metaphor

Focus

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

I am always looking for them.

Hawks.

I see them most often on power lines, easy to spot, as they are so much larger than other birds perched on high.

Alone. What other bird would perch with a hawk?

Some of them have so much white plumage that I think of snowy owls (which do not live in this southern clime).

In recent weeks I’ve seen a hawk in the branches of a winter-bare tree.

Regal. Breathtakingly beautiful.

Raptors, living on prey. Solitary creatures, not socialites. Steeped in symbolism.

Ultimately they are creatures of intense focus, and that is the lens I will use now.

It occurs to me, while contemplating hawks, that what we focus on feeds us.

Not our stomachs. Our spirits. Our souls.

Everything we devour isn’t good.

It also comes out that way, somewhere, somehow.

Somewhere, somehow, I think it was the hawk that inspired me to give up negativity for Lent.

I don’t need to partake of it or serve it (the whole point being repentance and not returning to it again).

I stepped away from social media quite some time ago; not gone, exactly, just…distanced. Able to hone in, occasionally, for what’s really of value.

I’ve stopped dwelling in the shadows of this school year (a work in progress). Perhaps more hours of daylight have helped with this…the hawk doesn’t waste precious time rueing the daily grind of life. It just does it. Concentrating on the task at hand. Never losing direction. Knowing when and where to move; until then, waiting and watching. With wide perspective.

Of course all the challenges don’t just disappear (as the hawk surely knows).

But in shedding unnecessary weights, the heights are easier to obtain. The mental eye is clearer, sharper.

Yes, focus.

Consider this, from Merriam-Webster:

The Latin word focus meant “hearth, fireplace.” In the scientific Latin of the 17th century, the word is used to refer to the point at which rays of light refracted by a lens converge. Because rays of sunlight when directed by a magnifying glass can produce enough heat to ignite paper, a word meaning “fireplace” is quite appropriate as a metaphor to describe their convergence point. From this sense of focus have arisen extended senses such as “center of activity.”

Directed light, channeled energy…being a conduit.

My thoughts spin homeward, to the hearth and heart of my life.

And as I drive at the end of the day, my freer spirit soars like the hawk on high, wind ruffling the embers of its breast.

Red-shouldered hawk. Photo by my friend E. Johnson

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with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge

Like crows, hawks use tools
to get what they need.

Writing is a tool
for the soul.

A lens
for a better focus
on life.

Heartdance

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments


a celebration of love
in the unchoreographed dance
of life

two triolets

I.

On this Friday night
he prepares for the dance
much to his girl’s delight.
On this Friday night
her smile is country-morning bright
taking pictures out by the manse.
On this Friday night
he prepares for the dance.

II.

It was meant to be, you and me.
Let us dance
our own jubilee.
It was meant to be, you and me,
these moments, in our finery,
taking pictures out by the manse.
It was meant to be, you and me.
Let us dance.

My preacher-son and his girl, going to the Father-Daughter dance.

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with thanks to the Two Writing Teachers community for providing a place to share our unfolding stories,
even when they are poems.

Colors of my life: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

As host of my fellow Spiritual Journey writers on the first Thursday of this new month, Bob Arjeha asks: What colors make up your life? Do you shine bold…? Are you a more quiet light…? Are you a combination of both? What colors do you shine so that others may follow?

How creative, Bob. Thank you for providing such a compelling lens…

*******

It’s not a color I’d automatically choose to represent myself.

But then again, I have a hard time saying what my favorite color is. I love red for its bright power and cheer (think cardinals there by the roadside, bits of brilliant crimson against the drab gray-brown backdrop of winter, without snow). I love shades of coral for its vitality and unexpected freshness. I am drawn to neutral tones, grays, browns, taupes, creams, black and white, as far as a wardrobe goes, for they can be endlessly mixed and matched with every other color. I took a color personality test once and was told I am gold, which is quite gratifying on a number of levels, considering its value and connotations of endurance, faithfulness, and love.

I come at last to green.

It does not come readily to mind as one of my life’s colors.

For most of my life, in fact, I didn’t even appreciate that my birthstone is green. Why couldn’t it have been the lovely pale-purple alexandrite of June? The costly, iridescent-sparkling diamond of April? The fiery opal of October? I absolutely love opals…but no, my birthstone is an emerald. As a child I took a little consolation from Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, but still… I didn’t love the color. Aside: children today do not know what their birthstone is. I remember poring over catalogs as a child, studying birthstones. Women proudly wore mothers’ and grandmothers’ rings bearing stones for every child and grandchild. I memorized the birthstone, modern and traditional, for every month.

