Category: Poetry

Come spring!

On By Anna EastlandIn Photos, Poetry4 Comments

Come spring, come spring,

Let flowers sing!

Let no more melancholy winter reign,

With its thousand reasons to complain.

No more introspection in the dark

Be rather joyous as the lark!

Burst outside the walls your soul restricting

Let yourself fly on winds uplifting.

A hillside of flowers catches my eye

I hurry toward them on feet light and lithe.

Tiny crocuses shake in the breeze

Delighted to see them I drop to my knees

Translucent petals tremble and sigh

But lift their glowing faces to the sky.

Despite the February frost,

Let not one day of sunshine be lost!

Come spring!

Cereal Bathing

On By Anna EastlandIn Marriage, Maternal Health, Poetry1 Comment

Since Christmas I’ve been floating in

periodic luxury…

the bath bombs my husband gave me from Lush–

enormous sparkling balls of colour

which fill our bedroom with exotic perfumes.

When you drop them in the water,

they careen around like drunken tennis balls,

spewing a fuzzy stream of technicolor bubbles.

The first one was coffee-scented,

and I had to laugh,

lying there in a giant creamy latté.

Another resembled a golden peach,

and out of its centre came floating

–unexpected up to my face–

a perfect little dried flower,

all pointy and crimson.

Why all this sweet madness of sparkling bubbles

from my often-away, hard-working husband?

They are a silent embrace from afar,

a wordless thank you for all you do,

an affirmation of my body’s goodness,

even, or maybe especially, when it’s exhausted.

So tonight, feeling frazzled and snappy

from too many sibling squabbles

and the sneaky migration of mismatched socks

all over the living room floor,

I threw in a big orange bath-bomb,

and read a delicious chapter of Before Green Gables

while the tub filled up.

Finally, I slid into this frothy carrot soup

and imagined I was floating in the sea,

bobbing up and down near the shore

with seagulls gliding high above the waves.

But…the tiny bubbles popping near my ears

made it sound like I was bathing

in a giant bowl of Rice Crispies instead.

At least, for once, with the toddler asleep,

no one was trying to steal my cereal!

To Life!

On By Anna EastlandIn PoetryLeave a comment

Christmas is coming and there’s a lot of emphasis on being happy in this season of joy. But life with all it’s challenges continues in December like in any month, with extra business on top of it, so here’s a poem for anyone out there who’s had a bad day recently. You’re not alone!

Sometimes the best way to feel better is to allow yourself to feel crummy for a little while instead of fighting it. For me, writing poetry helps me indulge in my melancholy mood and then let it go, rather than having sadness trapped inside.

To Life!

Oh, life!

Oh, imperfect messiness!

Oh, easily screwed up days,

repeated mistakes

and ever unchanging weaknesses…

Wounds that hide and reappear

like dolphins under water

surfacing for breath,

seeking light and healing

and disappearing again.

Am I am I am I

ever going to grow?

Going to stop failing,

stop falling,

stop saying bitter things–

crouching under a shield of sarcasm

feeling so small

I have to pretend

I’m invulnerable.

Not likely.

But, oh! God bless me

and help me never give up trying.

Each day let me not be crushed

by insecurity.

I am scuffed up and tiny

but thus you have made me

and love me through it all.

Amen.

Amen to life!

Because I may be a fool

but even a fool can live life

and love.

Little Snail

On By Anna EastlandIn PoetryLeave a comment

Little snail,

when poked in the eye,

curls up into his shell

and pretends to die.

Sealed up, breathless,

in his perfect shell,

in suffocating safety

he chooses to dwell.

“Alone in the dark,

do not remain,

for home is a prison

when full of pain.

Do come out,

timid little snail,

to slowly leave your

little silver trail.

People may laugh

but how dare despise

that God made you

with your googley eyes?

Don’t be alone,

but join us here,

there is no life,

where there’s no fear.”

https://unsplash.com/s/photos/snail

Thanks to unsplash for the gorgeous shot above.

Vexation

On By Anna EastlandIn PoetryLeave a comment

Oh, tongue!

How gallantly I must strive to restrain thee!

Galloping off wildly

in pursuit of so many passions,

insistently stomping and frothing at the mouth.

Calm thyself, wild stallion of speech!

For words lose power when overused,

like a man who always stands

on the top of a hill

flapping his arms–

after a while,

the feeling of alarm fades and

one simply gets used to the wind.

Wartime Palindrome

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry2 Comments

In my last post, “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom, I mentioned my Dutch Opa, a radioman, who refused to continue working for the radio when it was taken over by the Nazis in World War Two. In doing so he risked his life. I wrote this poem for him, to honour his refusal to speak words of hate. May each of us fight the battle to find peace in our hearts, so there can be no more war in the world.

Opa,

your silence in the attic–

a defiance,

a refusal to speak false words.

Your face pale

under dusky skin,

as planes drone over Hilversum

and your children play above you,

innocently distracting the soldiers.

Under the floor boards you hide,

cramped–

radio silence.

Radio silence–

cramped,

you hide under the floor boards.

Innocently distracting the soldiers,

your children play above you,

as planes drone over Hilversum.

Under dusky skin,

your face is pale.

You refuse to speak false words,

your defiance–

your silence in the attic,

Opa.

This Life

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry2 Comments

This life–

so beautiful and terrible,

so full of horror and sunsets,

of crushing sadness,

kissable babies toes,

and mellow evening skies through the treetops.

This world of ours,

pulsing with life,

yet ever falling into death.

What is is life, Lord, without you,

who holds all things in being,

from inexpressible richness

to indescribable pain,

from grandmother’s smiles

to pizza.

You stretch our caterpillar spirits,

–too often content

to curl up comfortably at home

in our protective layer of fur–

until we become as expansive as butterflies,

wings dancing across the entire sky,

exposed to the sun and wind and starlight,

and intimately close to you–

face to face,

forever.

Dry Bones Blooming

On By Anna EastlandIn PoetryLeave a comment

They look like a bowl of dried bones,

cold and lifeless–

a tragic ode to time lost

and utterly incapable of change–

but look more closely!

Within their crinkled-shut hearts,

clenched in the knuckles of their bony hands,

are tiny gems

bursting with possibility!

When the sun’s warm gaze melts

the unfeeling snow

into lovely spring water,

blooms will unfurl

from these dusty bones.

After winter’s grimness,

we’ll see the world in colour again,

and the flowers will laugh

that we thought them dead.