Whispers and Wonders

[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