus, Womansong.

Jan and Beth

TIMING IS EVERYTHING     
Words and music by Annelinde Metzner    c. 2011

VERSE I:
You know how much I love you, despite all the complications.
It was all in the timing!  We knew it from the start.
I just know that I love you, and it's always been that way,
And I want to marry you, marry you, marry you.
You know, TIMING IS EVERYTHING, when you love this way.


We cannot begin to express how much our song, “Timing is Everything,’ has meant to us.  Spirit led me to you when asking if you could help me “birth” the song and without a doubt it was one of the best decisions of my life.  The song is perfect, and we love you so much for gifting it to us.  It is one of those things we will never forget.
     With great love and gratitude for the blessing of you in our lives,  Jan and Beth



TO ORDER YOUR OWN CUSTOM SONG OF LOVE, OR A SONG FOR ANY OCCASION, 
EMAIL ANNELINDEMETZNER@GMAIL.COM   OR    CALL 828-712-6745

Tell a Woman

One billion women rising

Tell a woman that, deep inside,
deep in her heart, where no one can see,
she holds the flame that lights the world.

Tell a woman that no one can ever extinguish that flame.
Not anyone,  be he bigger than her, stronger than her, faster than her,
angrier than her, drunker than her, more convinced he is right.

This flame is our secret, all women’s.  We are born with it.
With this flame, within our hearts, we work two jobs while raising three kids.
And we give them piano lessons.
With this flame, we cross oceans
so our children can grow up strong without stigma.
With this flame, we nurse our elders, and our young ones too,
often at the same time, keeping an eye on bill payments,
scrounging for food and rent.

Tell a woman she has a huge bright flame ready to flare up in her heart,
and she’s not alone.   We all have one,
we who walk tall, and we who are under the thumb,
we who speak here now, and we who have been silenced,
we all share this flame, it’s an eternal flame,
it’s hot, and it’s brilliant, and it never goes away.

Tell a woman, this is our birthright, this is who we are,
we, the women, the people of the womb,
who carry the world, who yearn for love and honor,
who, somewhere deep inside, will never be denied, will never give in.
Tell a woman, this is who we are, all of us aflame, all of us women,
all of us carrying that precious fire
that guides our days, that reminds us of what this life really means,
that shows us its light and tells us how to move,
how to be, how to turn, how to love each day.

Tell a woman, she has a pure flame deep in her heart
that can never be extinguished, that cannot be pushed under,
that can never be broken, that does not bleed away,
that cannot be raped or beaten down,
that can only rise higher, that flares up within us,
and with each step brightens, and lights our way,
brighter and brighter, as we see our flames
more clearly, more loudly, more assuredly, more proudly,
all of us gazing at that brand new day,
not much longer now, just on the horizon,
when we look at a woman and know,
with her light, she leads the way.





Annelinde Metzner
January 25, 2013



"One Billion Rising"
          In conjunction with its 15th anniversary, V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, launched its most ambitious campaign to date -         ONE BILLION RISING. The concept of the campaign is simple. If you take into account the statistic that 1 out of 3 women will experience violence in her lifetime, you are left with the staggering statistic that over 1 billion women on this planet will be impacted by violence. On V-Day's 15th Anniversary, 2.14.13, V-Day is inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.


Watch as Alice Walker explains the beauty of dancing for One Billion Rising.  Look for an event in your community on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2013.  

 

Thank you, Hillary

Hillary Clinton in Ireland, September 2012

A deep relaxation, an exhalation, a gratefulness,
knowing you have been there to represent us,
you, so much a woman, the mother of a woman,
the daughter of a woman, one of us.
Hillary, you inspired us, with your bravery, your clarity,
your firmness, your discernment on the world’s stage.
High up in the echelons, you represented us.  Thank you.
Traveling, traveling, in ease and in strain,
you spoke of Malala and Inez, all our brave women,
at one with our great community, this world.
Hillary, without fear, you went feet first
to the most dangerous places in the world.
Yes, we share your pain, our pain,
we born with a womb, our badge of courage,
our births that say the way will be rough,
the climb uphill all our lives.
We born with a womb, and from a womb,
our daughters, our mothers and ourselves,
know from birth that we must be strong,
we must know our minds and love our bodies,
we must speak for ourselves when our Hillaries are gone,
remembering her and teaching ourselves,
going on, for their sake, for Malala and Wangari,
for all the women who show the way,
to live strong and free, to move as we choose,
to be what we are, to be.

