A salamander pale green as the new leaves of May opens its orange lung-sac, brilliant, to the sun. Three times at every pause! In the breeze, red Oleander bends on her long stem, celebrating. I am drawn down a quiet lane by the scent of jasmine beguiling my heart, a path toward joy. The dear Earth wafts up into me, warm as fresh-baked bread, filling my womb with Her love. With my feet in the sand, I pull Her love up into me, to power my days. Mother holds me tenderly, the mourning dove in her palmetto-basket nest, giving, giving, we Her babies, Her vast dream, we Her future and Her now. The black fin of a dolphin arises from the sea, ancient as days, loving Her into the fathomless tomorrow.
Annelinde Metzner Folly Beach, South Carolina June 1, 2010
On the night of the Moon Child Moon, a warm February light paints each grateful tree and settles on the forest floor. Gazing into the white-glazed night forest, I must not breathe. I pause to wait for the silvery Moon Child Moon to paint me, too, with loving light. I’ve nowhere to go. I wear winter’s soft gown. I will stop and root into the ground, silent as the next long tree, waiting, wondering, patient.
I putter along the highway, in my own world, and squeak! an eighteen-year-old hotshot with his dad’s Camaro whips in front of me with an inch to spare. I dare to pull into the left lane and in an instant an SUV wide as a freighter, higher than my rooftop, plants itself at my rear bumper as though I had trespassed on its private turf. It’s as if they didn’t know the car’s sides are solid as Origami puffballs, mostly plastic, a few thin supports, just enough frame to get the car off the lot. You’ve got your wheels, and off you go, weaving and straining for speed, thinking of Dale and some boss who cursed you, never the masses of twisted metal, the strewn and extruded body parts you’ve seen lying by the side of the road.
High school recruiters know this. The tender-faced boys of seventeen, barely shaving yet, Moms still patting their shrugging shoulders as they leave home with a bag lunch, seventeen but already bored, bored to tears with life as it is, the same girls, the same books, the same horizon as flat as the future, the same parents, the same nothing-to-do, forever and forever. The almost-little boys at the recruiting table, soft inside as Easter chocolate, eye the M-16 rifles and the Hum-Vees, seeing the future there, anywhere but here, forgetting what they’ve heard of ambushes, booby traps, amputees waiting hours for treatment, mustard gas, nerve gas, depleted uranium. You careen down the highway in your gossamer Camaro and suddenly the day comes, you’re off the plane, heat smacks you in the face, dust rolls in, and a weapon’s on your shoulder, your little piece of power. Boredom and terror, boredom and terror. One hundred a week wounded in action, home again with no health coverage, or no home at all. You sit for hours playing cards with guys from some other godforsaken town like yours, loud rock and hip-hop to remind you of who you were. Long after the uranium exposure, babies are born anophthalmic, no eyes at all. Napalm, another WMD, melts human skin in Fallujah. But everybody run! You’re out on the streets, kicking down doors with one hard boot. You aim past women with babes in arms, grandmas and grandpas cowering in corners, and back outside through terror-lined streets. Your buddies holler you back, and it’s quiet, a retreat. Music plays, supper comes. You have no idea where you are. This is not Kansas and your best buddy is gone. Careening through Baghdad, they fold like Jettas. No one asked; never a frame for this. You were heading for what? The screaming women? The blood? The mangled babes? The spitting rage? The broken and endless days? The tender flesh, once so shiny, fresh as dew, blindsides into Baghdad, wishing you knew. Annelinde Metzner March 9, 2005
Hearing about the consideration of sending arms to the Ukraine, I remember how it was in 2005 with war escalating in Iraq.
Skilled and highly trained, a team of angels heal my heart, working, working, hyperattentive, for five long hours. I am asleep. As consciousness returns, slowly, slowly, like an ice floe shifting in tiny increments from sea to air, I am dreaming three dreams.
