What the Fox Knows

 

A fox has no expectations of what lies ahead.

He trails down the path where the lilacs brush across his face,

and it is always a new hello.

He deals with the seasons as they come.

A symbol of resilience he does what he must.

He has a way of enduring the shiver of winter’s sting,

and he survives to enjoy the summer’s breeze.

Never consumed with the memory of anguishing struggle

he moves onward.

I wish I could be like him,

but instead, I cry over letters that never arrived.

Every loss is a memento I store away like a ticket to a rare ballet,

for my heart is a feeble handbag filled with a quandary of old things

that were never mine to cherish., yet I fumble through it anyway.

Again I am lost over heartbreak like a girl that has astigmatism and yet no glasses,

I wander and yes, I am lost.

Somehow the fox has a deep and clear vision

of where he needs to be.

I am busy staring at an old crinkled map I cannot even read.

Linking today with Shay's Word List where this week she is featuring the poet Amy Lowell.  I had never read her writing, but was delighted to find that I love her poetry!  Thank you Shay for another wonderful prompt!

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Fulfillment Song,

by Romain Thiery in France

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #150

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“If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled.” Lao Tzu

 

Purpose and fulfilment are not places you can enter like a cathedral hall

they do not belt out tunes in choirs

they are but a whisper

soft like a piano

nudging shyly on the arms of men

as children hoping for their way

purpose cannot be held with enclosed hands

it is a vase in which we choose to place the flowers

the ones we picked in the meadow just for you

and when it is broken

the flowers lay wilted

remember that my friend.

Places of the Heart

Art by helldivo at DeviantArt 

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. 

~George Moore

Emptiness has a way of holding a heavy weight within the places of the heart

Like a sinker on a fishing lure

Taking broken men down broken roads

Where all the paved highways lead to every gravel path

It is there that they seek some kind of shelter

but loneliness rips through every room like fire

leaving behind only the silence of rubble in its wake

we lose ourselves in many ways

trying to hold up bridges that are not ours to cross

forgetting where we came from

we head to the same place that took our father so far away

 lost is a place that cannot be found on any map

 we stumble upon it blindly with empty hands

for all the mapped directions that lead to somewhere else

have long since been left in drawers full of other things we never needed

I searched for you in the eyes of others

Wanting to never lose the memory of your smile

It was in that place of longing

Where loss plants the deepest roots

And no matter how high up the tree you climb

It is hard to see beyond that place

It took me years to discover that simple truth

Trying to find my way to you

I lost my own direction

Until I realized

You were already there

In the reflection of my own eyes.

© Carrie Van Horn 2020 

Planted in Belonging

"Ireland" by Emily Soto, fashion photographer


Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 44 and Imaginary Gardens for Season Your Poetry brought to us byToni
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In search of my mother's garden, I found my own. ~Alice Walker

Running, and searching hard, can be like reaching out to touch the farthest thing with eyes closed tight. It is hard to make progress in a state of chaos and that is what you get when you are running too fast looking for something you have never seen.  The rare and evasive flower of certainty. 

For rare flowers cannot be picked

Nor seen from afar

They must be appreciated

Up close

We all want to thrive

Where we stand

That takes a certain peace

In knowing where we belong

A purpose that is our own to hold

Like a flower seeded by love
in it's perfect season

Meant for us alone

The shoes I fill are not my mothers

She had her own steps to take

The place I call home

Is not my grandmother’s house

But the seeds they both planted

Are the nectar that runs through my veins

I am a bloom in a garden of many

yet at times I get lost looking for a mirror image

In the horizon of who I am
I wander far only to find

I grow best planted in belonging

right where I am.

©Carrie Van Horn 2019