Category Archives: poetry

What I Want.

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What I Want.
 ©2021  Louise Gallagher
 
 I want to live in wonder
 to see the world 
 fresh
 as a new born 
 slippery wet and squirming
 from the birth canal
 falling 
 into arms of love
 holding me 
 safely
 wrapped in swaddling cloth
 sewn with velvety silken
 streams of laughter and joy
 flowing all around me.
 
 I want to live in the awe
 of life 
 unfolding
 right here, right now
 in this moment
 giving birth 
 to possibilities awakening
 within the unfathomable beauty
 of the world
 pounding through my veins
 pumping 
 my heart
 full 
 of the mystery of this morning
 reincarnating itself
 within the dark
 of night passing through
 star lit skies
 and moonbeams streaming
 into day
 bursting 
 at the seams
 of my anticipation 
 of the wonder
 of it all 
  
 when I open my eyes, wide
 and stretch my arms even wider
 to that place 
 where my heart
 breaks
 wide 
 open
 to catch falling
 stars
 rain drops
 and tears
 
 I want to scream
 above the howls
 of wolves on full moon nights
 and wind swept mountain tops
 don’t you dare 
 cry 
 for me Argentina
 
 there are
 no tears needed
 to wash away
 this wonder 
 of living
 beyond the limitations
 of my fear
 unravelling
 in the fullness
 of every courageous step
 I take 
 to drive me
 far from that place where I believe 
 fear
 will keep me safe
 from feeling 
 the slings and arrows of fate
 
 there is no arrow 
    that can pierce my heart
 when my heart is open
 
 there is no riptide 
    that can pull me under
 when my arms are open wide
 
 and there is no wind
 that can blow me over
 when I stand strong
 
 strong enough to hold on
 to only love 
 
 because I know
 there is nothing to fear
 but fear itself 
 
 and I am born to be
 wild
 wild 
 beautiful 
 free.
  
 I am born
 born to be free
 to cry and laugh and say
 I love you because
 I love you is my battle cry
 my morning song
 my heart's delight
 and nothing can stop me
 singing

 I am fearless 
 and fierce enough 
 to let life
 get the best
 of me
 because that 
 that is what I want
 to live 
 in the endless wonder
 of being me.

Two Haiku

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Written sitting at my desk this morning as I watched the sky shift from dark to light.
Mixed media on canvas paper. 7 x 10″

I enjoy putting words to my paintings. Yesterday, when I had finished this one, my beloved asked me, “What kind of berries are those?”

Red, I replied.

And thus…. a haiku was born.

This morning, as I sat at my desk and watched the night sky fade into reds and rose and blue, I snapped the first photo.

And another haiku was born.

_____________

I am fascinated by the haiku form — both by its endurance through so many centuries and its compactness inviting the author/reader to say something about nature and life in so few words — the form is precise – three lines with a syllable count of 5 / 7 / 5 to equal 17 syllables in total.

From the website, Poets.org — “the philosophy of haiku has been preserved: the focus on a brief moment in time; a use of provocative, colorful images; an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of sudden enlightenment.”

It’s a great form to test and stretch your creative muscles.

____________

The painting of the berries was an experiment with watercolours, acrylic ink, spray ink and Inktense watercolour pencils.

Listen to It All

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  Listen to It All
 ©2021 Louise Gallagher
  
 I want to listen
 to it all
 to the sun rising
 into the indescribable blue of infinity
 full of whispering clouds floating
 within the sweet nothingness of
 endless sky falling
 into the story of forever 
 kissing the far-off horizon
 where it dips down to touch
 the untold mysteries of the sea 
 diving deep
 deep into the silence
 of the womb
 of mother earth’s divine creation.
  
 I want to feel 
 it all
 deeper than my skin
 peeled back
 to reveal
 my blood flowing red
 my heart beating wild
 in love with the ecstasy
 of being alive
 in this world
 of beginnings and endings
 forever tied up in the stories we tell
 so that we do not have
 to listen
 to the beauty of the silence
 that yearns to be heard
 above the cacophony of our human noise.
  
 I want to listen
 without knowing
 I am listening
 to anything
 other than life
 unfurling
 in all its mysterious beauty
 and unfathomable cruelty
 impregnating the darkness and the light
 with the wholeness
 that rises up
 to embrace me
 when I listen
 deeply
 to it all.

