[photo: a family of Japanese Snow Bunnies I caught late one night outside a convenience store]
Although I missed posting this on Valentine’s Day, here’s a trilogy of poems I wrote for a friend in China on the eve of her departure to attend a University in Canada. We’d spent hours talking about love and what it means to be free…
Find Freedom
To find freedom—to fly, to fly like a bird
Free from all bounds, would seem absurd
To an earthbound person, with good sense
Knowing what all know to be an offense
To dare to presume, to think of releasing
My soul from its bonds, always increasing
“Don’t take a chance!” I hear everyone say,
“Don’t even try; there isn’t a way!”
To feel the sweet song, wind-kissed and unfettered
Of heart’s sweet refrain, when freed from the clutter
Of fears and regrets, expectations of others
The burdens of wisdom from fathers and mothers
But what if it’s true and I miss my chance
To join with the wind in unrestrained dance?
My heart’s voice has spoken, in spite of the refrain
Of naysayer’s constant, fearful threats of pain
Greater, I fear, just doing nothing
Letting life pass, a shell filled with stuffing
Nothing but fluff, no flesh and no bone
Nothing was chanced, never strayed from my home
Empty sheath full of nothing, preserved without life
Carefully kept safe from all of life’s strife
I won’t let it happen. No! This cannot be!
For the birds’ blue heaven is what’s meant for me
I’ll trade what is safe, the known and secure
To know what it means to hold freedom pure
On Freedom’s Path
When I need measure what’s true and what’s not
On paths of freedom, not using what’s taught
In schools of the bound, universities of fear
Colleges of selfness– They’re not freedom’s peers!
With questions of liberty on the path of the free
I’ll ask of the unbound, they’ll answer me
With wisdom they’ve learned, while giving and caring
True wisdom born of love, is what they’re sharing
Of this, I am sure, a true treasure trove
To know what is true– I know it is love.
Love Found
When asked by my friend what I most treasure
What is most important, my life’s greatest pleasure
I shared with my friend the story of my quest
For hope, dreams and loves, I searched without rest
My story included its share of pain
Frustration and victory, of loss and of gain
By comparing with others, I felt life reach its end
Facing failure and empty, it couldn’t even begin.
Not believing the answers to my questions of ‘Why?’
Given by others with lives as empty as I
It seemed so obvious that there should be a plan
In a world so ordered, not created by man
However, dare I hope that I could be special?
That I would be known in the order of things?
Then a kind man said that God knew me
And told me the words of Jesus of Galilee
“Why, even a man” he said, “Is a fool,
Who claims that a watch, can be made without tools!”
“This Jesus, alive, whom others think dead
Offers God’s love in your heart to embed
This is His plan, to let us all chose
To open our hearts, and loneliness lose”
So open, I did, my heart to this love
Believing the promise had come from above
Then slowly, then quickly, I learned more you see
Of many more promises, God’s words to me.
With purpose, understanding, a reason to live.
My life grew in hope, as I learned to give.
For living is loving, and loving is life
Caring, forgiving, to live without strife
This then, my treasure, my friend came to learn.
A life, a dear Love, in my heart she discerned.
Poems © 2003 tipserve.com
