by Bernadette Miller (Jul 18, 2014)
If Life Were A Poem
If life were a poem
to the Universe,
I would find beauty
in the saying
of the darkest sorrows
and the arms of my night
would overflow
with stars.
If life were a poem
to the divine,
I would find heaven
in recesses
of doubt
and compassion
in recoiling.
If life were a poem
to the Earth,
I would find renewal
in the falling
of ancient protection
and possibilities would blossom
from decay.
If my life were a poem
to myself,
I would become a vessel
deep enough to embrace
betrayal
and belonging
with unabashed gladness.
If my life were a poem
to the one I would become,
I would inhabit this day
with reverence
and choose to make
of surrender
a home.
If my life were a poem
to you,
I would find in my shame
the wounds of the world
and seek in my celebration
the love
that is waiting
to become
our hands.
Light
I want to write of the light
but I do not know
whether words can illuminate
the way it hangs
upon branches and bird wings
and broken things
returning beings to beauty.
Can words spin substance
from sunshine and decay?
Can words cajole
celebration from night-weary
birds?
Can words warm surfaces
of stones and sorrows?
Can words reveal richness
in mundane
and battered
things?
I do not know.
But if we would write
a tomorrow
which is wider than wounds
we have worn,
we might wield words
like benedictions
and remember
blessings
within brokenness,
beginnings
within endings,
and beauty
within all things.
Benediction
May you taste the colors of sunset,
may you touch the chorus of dawn,
may your eyes turn toward the beauty
even when it’s gone.
May you weave a path of blessing
through ecstasy and grief.
May you tend the flame within you
may you feed it with belief.
May you find yourself in strangers
and meet them within you.
May you trust that we are windows
the world is peering through.
May you linger in each moment,
receiving with your heart
the gift of possibilities
that presence can impart.
May you become a portal
to the love behind your toil,
may you become a silence
within the world’s turmoil.
May the prayers that grow within you
bloom in many lands.
We are woven of connections
and peace is in our hands.
–Bernadette Miller. In A Serious Frivolity: Poems by Bernie [Picture above is a drawing and work space of the poet/painter/musician/farmer/cook ;-)].
Earthling Opinion 