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
© H. Hennenburg, 10 July 2019
Posted for the fine folks at Poets United for the Midweek Motif: weather.
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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.
© H. Hennenburg, 3 July 2019
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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?
© H. Hennenburg, 1 July 2019
Posted for Poets United and their Midweek Motiff: “Poems to Weather Uncertain Times”
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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
© H. Hennenburg, 26 April 2019
Joyfully linking to dVerse Poets Pub.
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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
© H. Hennenburg, 1 June 2019
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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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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
© H. Hennenburg 24 May 2019
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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
© H. Hennenburg, 9 October 2010
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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.
© H. Hennenburg, 14 May 2019
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Chasm
Let it affect you
It is of you
Came from you
Hear what it has to say
Listen with an inward ear
Because no one is going to tell you truths like this
Feel it
Like it holds tomorrow in the palm of its hand
Because for all you know
It is the key to your every last breath
And your every wakeful passage into life
More life!
More stars and rivers and canyons – and love
More love to fill the chasm
That is space
That is everywhere
That is us
We are the passion that feeds life
When it spills forth from your mind
– from the love that is in your heart –
Listen!
It is there to affect you
It is there to protect you
To fill and project you
Because you are not alone
You are not all one
And the one
Is not all
Without you
© H. Hennenburg, 9 April 2019
Joyfully linking to Poets United.
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