My Name is Water

free use image on Pixabay

Linking with earthweal for the weekly challenge ~ water

The sea hath no king but God alone. ~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

My father is a sky full of clouds and he weeps

For season that shall never be

My mother holds to her bosom

All that is left of me

I flow to the farthest oceans

Through rivers tattered with waste

Hurting those I lean close to

By the ones that have chosen to take.

Hunters of Truth

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 90

Come join us!

“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

~ Zora Neale Hurston

The poet’s heart is a fox that sees the world in darkness and in light

his eyes pregnant with possibilities and yet empty from the fight

It is an inner struggle to recollect and yet a hunt that drives him further from his home

A quest into the wilds of hunger among the many creatures yet still alone

You see life is sharpened arrows yet doves that shall fly far beyond harms way

It is the winds of a thousand storms, but one companion that keeps him safe

All the beauty within starlight and the hurt that blinds him from the seen

Are the questions that keep him hunting for a reason to believe

For the poet is a dreamer that ponders meaning while searching for hope in flight

And he hunts the darkest of forests longing to capture the truest light.

Strength of the Butterfly

Image Source 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 79
You would make my day if you
 come join us!


“Man must rise above the Earth – to the top of the atmosphere and beyond – for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.”
Socrates 

I am the explorer reaching upward

but you are the one with wings

You do not need a space ship

 to reach further beyond your means

I study for a lifetime preparing

For my scheduled flight

You merely take a moment

And then sail the bluest skies.

Transgressions of the Foolish Chorister

Image Source

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 74

"Some keep the Sabbath going to Church, 

I keep it staying at Home --

with a bobolink for a Chorister,

and an Orchard for a Dome."

~ Emily Dickinson

We were once a part of the song

A beautiful chorus with the leaves and the birds

Sunlight lit the center stage

With a glorious yet sweet view

But pride and greed

Seeped into man’s hearts

Stealing the show

With no regard

For how it affected

The song nor the singers

A chorus was meant for many

A choir that sings in unison

Supporting each other

In harmony

I pray one day

We will return to Mother Nature

As true prodigal sons.

Note:

  It has been a crazy week here in South Eastern Texas.  I have experienced flooding more than once over the last few years.  In 2016 my car was flooded during the dreaded “Tax Day Flood”, and in 2017 my apartment flooded during Harvey.  I am blessed to be in a house now, but during the torrential rains of tropical storm Imelda I watched waters get closer and closer to my door step.  A neighbor that has lived on our street for over 20 years said, the water has never gotten that high even during Harvey! Thankfully the water did not get passed near the garage, and once the rains died down, it receded quickly. 

The signs of global warming are all around us.  There is no doubt in my mind that man is the culprit and man is the only one that can rectify, at least to some degree, the damage.  I only hope that true change will not come too late.

Listen Hard

Linking with Toni's wonderful Wednesday Muse for Night Sounds
Come join us!

The day has eyes; the night has ears. ~David Fergusson

In the suburbs one only hears sirens

 and creeks in the halls

no owls no frogs

nor cricket calls

You have to venture

To your own back yard

To hear nature’s voice

In the suburbs you must listen hard.

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

Note:  When I was a child I used to stay with my babysitter a lot and she lived on a farm right off the I-35 freeway.  Of course, they kept their windows open to have a breeze and throughout the night you could hear the semi-trucks barreling down the highway.   We were in the middle of a beautiful farm with all the animals you would imagine a farm would have, and that is the sound that I heard most at night.  It was soothing in a way.  A periodical hum that put me to sleep many a night and yet would wake me up as well.  

Photo: Courtesy Google Images

Poetry of the Sea

Photo by Erik Johansson Master Photo-Manipulation Artist

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 61
come join us!

The ocean does not preach a sermon

Though it has much to tell

That it shares with the moon and every sea shell

It bravely tells as it swells to the shore

Deep like a poet that speaks high to the sea gulls that soar

But Its stories are not heard by man and his makings

For he does not hear when he is too busy taking

He builds and he builds as he strips from the land

It is a sad truth widely known by each grain of sand

So the sea keeps on moving and reaching out

Whispering a message of longing that is true no doubt

For The ocean does not preach a sermon

Though it has much to say

It is heard not in man’s churches but in each unsettling wave.

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

The Birth of Spring

If you want a copy of this lovely print you can get it HERE

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 46

I like to think a flower opens itself to outgrow its plantedness. That it yearns to be carried away. ~Author Unknown

Winter in all her harsh glory is still pregnant with the spring

And holds a beautiful hope in each and every leafless thing

Our eyes and hearts grow weary to see the new one’s face

To feel her warmer breeze and see her flowering grace

Her beauty is always welcomed and brings so much joy

A birth of a season as wonderful as a new baby girl or boy

Soon she will arrive and then winter will soon depart

And the beauty we have longed for will fill our eyes and hearts.

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

Nature Has a Song

"The Hare and the Crow"  by Amanda Clark

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse #24

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature has its own scene with a sweet beat and flow.

It hops like a rabbit and calls like a crow.

The sun has a slow dance of seduction with the moon

and underneath their cadence, is where all the flowers bloom.

The wind whispers strong yet gentle to each and every tree

and when it is time, there is a colorful dance of leaves

It is like a love song that plays right before our eyes

For nature’s song has perfect timing that is lovely, strong, and wise.

The Evidence of God

Photo Credit

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform.
Also linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 21
....and last but not least Poets United for Mid Week Motif ~ Evidence

People see God every day, they just don't recognize him. ~Pearl Bailey

I feel it in the cool mist of rain in the heat of June.

I smell it in the garden air at the hint of spring.