Annelinde Metzner



Click here for an article in the Huffington Post about Hillary's future as a presidential candidate in 2016.  One former aide says, "Never say never."

 

 

The sheer lace curtain

Photo by Ann Laudati

Icy white curves of pure sunshine
come through the white lace curtain
surprised, as if the Sun
had tumbled into a clothes dryer
full of lace undies.
I can’t fully see the day,
She is so veiled, so disguised
in honeycombs of lace,
lace petals of flowers,
filigrees and tendrils,
flirtatious as flickering flame
even though the glass is frozen.
It’s twenty degrees today, even at the beach,
January. A world white as lace,
and hiding something too, maybe hiding a year,
a whole new year, a brand new number,
the world not quite discernible
beyond the sheer lace curtain,
January delicate and lovely, thin as lace.
The Sun, as bright as He can be,
happily cascading into white roses of lace,
caught in time, in January’s sheer wonderment,
the unknowing, the promise of the future,
beyond somewhere, waiting.

Annelinde Metzner     
January 17, 2009

January beach

New Year's Gathering

Candle circle at Hawkscry, New Year's 2012

         “Come, come, whoever you are,
          wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.”
 
We come New Year’s day, to Sandy Mush,
that Shangri-la, quiet always, but quieter still, this January day,
the rapeseed fields lying fallow, waiting for Spring’s yellow,
the old dogs and the old farmers beside their wood stoves.

         “Ours is no caravan of despair.”
 
And it isn’t!   Many old friends, one behind the other
to get there for sharing warm food and warm regards,
to share births, deaths, all the new, all the new.
The caravan shifts on the leaf-layered road,
and one tire goes ‘way out over the abyss.
“Stop the car!” and everyone hops out.
What to do?  But a neighbor has a come-along.
This has gone on before, so many times before,
at the end of a long dirt road, where we are our own future,
it’s only us, and what we can do,
stuck on the road in winter.
Twenty arms and hands, a dozen brains
ponder and work, trying this and that,
pulling here and tugging there,
until, voila!  the van is free with its big load,
a wheelchair and four eager passengers.
We’re free!

            “Come yet again, come!”  
   
Arriving up at the top of the road,
laden with food and one more good story,
we eat, hug, regale and gather around the flames, lighting candles for the world,
for our futures and all peoples’, 
for making it one more day in this body.
Out to the woods to dance beneath the grey, bare trees,
for Allah, for God, for the Goddess,
and to remember, as grey winter clouds lumber gloriously across the sky,
we are all here together in this.
We are all one.

          "Come, come, whoever you are,
           come, yet again, come."       (Jelaluddin Rumi)


Annelinde Metzner 
Hawkscry    
January 4, 2012


Many thanks to William and Jane Stanhope for sharing their beautiful land in Sandy Mush, North Carolina for my writing, my spirit and my peace of mind.  


Listen to Annelinde reading "New Year's Gathering" here.
 

Many brains, strong backs and a come-along.

Coming Back Christmas

Christmas at Phoenix Cove

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
Phoenix Cove 

Star the Cat in the snow

Joyous Yule!

Praises to the return of the Sun!
Now on this Solstice day,
Suspended, awaiting the Earth's glad turn,
No farther will we stray.

Praises to the warm, dark Earth!
Our mother, our nourishing home.
Safe She keeps us, and well indeed
Wherever we may roam.

Praises to the singing of songs!
Beloved signs of life.
We gather together in joy and love,
And release all strain and strife.

