H. Hennenburg

The Art Of Touching You

Posted on 13 July 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

I am often grappling with the uneasy coexistence of absolute oneness and the seeming separation imposed by being in a physical body and of an individual mind – the condition of being an earthling, as it were. Here, the antidote to existential loneliness is an acceptance of a connection that is not knowable through my physical senses – a real surrender to my own beliefs. Physical touch is so much easier, yet this other kind of connection is so much bigger. But how do we live that kind of connection in our day-to-day physical world? We have to reach out our hands, answers my intuition. She gives no further instructions.

The Art Of Touching You

Telescope to the sky
A tingling darkness rises within
Shaping me tenderly
Resonating with things too far or too close for the eye to see
Things to be known instinctively

I sit alone with the universe
Embodying its great infinity
Contemplating the boundlessness
And the borders we impose
Intersecting at nowhere

And it is here that I laugh again
Because you are so close
That I can feel and know and love you
You are in my very own particles
And yet you are uniquely apart, as am I

But the art of touching you
This is the quest for which I turn to the telescope
The finer details eluding me
Out there we intersect, you and I,
At every point imagined and unimaginable

Here, I lie back and open my soul
To the immensity of that truth
My cosmology defining nothing while explaining everything at once
In this vast darkness swirling immeasurable light, I surrender and repose my longing
And reach out my hand and accept that you are here

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

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Weather

Posted on 10 July 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Weather or not
I stand
I hold to my nature
I embrace her presence
Weather or not
She is swayed
And bent
And occasionally splintered
Because we all change form
Weather or not
We persevere
We keep trying
Though the general atmosphere
Is prying at our spirit
Let love reign to the last
Weather or not

Posted for the fine folks at Poets United for the Midweek Motif: weather.

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Hope Is Not Passive

Posted on 6 July 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

I hear a lot of talk about the state of the world. Often, I hear statements that begin with vision and understanding and shift quickly into sentences starting with, “but sadly… .” I hear a lot of voices filled with resignation saying “I hope… .” The implication being “I hope I’m wrong about where all this is headed.” This is not hope.

Hope is not passive.

Hope is not waiting to see what will happen. Hope is not about outcomes. Hope is making choices. Hope is choosing what you do with your thoughts, where you focus your attention, what you do in response to the challenges in your world. Hope is not passive.

Hope is investing in life. Showing up. Being here – for however long you get to be here. You wonder sometimes, “is there any hope for us, for our world?” You are our hope. Be here! I am our hope. Stand with me! All we have to do is show up, see ourselves in each other and choose accordingly.

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What If

Posted on 2 July 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

What if we go in
What if we go under
Where sunlight doesn’t reach
What if the guards step aside
And let us enter
What if there is light still?
How will we re-configure ourselves
How will we wrap ourselves
Within and around a reality
That is unending
What if there is a way
And we have already chosen it?
What if we surprise ourselves
What if we step aside
And let the mystery prevail
What if we are not masters of our destiny
But co-conspirators
In a great gamble
Of opportunity and chance
Where risk and reward
Are synonymous with play
And the consequence is freedom
What if the guards were put in place
By our own fear
What if they were never really here?

Posted for Poets United and their Midweek Motiff: “Poems to Weather Uncertain Times”

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Look

Posted on 23 June 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Look beyond your stories
Your imaginings
Your interpretations of events
Look beyond what you think they see
When they look at you
Look for something new
Carry your ghosts
behind enemy lines
And drop them there
Look beyond human shame and indignation
And limitations of birth and time
Look beyond what you think you see
When you look in the mirror
Look for something true
Look for questions, not answers
Reality is in the possibilities
Not in that which has already been named
Forget what you know
You are here now
Even if all the world is a step behind you
You have a right to see

Joyfully linking to dVerse Poets Pub.