I was given a little emerald necklace as a child (by Grandma, I think), and my Grannie bought me a simulated emerald-and-diamond ring for my tenth or eleventh birthday. Both pieces of jewelry have been lost over the years. I liked having them, but…green wasn’t really “my color”.

As a child of the 70’s, avocado green was a staple of home decor. Our telephone (with a wildly long cord that I stretched infinitely longer as a teenager) was this color. The panels on the front of my childhood house were this color. For years my dad owned only two suits, one polyester and one brushed suede, and they were both green. I didn’t like either one of them. My childhood bedroom had dark green carpet (and blue walls); my cat had kittens under my bed and Daddy had to cut away a good bit of that rug. My first car, a hand-me-down, was army green (an LTD Ford the size of an army tank; in those days, five bucks of gas would get you through the week). My high school colors were green and gold; most kids chose an emerald-green stone for their class rings. I chose pearl.

Why, then, does the color come tapping on the backdoor of my mind now, calling, Hello, it’s me, Green; I am important in your life. Let me in-?

How do I know Green is up to this, you ask?

Because of my dreams.

As a writer, I’ve learned to capture intriguing images for use later. My dreams are typically vivid. I know there’s much fascinating symbolism to them that I’m not able (and probably really don’t want) to analyze. I think of Jung. I recall the mighty gift of dream interpretation in the Bible. I decided to record my more compelling dreams in a journal. I’ve been astonished by several recurring patterns and images…including the number of times green has appeared in my dreams.

For the record, green isn’t always positive; we know it can represent illness, poison, envy, and even evil. Let’s go ahead and get that acknowledgement out of the way.

The rich, deep green in my dreams doesn’t manifest itself in any of these ways. At all.

Consider…

a friendly crow coming to see me and dropping a mysterious green ball (—stone?—fruit?) into my hand

vivid green grass growing on patches of barren ground

vast vivid green fields, going on and on

rich green leaves of trees at night, where owls are perched and calling

more than one dream of cicadas (which I love) with shiny emerald-green shells; in one dream, the yard was full of them, and they seemed to be burrowing in the ground. I so wanted to linger and watch…

There is more, but a couple of things are obvious: the green in these dreams is that of living things. It is the color of life, of nature, of growth. The cicada connection is one of my favorites; these green creatures represent fidelity and resurrection. There are clear overtones of wisdom beckoning in these dreams. Of being given some kind of gift. Of restfulness and rejuvenation: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures… of cycles and endurance and sustainability. Of being sustained. Green is the color of abundance and well-being and comfort. It makes me think about how we really don’t live as close to nature as we should, and what a terrible price we pay for that. I really didn’t recognize this great pull of nature at the core of my existence until I started writing consistently several years ago, and that’s when nature began revealing inextricable interconnectedness to human life on a spiritual level…just now I think of evergreen trees, enduring winter.

It is the color most often present in my dreams, by far. I may not have chosen it but it has chosen me, and I have come to treasure its significance in my spiritual life. I believe it is connected to my writing as well…for wring is a deeply spiritual activity. Green is, after all, a combination of blue, the color of sky and sea, and yellow, like the sun…life and eternity. Come what may, I shall go on. I know in Whom I trust. While I live, let me use the gifts given to me wisely and well.

Speaking of which: At Christmas my husband gave me a beautiful emerald necklace. He’d forgotten it was my birthstone; he chose it as a symbol of our Irish roots. I was wearing it when his sister came to exchange gifts… without any clue that her brother had given me the necklace, she gave me emerald earrings in the exact same shade, plus a jacket to match.

As it has chosen to wrap itself around me so…. let me be an open door, a window, to a world rippling infinitely rich and green with possibility.

A bit of light

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

Today on Ethical ELA I encountered a poetic form new to me: the lantern. My understanding is that it is a five-line Japanese shape poem beginning with a one-syllable noun followed by successive lines of nouns containing two, three, and four syllables, ending with another one-syllable noun, all connected to and building on the first word.

I was immediately captivated and had to give it a try.

It is challenging.