Annelinde Metzner
December 21, 2012

Landfillharmonic

Ada plays her recycled violin

“We don’t throw away people either.”
A town built on a landfill,
the people of Cateura, Paraguay spend their lives each day
sorting out the last usable bits in the trash.
The water, the air, all are poisoned with waste and runoff.
Here, Szaran and Favio taught the children music.
On a cello made of an oil can,
Bebi, age 19, smilingly offers the ineffable beauty
of the Bach cello suites.
“When I hear the violin, I get butterflies,
says Ada, age 13.
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
Drying out old flour sacks,
and following the garbage trucks,
the people make a few pennies to survive.
“You can’t have a violin here.  
It would cost more than your house.”
And now, an orchestra of children,
the children of the landfill town,
an orchestra of instruments reclaimed from the trash.
“My life would be meaningless without music,”
says a girl, as delicate as the strains she picks out on the strings.
How this world is cruel, unkind, unjust,
and full of miracles!
“We don’t throw people away either.”

Annelinde Metzner
December 14, 2012

Watch some of the Cateura children in the Landfillharmonic here. 

Bebi plays the cello made from an oil can

A girl from Cateura plays her violin

Love Cannot Be Silenced

Sister Kathy Sherman, composer

The sisters were stunned, angry and confused.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious,
a voice for most of the nuns,
had spoken its beliefs-  health care for all,
concern for the poor in their care.
The Vatican fathers condemned the nuns
for their “radical feminist themes.”
For focusing too much on poverty!
On economic injustice!
Who is the Christian here, who practices the Way?
Whose feet are out on the streets,
side by side with the poor?
Two days after the condemnation,
Sister Sherman felt a song coming,
on the wings of the spirit dove.
“Love Cannot Be Silenced,”
she heard, and wrote it down.
“It never has, it never will.”
She sang for her sisters at supper,
and they felt the spirit dove too.
The people emerged on the streets of Iowa and Illinois,
everywhere the sisters had reached their hands in love.
Thanking them, defending them, the hands and feet of Christ:
Rise up, sisters, rise up!
“God Bless the Sisters,”
Holy fire in their eyes!

Annelinde Metzner
December 7, 2012


Click here to listen to Sister Sherman's song, "Love Cannot Be Silenced," and to see protests from all over the US.


Read more about Sister Sherman and the LCWR here. 

 

 

High on the Sacred Mound

In the bare grey branches of the apple tree
     high on the sacred mound,
the Goddess.

In the patches of pure white snow,
     still lying deep in the grass despite all day’s sun,
the Goddess.

In the twists and turns of the fallen tree
     reaching back into the Earth,
the Goddess.

In my hand putting pen to paper,
     gloved and warm in the bracing sunshine,
the Goddess.

In the curve of the Earth above the mound,
     where land ends and deep space begins,
the Goddess.

In the last butterfly,
     still hunting merrily for blossoms in the cold air,
the Goddess.

In my lungs, deep and warm under layers of clothing,
     inhaling this sweet and precious air,
the Goddess.

Is there anywhere She is not?
Doesn’t She know us in every way?

In the profound quiet of this November day,
     halfway to winter, the pure air on my skin,
     I have Her, I’m with Her, She moves me,
     She impels me to live for Her passionately,
my Queen, my Goddess.

Annelinde Metzner
November 9, 2012

 

This Fire Blazes

This Fire Blazes

This fire blazes, crying “I will defend You!”
My mother, Earth, I will defend you
      when greed fouls your waters with black oil,
      when ignorance and pride leak radiation into your soil,
      when desperate fear invents “fracking”
      to rape you deep down to your core.
This fire arises in me, crying “I will defend You!”

This fire defends the world’s women,
      when a seventeen-year-old is publicly beaten
      for wearing pants under her burka,
      when five-year-olds are bred for slavery and prostitution,
      when women cannot count upon a safe night’s sleep at home.
This fire arises, crying “I will defend You!”

This fire defends the Goddess.
      Exquisite one, source of all Life,
      within our Earth and within our Bodies,
      Giver of Love and Abundance, holder of Power,
      I am your warrior!
      Not on my watch will You be the harlot,
      the evil witch eating children.
      As we once were burned for Your love,
      so our Fire will restore You,
      Your warmth, Your brilliance,
      Your Fire.


Annelinde Metzner
August 20, 2011


Listen to Annelinde reading "This Fire Blazes" at our concert, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names" on August 18, 2012.   CDs and DVDs are available- click the BUY tab!
  

Click on BUY tab to purchase a CD or DVD of "This Fire Blazes"

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