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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.

Spread the wonder!

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”

Spread the wonder!

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.

Spread the wonder!

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

Spread the wonder!

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

Spread the wonder!

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

Spread the wonder!

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

Spread the wonder!

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.

Spread the wonder!

Chasm

Posted on 19 May 201921 September 2019 by H. Hennenburg

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

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

Spread the wonder!

Howl

Posted on 18 May 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Hear the coyotes yip and bay
As the night becomes a living thing
Under the ignited charge of their calling breath
A chorus united and moving as one
A chortling wave across the open land

Feel the tingling prick of electricity
The crisp chill of primal recognition
Scoring a vibratory channel
Through the brass of your teeth
The drum of your skull
The steel of your spine
Launching you from your place of comfort
Into your tribal home
Where there is no roof
And there are no doors
And we are hunted by the grip of our howl

Spread the wonder!

Hope Is Not Passive

Related Posts:

What If

Related Posts:

Look

Related Posts:

First Faces

Related Posts:

Heart Open

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.

Related Posts:

Time Signature

Related Posts:

Thank You

Related Posts:

Release The Hounds

Related Posts:

Chasm

Related Posts:

Howl

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