When my daughters were young and we’d spy the sun shimmering on the water, I would make up stories about the Sun Fairies who danced and played on the water’s surface, leaping and spinning in the pure, absolute delight of being warmed by sunlight and refreshed by water.
As I sat on the rocks at the ocean’s edge, the Sun Fairies danced and I fell under the spell of their enchanting song.
I wonder sometimes, how do we hold onto the magic we see through a child’s eyes? How do we treasure those moments when the wonder they see inspires us to let go of the heaviness the world sometimes brings? How do we fall from despair into the awe and delight, the mystery and the miracles of everyday?
When will we ever learn, war does not restore, it kills? Peace is not built on destroying the ‘others’ we deem unworthy of living? And, silencing the guns does not bring peace if our body – heart, belly, mind – still holds onto the belief that we were right to kill another to make our own peace in the world? When will we ever learn?
I sat at the water’s edge and watched the Sun Fairies dance and felt the ebb and flow of the tide calling me to let go of fear, to embrace the gentle power of hope, and to finally understand that true peace begins within, flowing out like these shimmering waters to embrace all beings.
Lost in these thoughts, the muse whispered sweet tantalizing urges to write it out. With grateful heart, I accepted her gift.
Gossamer Dread by Louise Gallagher
I wrap my mind in gossamer threads woven full of dread dripping doom falling like bombs tumbling blind from darkened skies shielding the no-see-ums buzzing in my head.
Did you cower deep below London’s darkened streets crumbling above your head dreading the next bomb?
Did you fear, eyes shut tight against the sky raining death in the night as the world slept and children cried and mothers pleaded for a future they could not see defenseless against the bombs tumbling blind?
When will we ever learn? Our humanity is not immune to war.
My husband lives with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). I use “lives with” intentionally because COPD has no cure; the lungs don’t repair themselves. Eventually, they harden, limiting breathing until the heart can no longer withstand the stress. It’s a pernicious disease that kills, one way or another.
Not a happy ending to our love story, for sure. But then, all life ends the same way. It’s just about quality, how we live whatever life we’ve got, and timing.
Is there ever a good time to die? No. A bad time? Yes — like today, or tomorrow, before I’ve lived fully, before I feel truly done. Before all our “I Love You’s” are shared.
Listening to my husband struggle for breath, hearing the rattles and chugs of his lungs as he sleeps, talks, walks, does anything, is a constant reminder of death’s presence and Love’s eternal grace.
Love teaches me: I can’t avoid death. And so, I’m choosing to befriend it, or at least, to acknowledge its presence without fear and loathing colouring our interactions with dread,resistance and foreboding.
This poem is my way of grappling with its presence, and honouring my husband’s courageous fight for each breath.
Hard-won Breath by Louise Gallagher
Hardened lungs gasp, struggle for air, a painful search for release from disease that chokes each breath, hard-won against a crown-of-thorns starfish leaching life from bleached coral dying for life.
“The world is a cancer, and my soul is the knife with which I will cut it out.”
The Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
I read the news and I want to cry. So much pain, suffering, anger, and angst consume our world. Yet, amidst it all, there is still so much beauty.
I cannot deny the pain and suffering any more than I can deny the profound beauty of this world—its people, animals, and natural wonders. All of it, beautiful. All of it, capable of profound kindness or deliberate cruelty, thoughtful connection or careless disregard, collaboration or obstruction, honesty or deceit. We are capable of all of it. We hold the power to choose: will we align ourselves with Love or with Evil?
Years ago, I met a man who dismissed my belief in the inherent goodness of humanity as a weakness. “You are so naive to believe evil does not exist,” he scoffed. I countered, affirming that I knew evil existed, but believed Love was greater and would ultimately prevail, cutting it out. He then spent nearly five years proving me wrong. By the end of that relationship, I doubted the very existence of love, but I knew the presence of evil intimately.
When he was arrested and I miraculously got my life back, I chose to heal the massive wounds I’d experienced with Love. It was the only force strong enough to save me from despair. Since those days of post-traumatic love—which was, in truth, abuse—I had relaxed my guard against evil. I chose instead to believe that if I simply stayed the course of Love, evil would not prevail.
I’ve had a rude awakening. Evil is afoot. It flexes its muscles across the globe, beguiling those who underestimate its power. It masquerades as benevolence, as all-knowing wisdom, as pure justice—the rightful avenger of wrongs spanning decades, even centuries. It promises to right the ship, but only if we, its unwitting acolytes, remain silent, immobile, complacent, and complicit in its insistent claim that it is the sole path to our salvation.
There is no salvation in following evil. There is no Hail Mary that will rescue humankind from its voracious jaws. Evil wants only to consume goodness, to devour love and corrupt its delicate essence into the fires of hell. It seeks to make humanity bow at its altar and sacrifice all that is good, kind, beautiful, and humane about our shared human condition.
I cannot bow. I must wake up. Awakened, I cannot stay silent. I cannot allow my angst, my heartache, my despair to silence the one thing I know is greater than evil: Love.
And so I stand strong of back, soft of heart, and call out to all good people to drop their guard and give in to that which is our salvation. Our humanity.
I am back home. My suitcase arrived today having decided to stay in Paris a couple of extra days. It was obviously having even more fun than me!
The challenge is, Customs obviously opened it, and, because my daughter had stuffed a few extra things in it and laid on top of it to close it, Customs simply put it in a big plastic bag. Three plastic bags actually, one on top of the other to keep everything together. I’m grateful for their consideration!