I am a cowgirl! It is sunny, the bright oranges and yellows of Arizona highlighting the tall Saguaro, and I’m singing with my pals around a fire. “Yodelay-hee-hoo!!” The second dream- where is this? My son is here, so many loved ones surrounding me, circling, beaming, many hands lifting me, light as gossamer, in a cradle of support. And the third dream, subtle but insistent, sliding wheels, clicks and bams, elbows its way into my cognizance. Recovery room nurses are moving about, focused on my vital signs.
Somewhat bemused, a bit ambivalent, I recall an ordeal is over. My surgery is done.
This is a dream of a well-trained woman applying pressure to close my open wound. This is a dream of a young nurse, father of two, tenderly checking on me each hour. This is a dream of a wide-windowed room looking to Mount Pisgah in the golden, fading light.
I choose this dream! Can you believe it? I choose this dream of comical bluejays turning somersaults ‘round the too-small feeder. I choose this dream of laughing friends bringing soup, fussed-over for hours. I choose this dream of a soft hand holding mine in the darkest night. I choose this dream of sleep- whose room is this? filled with the smiles of the Goddess.
What split-second Someday will take me from here? I choose this dream today, and give great thanks. Annelinde Metzner After atrial fibrillation ablation February 1, 2015
Trees bare at the edge of the ridge, scraggly, December, full of secrets. Cold Moon rises, barely there among branches. She shocks me! “Come out of your house!,” She challenges me. “Breathe my bare cold. Clean and direct I’ll fill your lungs. Come out of your comfortable house. I want you now!” With that slap from the big Cold Moon I’m made to remember. The white pull of Her glow tugs hard at some treasure I’ve been hiding. Gazing into the white-glazed night forest I pause for the Moon to paint me, too, with cool Winter’s light. For Her, I am what I am, nothing more. The days go and go and go, bright and noisy as ever, but within me, as in dreams, She demands my attention, tripping me up, no matter how well I hide. Annelinde Metzner December 21, 1995
My home in Phoenix Cove where this poem was written
Swiftly, darkly moving, nothing impeding, clouds move dramatically over Ocracoke, beautiful spit of an island ‘way out here, twenty four miles out to sea. These clouds move, they move darkly, grey and white, powerful and overwhelming over the little village. The clapboard houses and flooded streets are quiet, quiet as the clouds move as they will. I feel our farawayness, our immersion, I feel the clouds moving over the vast sea, over Ocracoke, over me, we a village of beings unnoticed by the clouds, darkly, swiftly moving.
Annelinde Metzner November 28, 2014
Ocracoke is the most southern of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, reachable only by ferry.
“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." (all quotes from 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.
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
I have sworn to protect Her! Miracle blue-green jewel of all the worlds, ancient blue mountains, vast golden deserts, hummingbirds in the jewelweed, black bear in the raspberries. I speak for Her! I howl for Her! I howl, “Beware!” to you who remove Her sacred mountaintops torturing her body to get at Her coal. I howl, “Beware!” to you who go deep within her mineral layers, scraping away at her core for your own gain. But no one gains by this. She feeds us all. I have sworn to protect Her, this day that She needs us, when even Her vast blue-green oceans, teeming with life, are tainted with blood, the black oil of power and greed. This is the day, this is the hour. She, long-silent, awaits our voice. The signs of Her anger are everywhere: desert, flood, tornado, wildfire, earthquake, typhoon, tsunami. I howl for Her! I love my Earth as my own body! I have sworn to protect Her!
Annelinde Metzner July 31, 2011
On Sunday, December 7th, I will be reading this poem and others in honor of its release as part of the We'Moon Datebook 2015. It's the first poem in the book, near the Winter Solstice of 2014. I am honored! An excerpt also appears on the beautiful December page of the wall calendar, with Earth art by Autumn Skye Morrison. Susa Silvermarie will also be performing her poetry including "The Girl God" which appears in the datebook, and two of my songs will be performed by the wonderful Kim Hughes.