In my mind the lantern image morphed into a lamppost, a symbol with much personal meaning. Like the indelible image in Narnia, a lamppost marks the way home for me: one stood in front of the house where I grew up. Whenever I was out at night and turned the last corner, I’d see the light of that lamppost.

I went with the image. I kept the syllable count but gave up on sticking with just nouns. I could write a lengthy essay about all the other meanings the lamppost holds for me, but this is poetry; interpretation belongs to the reader. 

It is dark and dreary in my neck of the woods today, pouring rain… perhaps that’s another reason the lamppost remained.

I needed a bit of light.

To the Lamppost

Your
good light
still guides me
home through darkest
night

The edge of understanding

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

It is said that
instruction should begin
at the edge of understanding

I know this edge

where the solid ground ends
and the unknown begins

all certainty suspended
as the mists roll in
obscuring the chasm
before me

I would linger here
until the end of my days
on the foundations that
sustained me thus far

if not for the Guide
speaking one step
at a time
into being

only materializing
when I place my foot
forward
to find a firmness
beneath
before I can
fully see

a little
of the mist clears
while the edge
on which I’m standing
under construction
is expanding

At the Edge of the Caldera… ER’s Eyes – Our planet is beautiful. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Edit your life

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

The poet asked:
What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The inner critic replies:
Things are what they are.
Can’t change much now.
Don’t even think about it.

The writer-soul contradicts:
What changes shall I make TODAY?
The possibilities
are exhilarating.

For, in the end,
one’s wild and precious life
is all about
craftsmanship

and
belief.

The cover of my daily planner

–with gratitude for the late Mary Oliver and her poem, The Summer Day–

Bad advice poem

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

with thanks to Scott McCloskey, today’s Open Write host on Ethical ELA. Scott says there are plenty of poems offering advice, but few offering bad advice… today we set about rectifying that shortage…

How to Manage a Skeleton

When sitting with a skeleton
it is best to remind him (?)
it is his own fault
he has no flesh

unless, of course,
you fail to recognize
a skeleton in the first place
(it’s possible
even probable
despite the garish array
of teeth
and the empty sockets
and all those ribs
gleaming white)

you might go so far
as to remind the skeleton
to keep a stiff upper lip
(although ‘twill do
little good
when one
has no lips
no more)

better yet to focus
all your time, energy,
and efforts with the skeleton
in pointing out the priority
of having a backbone
over having a heart

by all means,
continue extracting
your pound of flesh
ignoring, of course,
the feeble rattling
of wind whistling
through the bones
—this does not matter
in the slightest
when the spirit
is long gone.

Reading Skeleton. leted. CC BY-NC 2.0.

In our shared autumn

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

with thanks to Denise Hill for the prompt on Ethical ELA’s Open Write today: American Sentences, a poetry form invented by Allen Ginsberg, are comprised of seventeen syllables.

To my husband.

An Observation, While Watching Oblique Light Striking Fiery Leaves

What shall I say to you, in the long afternoon of our shared autumn?
Memories of many colors scuttle across sidewalk existence.
I cannot decide which I would gather to preserve, to toss, to burn.
Trees have no compunction about shedding their fragility—should we? 
Give me your hand while it is yet light, for evening comes earlier now.
Moments, in their gilded crowns, are more beautiful than ever before.

River dream

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

I cannot say, Child, what you might be experiencing within, but I can tell you I dreamed
that we were sailing along a river with green overhanging boughs
and that the waters before us were only troubled by a succession
of indentations made by tiny feet running rapidly across
—a little Jesus lizard, there in the recesses, trying to catch
or, on second thought, cavorting with, a dragonfly which shimmered and skimmered
away just as the swan drifted into view, its white feathers transforming as it neared,
changing from white to gold flushed with crimson
and then the eagle, gliding low over the glimmering water, huge, like life itself,
its curved yellow beak closed, its sharp eye affixed on us, not on the hunt,
merely acknowledging our presence
and so we drifted on and I didn’t even realize until the shore loomed
before us, rocky and steep, that we’d been riding in a little wooden boat
that navigated the river by its own power, not ours, to land us
right where we needed to be, and that we’d be able to navigate
this embankment, too, for there amid the stones and earth were steps
perfectly placed for our climb.

Cincinnati – Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum ‘An Unreal Moment, and a Gift.’” David Paul Ohmer CC BY 2.0.

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with thanks to the Two Writing Teachers community
for the place to share Slices of Life
even when they are but dreams