It’s nice to have it home. Though now I really do have to unpack and do the laundry!
From almost forgetting my purse when I left (I’d left it at home and didn’t realize it until after my husband dropped me off at the ferry and I was waiting to board. Fortunately, I’d called him right away and he brought it to me before the next ferry left! Losing my bag at the end is just a small end note to an amazing trip. A friend asked me yesterday what was the highlight. I didn’t have to think about it – the time with my daughter. Pure delight. The sights and sounds and experiences were amazing. But… laughing and chatting, sharing meals and talking for hours — so much grace and gratitude.
This morning, Beaumont and I walked along the shoreline, the wind whispered its secrets of far away places into the branches of the trees stretched out above us. The waves lapped along the rocks beguiling them with tales are the depths below and seagulls cawed and cussed as they dive bombed waves lapping against the shore.
And the muse stirred… and I listened.
Dancing with Shadows by Louise Gallagher
The shadow stretches body thrown across freshly mown lawn, shorn short, prickling its dark expanse searching for separation yearning for freedom beyond the tree trunk standing firm holding it close to its roots until night stealthily descends steeling away the day separating light and shadow slipping silently into oblivion.
I never traveled alone with my mother. I couldn’t have imagined it. A river of judgment, fed by my belief that her world was too distant to ever bridge, flowed through my mind, a current too strong to let her cross the Rubicon guarding my heart, fearing it would tear my world apart.
Lunch under a flowering tree
Yet here I am, years later, savouring Paris, Malta, and Portugal with my youngest daughter—the sights, the people, the special moments, the delicious food and wine. An amazing time.
Perhaps my mother saw the world through a veil of omnipresent dangers. Or maybe, sensing my perceived recklessness, she feared my stumbles and falls, feeling helpless to stop them. It could also be that, feeling my aversion to her way of being in the world, she kept her distance, believing it the only way to shield her own vulnerable heart.
Like my mother, I built walls to separate us. Over the years, they grew as formidable as the old gates of Valetta, designed to withstand any onslaught, to shelter those behind them. Fortified, proud, defiant of invaders, they stood the test of dangerous arms and passing time.
Where the old gates stood
In the old city of Valetta, the Knights of St. John erected a monumental gate to deny Suleiman’s Ottoman Empire access to their fortress. In the 15th century, that gate, its wide ditch, and high walls were vital to the city’s defense. Today, the walls stand as a testament to the past, but the gates are gone. Only two tall, slender metal poles, their parallel arms echoing archery bows, mark the beautiful sandstone entrance to the walled city.
I never dismantled my walls with my mother. But somewhere in my fifties, I did learn to stop shooting words meant to pierce her heart like an arrow.
Inside the walled city of Valetta
Time changes everything—the past, the future, even people. Traveling with my daughter, there are no arrow-sharp words, no need to close the gate to my heart.
Valetta
It is a beautiful thing. A gift, this time on foreign soil with the woman I once held in my arms, dreading the day I’d release her into the world for fear she would fall. Over the years, she and her sister taught me to keep my heart undefended. That I have nothing to fear when I keep it open to the love that holds us, secure and safe, in our family circle—a circle connecting us through the ages to my mother, her mother, and all the mothers before her, and all the mothers to come, whose arms circle the ones they love to keep them safe from harm
Do you ever hear a little voice inside that causes you to doubt your worthiness?
May reminds me to Celebrate LIFE! Celebrate JOY! Celebrate the incredible people who enrich my world, who have stood by me through thick and thin, always believing.
AND – celebrate being ME! I am worthy.
Have you celebrated the amazing you today? If you could whisper something truly uplifting to your own heart right now, what would it be?
Come join me on my Substack today and let’s have a conversation about just how worthy, amazing and magnificent you are!
Do you sometimes resist the muse’s urgings to create, telling yourself, later, next time, I don’t feel like it?
I do. Sometimes. Sometimes more often than not.
Sometimes, morning calls me to dive into the deep well of poetry flowing within like an endless silent river. Sometimes, still sleeping, I resist. And then there are those days when, the muse’s irresistible urgings to awaken, open my heart to the words not yet written. On those days, I follow, blind faith my only guide to unleash the poetry pouring up from deep within me, calling out for freedom. It is in that surrender that I discover the paradoxical beauty of the present: lost in the flow, yet ultimately found within its graceful unfolding.
In The Moment by Louise Gallagher
I awaken dawn breaks open the rest of my life whispering deep the muted backdrop of tomorrows hide beyond the horizon invisible they drift holding still passing days shrouded by the unknown moments ahead.
In this present moment-by-moment spent breathing loosening yesterday's hold clinging like a barnacle to a whale dreading their release into life's swirling currents I find myself lost and found.
Awake asleep time slips by indifferent to my eyes open shut eyes that see the past more clearly than the blur of all my unlived days clamouring to hold me present in this moment of awakening.
Day 17 of NaPoWriMo invites poems on friendship. Being a flexible rule-bender (I so prefer doing things my way and if no one’s hurt, why not?), I skipped the painting inspiration and simply wrote about friendship.
While the deepest friendships are long and intimate, this poem is short and sweet – unlike my often lengthy (and sometimes less sweet) verse, and my bittersweet reality of not writing daily this April. The fact is, my inconsistent NaPoWriMo efforts say nothing of the immense appreciation and gratitude I hold for my beautiful, life-enriching friends.
Regardless of how many words I write, the truth is: the sweetest friendships are a work of heart, not words.
Dare Boldly 