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Tag: Commitment

Truth in action.

Washed Ashore

Posted on 7 December 20197 December 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Iker Urteaga illustrating poem titled Washed Ashore by H. Hennenburg.
Image by Iker Urteaga

Washed Ashore

Washed ashore
I think of you
And the many times
You tried the landing
Echoing absences
Dot the shallows
Of what might have been for you
But for me,
I am here
Waterlogged and foreign
Time crawling out of my skin
And abandoning me to gravity
And as I become part of the landscape
I wonder now
What becomes of you?

© H. Hennenburg, 6 July 2019

This poem was originally inspired by a painting I admired while wandering through a summer farm and craft market. The artist, Isabel Gibson, was lovely and had many interesting stories of the coastal and pastoral settings depicted in her paintings. Nature inspires art, art inspires poetry, poetry inspires love, love inspires life…and we are cycled and recycled over and again.

Joyfully linking with Poets United.

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While There Is Still Time

Posted on 23 November 201924 November 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Kelly Sikkema illustrating poem titled While There Is Still Time by H. Hennenburg
Image by Kelly Sikkema

While There Is Still Time

Now…while there is still time…
while there are still words
Now…when we meet in passing and are in the same space
for the first time…and for the last
Lift your head, fair one,
for there is no tomorrow that will hold this…either the sweetness or the sorrow
Tomorrow will steal in on a breeze that blows beyond our knowing,
and you will turn around and all will be forgotten.
And glowing within you will be only the love and honour and truth of your original light
And if I live, it will be only in the life that I give to you…And I will say,
“it was mine to give, and thus I gave it”

© H. Hennenburg, 28 November 2007

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

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Of Noble Beasts

Posted on 20 November 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Bart Van Meele illustrating poem titled Of Noble Beasts by H. Hennenburg
Image by Bart Van Meele

Of Noble Beasts

This dream
Has made of me its signature
The water that binds us
Is the blue-black ink
That fastens me
To parchment parched
And crumbling under weight of liquidity

I am the scant scion of noble beasts
Who remember me in their churning frenzy
To feed – as all must do
I am the way through
The conduit to sustenance unending
The mind of creation wending its way
To truth

We are peerless
We are the dreamer warring with itself
Killers saddled with irony
Armed with love
A sea raging with determination
To awaken

© H. Hennenburg, 19 November 2019

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

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Lodestar

Posted on 16 November 2019 by H. Hennenburg

Lodestar

I did not expect the brittle cry
Rising out from the mana
Voice breaking
Rheumy eyes discomposed
Lodestar
Shining with defiance
You are beckoning me to serve
Your consonant hoof-falls
Spreading their alchemy
Irrupting the gnosis with idyll wiles
I did not take the path of forgetting
I rose from the water astride your back
Never tossed in the tides of time
I glistened with moonlight
And showed you the scars I would accrue
My deep sea flesh waiting
For the universe within to round on us

© H. Hennenburg, 1 November 2019

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Improbable Wings

Posted on 30 October 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by David Clode illustrating poem titled Improbable Wings by H. Hennenburg
Image by David Clode

Improbable Wings

A cool rush of flagrant defiance
Unlocks a chain of misdemeanors
That fall from my tongue in a fevered cadence
My soliloquy goes uncharted
In this forest of layered beasts
Whose fragrant alliance has put me up to the mischief
I have fallen at the feet
Of one cleansing breath
That has choked the life from subjugation to rules that loathe exceptions
And I have taken flight on improbable wings

© H. Hennenburg, 19 October 2019

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Boundless

Posted on 26 October 201926 October 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Conrad Ziebland illustrating poem titled Boundless by H. Hennenburg
Image by Conrad Ziebland

Boundless

Where am I?
In the sea…floating…gracefully
Having left my shore, my home, my beginning –
my end
I am here floating
Counting on the great watery vastness
because nothing else counts
There is no future or past
that can measure against this moment of birth,
this gem of becoming,
this blossoming under the moon
There is no structure made of earth or time
that can define boundaries of love
No words to describe what it means now
What you ask of me is too small
The sea is full of air
the air is full of sea
the cosmos full of rocks and stones
that are full of atoms, full of particles, full of space
Where is there an end or a corner to pin love to
and say, “this is how high,” or, “this is how deep,” or, “this is how long?”
You ask too little of me
I love you more greatly than this

© H. Hennenburg, 20 November 2005

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Untouched

Posted on 2 October 20195 October 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Public Domain Archive illustrating poem titled Untouched by H. Hennenburg
Image by Public Domain Archive

Untouched

I am held in harbour
Stationed in my moorings
Bathed by the sun
Cradled in moonlight
I am untouched by your storm
If there even really is a you

© H. Hennenburg, 27 September 2019

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Embrace This

Posted on 24 August 201925 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Bessi illustrating poem titled Embrace This by H. Hennenburg
Image by Bessi

Life wants to live.