Coming together here, we warm each other’s hearts in the darkness.
The Sun, far away, yearns to embrace us in Her warmth once again.
But this is our time to journey into the depths of the darkness.
This is the time to surrender and listen deep to our souls.
This is the time to close our eyes, slow down and be lulled by the darkness.
Our blessed Mother Gaia dwells within the darkness.
Inhale the song of Her soul, Her soil, Her dark caves, Her rich dark humus.
Mother Earth welcomes you into the darkness.
Walk with confidence, all people, walk safely into the darkness.
Let us love the night, the moon, the stars, the planets, the Seven Sisters high above.
Revel in this other half of our lives, the darkness.
The beauty of the dark earth, the darkness of skin, the dark curves of mountain roads,
The Seven Sister Mountains in their powerful darkness, presiding over Black Mountain,
Our dark blood, our Earth, our deepest selves, the darkness.
Annelinde Metzner November 16, 2010
On Tuesday, November 18, I will be giving a reading along with two other poets, Antiga and Barbara Gravelle, which we're calling "The Dark Goddess in Autumn." We will begin with this poem as a responsive reading. I like to remember that the darkness is positive and beautiful, just one of the sides of life.
In the landfills where I wander are your rusted bodies:
freezers, microwaves, last year’s computer.
Decades they require to rust or fade,
the plastic, the alloys, the silicon chips.
And I float to your door. I beckon you and your children’s children
when they wander too far from the flickering screen.
I speak of spice bush, yarrow, ginseng, jewelweed,
sassafras, Solomon’s Seal.
I pull you to the dark where you speak with your soul,
where life takes your breath away.
I make you pine for Life, scream for it.
I hold a mirror to this desire until all else is forgotten,
until you reach for life, until you’ll never give up,
until there on the forest floor we cry, together,
tears of joy.
Annelinde Metzner
September 1995
Listen
to Nels Arnold reading "Don't Live Here" by Annelinde, performed at
"In the Mother Grove" in 2009. Grandmother puppet by Lisa Sturz from our 2006 performance, "The Abundance of Mary.
(photo above, Norma Bradley.)
Both concerts of my music and poetry are available as CD or DVD by going to the "BUY" tab at the top of this page.
I come to see Her, my Grandmother Mountain, a pilgrim at Her feet, making homage throughout the year. Today, in Her Autumn dress, maples already red-orange-yellow, little touches of color everywhere among the dark firs and pines, I come to see Her, and I breathe deep. Still, still now, She is the pure ground, as calm as the eons, even now as greed and domination rage in the world of men. She lifts me. I’m Her toy. She is so delighted to see me. I giggle to be with Her, I’m a much-loved child. Motorcycles roar by, boys holler at their games. I gaze at my Grandmother, and She smiles, loving us through the millennia, sighing and inviting, a twinkle in Her eye.
“In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful...” Malala Yousafzai in her birthday address to the UN Youth Assembly, July 9, 2013 A pink lacy shawl frames her dark hair and determined face. She is sixteen! Confident and convivial, she commands the podium in front of the world’s leaders. Sixteen! Malala has survived a gunshot at close range, on her schoolbus in Pakistan, a target of the Taliban for speaking her strong mind. She has survived!
“Respected elders, and my dear brothers and sisters, Salaam Aleichem.” She fingers her delicate shawl, bequeathed from Benazir Bhutto, one woman to another, a gift of strength from across time and beyond the veil. “This time, we women will do it for ourselves. Thank you to God, for whom we are all equal! I speak so that those without voice can be heard.” Her mother wipes away tears. Men in suits stare, making space in their consciousness for Malala, for this empowered young woman who has enraptured the world.
“Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, fervor and courage were born.” The room breaks out in emotion-filled applause. Imbued with ahimsa, forgiveness and non-violence, her strength uplifts us all. Annelinde Metzner July 18, 2013