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First Faces

Posted on 20 June 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Derived from image by Kellepics — Altered image by Kellepics

Fear is just a pioneer
Leading our way into undiscovered territory
Making of us children at the feet of a great storyteller
Where colour has no rules and form is open to interpretation
And the unexpected is the stuff of life
And the trail leads on as the story goes
And the artist knows what we fail to imagine
But the ground is broken
And the sun is high
And the first faces will break the chain of habitual seeing
And the pioneers will break their hold on the living
And no more will the roots of tyranny determine our destiny

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Heart Open

Posted on 11 June 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Heart Open is the first in the “Out Loud” series of my spoken word poetry. Any time you see the above white and orange “Out Loud” logo, click play and have a listen.

Heart Open is about living a courageous devotion to love, vulnerability and freedom and recognizing these as inherent experiences that we all share.

The opening lines, “her heart is open / and mine is watching,” were born as I watched Alicia Keys perform on television. She sang and played, heart on her sleeve, and I felt how my heart had become guarded after a few solid years of consecutive illness, brain injury and personal loss.

I perceived in Alicia Keys’ expression and performance, the fullness of love for life she is capable of enjoying because she is willing to be vulnerable in her art, and I remembered! I remembered how to achieve that experience for myself.

It is a universal experience. A universal capacity to love. To choose love. To be love. To remember that love is life, and life is the point. I am grateful that we can learn, and relearn, from each other. Awaken, and reawaken, because we see ourselves in each other and we know in our being the power of love that unites us.

Heart Open

Her heart is open
And mine is watching
Her heart is open
And mine keeps stopping to see
‘cuz if it’s her
Then it’s me
And the deluge is gonna come
And the day I run?
Woman, that ain’t gonna happen
If I’m livin’, I’m laughin’
I’m soakin’ up the sun
I’m dancin’ in the rain
I’m centred
I’m solid
And I’m sane
And if you’re gonna hit me with rage
I will stand with the almighty
The all-knowing power
Of love
‘cuz if it’s in my heart
It’s in your heart too
Sweet symphony
Sweet simplicity
Sweet, sweet synchronicity
If it’s her
Then it’s me
Then it’s you

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Time Signature

Posted on 30 May 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

And yet does she awaken in me
A curiosity
For things I have not thought possible
And draws me out
To where open sits my heart
Surveying all that is unfamiliar
In these surrounds
And listening for the current that comes
To drown out a rhythm
Or create an entirely new time signature
This is her territory
Where a wanderer might just
Jump the tracks
And roll out a steel girded
Foundation for generations to come
Where one act of ferocious love for life
Inspires eyes wide open
In the genetic code
And she invites me into the cornea
Of that copious determination
That what can be
Is already done
And there is no other one alternative
To the path
Or the richness of its rewards

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Thank You

Posted on 27 May 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Thank you for the soft cry of seagulls at dawn
and for the quiet hours of early evening on rain-soaked days

Thank you for paper and pen
and for blurred thoughts
and dulled senses

Thank you for loss of control
and the faint light in the neighbour’s window

Thank you for the trickling sound of water in the gutters and chimney
and for the patience of an old friend who ages gracefully next to me

Thank you for the scent of food whose aromas invoke a faraway home
and for places to which we can never return

Thank you for a hard life
punctuated by tiny strokes of genius
and for the bounty of fortune that, at least once, ensued

Thank you for my country and this country
and for the known and unknown pairs of arms and hands that brought me here

Thank you for the gifts that I will never receive
and for the gift of never receiving them

Thank you for frailty and openness and exposure
and for the fear of falling
and for the fall

Thank you for the journeys that never end
and for hopeless dreams that beg us to differ

Thank you, for there is a shoreline on both sides
and countless untold truths between them

Thank you for the words and music
for all the bridges crossing steep valleys
and for canyons cutting through forgotten land

For all the things we should never forget
and scarcely recall

Thank you for the blood of it all
that courses while it can
and for the wee bit of light that stems the flow

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Release The Hounds

Posted on 22 May 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Kindness
Has arrived at this doorstep
An open playground beyond.
Withering brilliance
Falls away for truer light.
Predisposed to love as I am,
What choice do I have but to play?
For I am one
Who needs nothing but to be.
And every living thing
Moves inside the heart
That surrenders to freedom
That allows the wave of the unknown
To carry it aloft and untethered
Into new realms of possibility.
So I unzip my skin
And release the hounds
For their faith is inherent
As is my glee to follow.

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