Trauma, indignity, betrayal and other unwelcome visitors show up in some lives more than others. If they show up enough, a person might reach a point where they feel – they believe – they cannot withstand anymore. One more blow, and they will crumple and cease to be. They might plead and put The Great All That Is on notice: “Look, I can’t take anymore. I’m just letting you know this, in case you can find it in your heart to not send any more my way.”

Then, another blow – maybe a series of small ones, or one low-grade, crushing long one. Then, the person might just shut down – cease to even try negotiating with the powers that be. “What’s the point?” Now this person KNOWS, they really cannot take anymore. Truly, this time, the person will break when another wave comes.

Then, another blow. A big one. One that makes all the other blows seem like mere child’s play. And do you know what happens to our little person? Our weary, bedraggled, pushed-beyond-the-breaking-point little human, who has always had thin skin, but who now surely possesses no skin at all anymore.

It takes a long time, but this person opens their heart and makes themselves vulnerable – again. They do it. And they do it because now they really know something. Now this person knows something that is true: Life wants to live. It keeps going whether or not we can keep up. Life wants to live. So may as well embrace it. We are stronger than we think we are.

Embrace This

I’ve watched you break
I have felt every bone,
One by one, splinter into fragments
Into dust and rubble
Utter annihilation, not once
But many times

I’ve seen you stand up to tidal waves
I’ve seen you refuse fortunes
I’ve seen you run headlong into the mouth of a beast
And then another…and then another
How you emerge to run again
I do not know

But I’ve seen you reappear like magic…fully formed
Over and over again
I’ve seen the map re-write itself
I’ve seen the flowers bloom
And ruts in old roads replaced by mountain meadows
Purely by the sheer power of your will

I’ve seen you cry
Alone, abandoned and betrayed
And I’ve seen you walk outside and go right on loving

There is no give up in you
Even when you desperately wish it so
So may as well embrace this
This longing
This heart hurt
This betrayal
Because it is happening
And your heart will rise to meet you
…Again

© H. Hennenburg, 7 November 2018

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

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Molasses And Steel

Posted on 17 August 201917 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Photos in collage by Corinna Schenk and FreePhotos illustrating poem titled Molasses And Steel by H. Hennenburg
Images by Corinna Schenk (left) and FreePhotos (right)

To me, truth is joy, and joy is truth – one in the same. So in my view, joy does not always come in the form of happiness. It does not always contain happiness. Always, it comes with the clarity of what is true inside. And that clarity brings a feeling of freedom. Not always a celebratory freedom. Sometimes it is a freedom that is heavy with responsibility to go forth and transform something painful into something so beautiful, it is worthy of the loss that necessitated it and worthy of those who will benefit from the gift of it.

Molasses And Steel

You brought colour to my life
Black for molasses
Blue for steel
You stood for things that were not real
You stole in the morning
Then peeled away
Laying rubber, black as molasses, on scorched streets

You performed elegant and death-defying feats
You raised a glass to greet something
That would beat us into submission
You were cold, hard
Blue like steel

Peeling away the layers of skin
That healed you into my soul
Is not a goal I cherish
Or claim the wherewithal to do
But there is a piece of me in you
And whether black or blue
We both must breathe

We must leave a trace of ourselves in this world
We have to be the steel and molasses
That builds and feeds
And sweetens harsh deeds into submission
It is our composition
At least it is mine

So if I am to thrive on the brine
In the glass you gave me
Break your fast and save me
A cup of molasses

© H. Hennenburg, 15 August 2019

Joyfully (and happily) linking to Poets United.

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Deepest Sargasso

Posted on 26 July 20197 August 2019 by H. Hennenburg
Image by Sache Styles illustrating poem titled Deepest Sargasso by H. Hennenburg.
Image by Sache Styles

Still waters under starry night
The azure blackness
In broad strokes
Painting me into this one moment in time

I am cradled by the mother
Of every living thing
I am not made to be led
I revel in deepest Sargasso

I relish her salt in my veins
I am swept ever inward by her gyre
And drilled down to the core
Where I am no more

Every waking moment is an opportunity
Every breach in protocol is the sea
Begging off boundaries
Offering new life

© H. Hennenburg, 18 July 2019

Joyfully linking to Poets United.

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About H. Hennenburg

H. Hennenburg

Hi, I’m H. Thanks for stopping by my site. I created Hennenburg.com to be a home for truth, joy & wonder as I experience and explore them in my writing. I have a sense of these three phenomena as both producing and encapsulating many themes that have recurred in my writing for as long as I can remember. Themes such as: [read more]

My Interview At Poets United

Read more about me plus my thoughts on truth, joy, wonder and the importance of hope during trying times.

Recent Posts

  • Washed Ashore
  • Wings To The Firmament
  • While There Is Still Time
  • Of Noble Beasts
  • Lodestar

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