I see it in the amazing glow of the midnight moon,

And in the growth around me of every living thing.

I hear it in the clues of autumn in the rustling of falling leaves,

And I hear it in the cricket’s call and the song of the flying lark.

I touched it in the falling snow that spring will soon not keep.

Yet, it can only be seen with the eyes of an open heart.

Four Sad Songs for a City Slicker

Photo Credit


Linking with Poets United for Midweek Motif ~ City

Don't let the city steal your soul. ~Terri Guillemets




Noisy Lover

You are a lover that only some hearts can keep

with your noisy chaos and slippery streets

you have the power to make fickle the strongest of souls

making them yearn for a more green and peaceful home

though you are like an amazing poem with so much packed in a small space

you cannot compare to God's quite country of beauty and grace.

************************************************************

Lost on 5th and Broadway

A trip to the city gives me shivers like frost
cause instead of arriving it feels more like being lost
getting mixed in the fabric of engines and lights
and for some that is suffocation of a different kind
a world full of people from the west to the east
an accident on Main and traffic jam on all streets
you are certain to get lost before you find your place
cause you left your heart on a field a country mile away.


************************************************************

Skyscraper Song

You have designed me like gods that never knew heaven
my posture straight and strong but I am prone to disease
your blue prints seem perfect in plan and design
my stories are many and I am worth more
than some see in a a life time
then when plans change and walls mold and decay
I am disposed of like trees
for you have designed me like gods that never knew heaven
my posture straight and strong but I am prone to disease

***********************************************************


 The City and the Night

It is alive like a crackling camp fire
streams of light seem to melt together
moving to a pace only fast songs can play to
one street begins where another ends
yet all objects in the mirror are more distant
than they seem
still like lovers the city and the night become one
the sighs of a hundred lost lovers
hum in the distance and yet ring right in our ears
so many lonely people in one place
our love is 100 miles away
while another's bumps us as we pass.

We Trade Trees for Skyscrapers

Linking with Poets United for Midweek Motif ~ Lady Liberty and also The Sunday Muse for week #11   Come join us!


For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. ~Martin Luther


It seems when we expand any direction something becomes smaller
like ice in a glass of water
it melts and disappears from what we see
So we trade trade trees for skyscrapers
in the name of freedom
we build in brick and mortar
high and wide
at the cost of the liberty of trees
they disappear one by one
mile by mile
acre by acre
into shopping centers and malls
one man's gain is another's loss
but in the bigger scheme of things
the loser is truly us all.


***************************************************************

Lady Liberty,

Her name is Liberty
and she is stoic like trees
head held high 
standing for all that is beautiful
and all we hold dear
crowned by good
and brotherhood
we remember her name
but have forgotten
the sound of her voice.

The Memory of Slipping

Crepuscule
Heinrich Kuhn (1897)

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Camera FLASH"  Brought to us by Kerry

"Nature is a haunted house ~but art~ is a house that tries to be haunted."

~ Emily Dickinson

The memory of slipping has its hold on me

so I fight the fall with all the strength I have

grasping at straws like they are railing

on the empire state building

trying to control a fall

is similar to trying to restrain a bullet 

after the trigger has been pulled

but still I try with diligence 

each step carefully laid out

like a Methodist worship service

but the hymnal is not in my hands

one cannot hold faith and fear

so fiercely at the same time

letting go requires a certain courage

the kind of strength that trees and rivers know.

Takers of the Land

Courtesy Google Images

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Wordy Thursday" with Wild Woman ~ The Tree Sisters

Imagined by Sherry

The groves were God’s first temples. ~William Cullen Bryant, “A Forest Hymn” 

We are takers

takers of the land

using what builds our mansions

using what we can

inflating egos like balloons

then building high rises and their parking lots

cement stretched out for miles

we document our accomplishments

 diploma's displayed on walls

we are takers 

takers of the land

using what will build our cities

using what we can

S T O P

maybe it is time we started giving back!

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

Change of Heart

Photo Credit

Linking with Poets United for Midweek Motif ~ Nature Her Words
Posted by Sumana

Sometimes Mother Nature has the answers when you do not even know the questions. ~Keith Wynn



I fear you have not truly been listening my dear
I have been speaking for centuries and
you are still sipping your coffee gone cold
behind that shroud of a paper 
without a response
nor even a glance
what did I just say?
No I did not just say it is cold in here
on the contrary it is getting quite warm
warmer than my heart can handle

there was a time you listened to my voice

loved the feel of my breath upon your face

you climbed my mountains 

did not want to cut my trees

I guess you have had a change of heart

your love for me has grown as cold

as my ice caps used to hold strong

I guess it is going to take something drastic

 to make you care again

to make you have a change of heart

I hope then you will truly listen

to my voice.

A Story to Tell

Photo Credit

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Weekend Mini Challenge: "Out of Your Own Words"

Imagined by Magaly Guerrero

To view the original poem and post click h e r e


I also devoted an entire blog to this title cause I am crazy that way....
click h e r e if you want to see for yourself. :-))

What a seagull never told you about why he flies away is the farther up you fly the broader the view you get of the shore you left behind.
Nature tells a story that one can hear loud and clear
but it is a message that cannot be heard with ears
it rings out through the flight of geese
that know when  it is the time to leave
it whispers with the current that carries man's debris
that heads to bigger waters floating to the sea
it's voice rises in the floods occuring on busy streets
because man would rather have a parking lot
than grass and tall strong trees
you see nature tells a story that belts out like a song
and if we truly listen we will know there is something wrong.



***********************
It is like nature is trying to call us from a cell phone and we are unable to truly hear....
so nature moves a little forward and says...
"can you hear me now?"