If I Could…

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Mixed media – 7 x 10″ on mixed media paper. (Collage, stamps, inks, acrylic paint and love)
 
 
 If I Could Give You My Heart
 ©2021 Louise Gallagher
  
 If I could 
 I would give you my words
 plump and full of
 promises
 dancing in the ecstasy
 of never having to leave
 you 
 without words
  
 If I could 
 I would paint you the sunrise
 bold and fiery
 colours streaking across the sky
 full of morning delight
 threaded with gold
 melting like butter
 upon a piece of warm buttered toast
  
 If I could 
 I would sing you a song of sunset
 full of sun-bathed mountains
 stretched out across the horizon
 like a dragon 
 sleeping
 at the edge of the world
 where sky tumbles into the sea
 and the moon rises high
 and pulls the night up into a sky
 full of stars falling like snow
 melting your dreams awake
  
 If I could
 give you my heart
 would you listen
 deep
 to the beat of its silence
 echoing throughout the vastness 
 of time wooing your fear
 of falling
 asleep
 like a lullaby
 spun into a cradle of love
 that can never break
  
 If I could 
 give you my heart
 would you listen
 deep?

Yesterday, I entered my studio without any clear idea of what I wanted/needed to create or without having heard what the muse was whispering into creation.

I opened my art journal to a blank page. Threw down some colour and text and lines. And took a breath.

A deep one.

I closed my eyes, let my conscious mind sink down, down, into the crucible of my belly, into the font of where creativity rises up to inspire, cajole, exhort me into being wildly, joyfully present to all that is present where ever I’m at.

And that’s when I felt the murmurings.

Of words. Of song. Of flowers and trees and birds and life flowing.

I started to draw and paint and when I was finished, she appeared.

I told C.C. “She’s my Frida Kahlo meets Marie Antoinette.” He laughed and asked, “Where’s the cake?”

“Her cake is the words she spins into stories the flowers breathe in,” I replied. (I might even have been a little flippant. But the muse didn’t care…)

And thus, the words appeared… Her words grew into the stories flowers told to chase away grey skies and cloudy days.

_________

This morning, when I sat down at my desk, I didn’t know what I was going to write.

I closed my eyes, took in a breath and watched it sink with my conscious mind floating on air down, down, down into the crucible of my belly. The busy places in my heart grew still. The stuck places melted… and that’s when I felt the murmurings.

Of words dancing and sunrises melting and hearts listening deeply and breaking open to love.

And the words guided my heart into creative expression.

Namaste

…to be continued.

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The story of all life holds beginnings turning into endings,
endings beginning again in a new story.

Every season turns into the next becoming
both the ending and beginning of the story of life
to be continued.

_____________________________________________

All That Remains

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We are six women in our writing circle every Wednesday evening. Five American. One Canadian. Me. Yesterday, at the end of our hour and a half together, we spoke of these times and all they’ve brought, and all they’ve taken away.

The losses feel almost incomprehensible. As one of the women said last night, with over 350,000 deaths in the US and the numbers climbing, it is numbing.

It is. Yet, we cannot let it be. Numbing. For these are lives lived that are no more. Mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Family members and friends. They may be strangers to me, but to someone their loss leaves an empty place that can never be filled.

As Beaumont the Sheepadoodle and I walked this morning in the brilliant sunshine, as we listened to the river crowding through the narrowing channels where ice is beginning to block its path, as I sipped my coffee at my desk and watched the squirrels play their constant game of tag along naked branches of the trees, I wondered how do you fill those empty places when the one who once was there is gone forever?

It feels fitting that as 2020 draws to its close and the calendar turns not just a page or month but into an entirely new year, that I spend some time reflecting upon those who will not be stepping into the new year.

And so, I offer this poem.

Let Love Do The Rest

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 Let Love Do The Rest
 ©2020 Louise Gallagher 
 
 Sometimes, when I sit and watch the river flow past
 a piece of flotsam will suddenly appear
 floating along its surface bobbing and weaving
 as it passes by. 
 I sit and watch it float past 
 until it is carried away 
 by the water’s constant current
 to a deep and distant sea.
  
 Sometimes, when that happens, 
 a slice of something from the past 
 will come untethered 
 from the banks of my memory
 and get caught in the current of my thoughts
 like a dark and foreboding limb of a tree
 torn from the river’s banks
 floating just beneath the surface.
  
 Ripped from its roots
 this something that has laid dormant
 in a dark corner of my mind
 will weave and bob and contort itself
 calling for my attention
 as if, now free of my memory bank
 it deserves to have its way with me.
  
 Lost in its struggle to gain possession of my attention 
 I can become absorbed by its writhing contortions 
 and lose all sense of direction
 as my peace of mind is drowned out
 by the cacophony of its insistence
 I let it pull me through the narrow rapids
 of its discord.
  
 I must choose...
  
 To throw myself into the chaos of its turbulent waters
 in the hope that once it has had its way
 it will return to the depths
 of my memory bank
 and lie dormant once again
 or 
 throw myself into a river of self-compassion 
 and let Love do the rest. 
  
 In love, the memory floats 
 like a piece of flotsam
 bobbing along the surface of the river
 carrying it away
 to a deep and distant sea. 
  
  

Perhaps…

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The muse and I have an agreement.

She flows. I open. Myself. The floodgates. The doors. The windows. The entrances to my heart, my mind, my body, my being present. Here.

And in all that is opened up I lose the need to know what word, what thought, what idea comes next and simply allow. The word, the thought, the idea to appear.

This morning, I sat at my desk. My final eggnog latte of the season steamed in my Christmas mug, (final because the container is empty). Beaumont the Sheepadoodle curled up at my feet, piano music played softly all around, the furnace hummed, my husband slept in our bed.

Outside my window, the sun was kissing the night good-bye with rose-streaked kisses.

I sat at my desk and welcomed in the morning with a soul-satisfying breath. It sank, deep, deep into my belly. Softly, silently, it flowed with ease into my lungs, down, down into the crucible of my body, And as I breathed in, then out, I felt my conscious mind sinking down, down into the presence of the sacredness of this life-giving ritual of breathing. With each breath, in and out, I felt my entire being expand into every cell of my body bringing me effortlessly into the hallowed nature of this moment at the edge of day dawning.

And the words poured out.

 Perhaps 
 ©2020 Louise Gallagher
  
 In a rush to make-meaning
 in all that has happened
 in all that has gone wrong
 or right
 in all that has been lost
 or gained
 I lose
 myself
 in the desperate struggle
 to not feel
 the loss
 of all I tell myself
 has been lost.
  
 Perhaps in my struggle
 to make it all
 make sense
 or have a purpose
 or fit into a box
 that only I can see
 I lose sight of
 all I cannot see.
  
 Perhaps, the meaning
 is in the experience.
  
 Perhaps, the making sense
 does not make sense.
  
 Perhaps, when I allow
 the purpose of everything
 to be the experience
 of everything
 without holding on
 to it all
 without fearing
 losing
 it all
 without judging it
 good or bad
 acceptable or unacceptable
 necessary or unnecessary
 I will find myself
 in that liminal space
 where all I have
 and all I am
 and all I know
 are nothing
 more than
 all I have to let go of.
  
 And, perhaps
 when I let go
 of naming
 all I have
 all I lost
 all I won
 all I know
 I will find myself
 in all I am.
  
 Perhaps then I will experience
 the all that I am
 as the most 
 precious 
 gift
 of all.

There Is Nowhere Love Will Not Go.

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Solstice is upon us and with it, I feel the calling of the muse to write my way into the light.

To stretch myself, to tease my poetic senses into verse, to give my mind an opportunity to lean into the unknown, beyond those spaces where my thinking has crystallized into certainty that I have it all figured out… I have begun a practice of reading a poem a morning – and then – letting whatever that poem inspires come into being through word and image.

This piece conspired itself into being after reading, WINTER APPLE From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte.

This is Day 2.

Some days I’ll share here. Some I won’t. We’ll see what the adventure brings!

There Is Nowhere Love Will Not Go
©2020 Louise Gallagher

Let this longest night
 fall
 effortlessly
 into dawn breaking open
 the sky
 bereft
 of winter’s days
 trapped
 inside
 with only the sheltering bones
 of this abode
 where you have held yourself
 sequestered
 to keep you safe.
 
Let this solitude
 play
 effortlessly
 the strings of your heart
 straining
 to not break
 under
 the weight
 of isolation 
 and worry
 that no matter the distance
 between two hearts
 love 
 will not be
 enough
 to keep you safe.

Let this Solstice
 awaken
 effortlessly
 your faith
 in Love’s authority
 to illuminate
 even the darkest night
 with its power
 to break open
 the dawn
 light returning
 to your heart
 on this darkest morning
 of the year.
 
And in that breaking open
 may you remember
 always
 there is nowhere
 Love will not go
 to keep you safe.