Poetry Collection: The Vulnerability of Birds, 2019
Joanna Horton McPherson's debut poetry collection in 2019.
$10.00
Available now: The Vulnerability of Birds Poetry Collection
The Next
The art work I will explore in the next phase of life is custom, inspired statuettes of Master Healers. I have been reading the “Mary Magdalene” book by Meggan Watterson and it has opened my heart to the power of female healers in history – specifically this one – and more to the point, the creative, healing power within the self.
I am going to start collecting cloths (natural fibers, cotton, silk, blends), glue, repurposed materials (beads, gemstones, stones, buttons, caps, string, yarn, pins, clips), find blank statuettes of the major spiritual figures I study and think about (Christ, the Buddha, Quan Yin, Archangel Michael to name a few) and begin to create. I can’t wait to play with color (I think St. Germaine is with me, as I am all about the color violet!) and hand-build these statuettes – in prayer, in contemplation, with the intention of healing and supporting the receiver of it.
Full disclosure – my idea is not a new one. A friend from long ago, Hannah, told me her aunt did “custom Marys” for people. I have be unable to find anything anywhere about the woman who makes custom Marys but now I will reach out and find out! While these will be my own, and not possibly the same as Hannah’s aunt’s work (each piece is, after all, completely unique), I do feel that the origin of the idea needs to be credited appropriately.
What will I do with these statuettes? I will give them away! I will offer them to people who either ask for them or who I feel inspired to give one to.
As my two little ones become more independent (now turning 1 and 3 years old each), I begin to think of the Home School program I will do with and for them in their life. As we spend more time in Costa Rica, as we expand our horizons and explore the world and learning opportunities as a family doing projects and creating together. I will use this Master Healer statuette artistic and spiritual practice to both learn and explore for myself, hopefully bringing my kids along to learn and create with me. These historical figures will teach is, I have no doubt and we will learn about creating art and discovering through the practice of making and giving away, the value and joy of sharing with others.
Also, I am eager to bring prayer and contemplation into the center of my focus again. After all, those years of meditating and Buddhist study did leave within me the power of presence and working with my mind and heart. It’s time to renew this in this time as a mother and figurehead in my kids’ lives, as well as for the healer and artist within me who craves a rebirth and new life.
But first, the prayer that came to me this morning, modified from the Usui Reiki prayer I learned during my Reiki training about 20 years ago:
Just for today do not worry, but trust. Just for today do not anger, but enjoy. Honor your children, teachers and elders. Love and respect yourself and all living things.
Before I Speak
It's my turn To take the mic Giving voice to the bravery Dwelling deep where my story lives I don't like to feel What's difficult This standing here on stage before you Is the beginning of being Willing to feel The fear of fear, The anger of anger, The doubt Taking a stand for myself I grow Beyond To touch the joy of joy The truth of truth And loving my voice It is my turn To be.
The same woman
When I am 91
Waking up in my bed on wide white sheets
Vanishing into the open question
At the end of my life
I am still a young woman
No baby suckles my breasts
Anymore
No tiny hand in mine
Brings me to the window
To hear the birds
Yet I am the same woman
Who wrote this poem
Long ago
From the foundering depths of
New motherhood
I am also the baby girl
At the beginning of my life
Held by my mother
To her breast
Giving me her milk
Yearning
For the work of her career
From the depths of motherhood to be
Doing important things
Her real life
This I absorbed this into my cells
Keeping me
For a long time
From the things I loved
Especially myself
As I nursed my baby this morning
On the wide white sheets
I prayed
For love to guide me
Thanking God for the grace
To leave aside my work
For a while
For the important things
My real life
Even as she sings the alphabet
In the next room
And stammers along the floor
To find me
My baby is the grown woman
Who will bring to me at 91
Her motherhood, her children
Her children's children
And I will remember myself
Scandal
It is an act of self contempt
That I pull white hairs from my head
Leaning into the mirror
Scanning for the inaccuracies
In what I wish to be
My youthful appearance
This is not just a denial of the truth of my age
But a metaphor for my existence
These unruly sprouts
Arrived at this late hour to
Express the essential inobedience
That has defined me all my life
Is it any wonder
The child who learned to pluck from me
What was weird
When weirdness was wrongness
Has come to be
The Grim Reaper?
Culling
One by one
The zany kinks
In brilliant white
Who boldly stand apart from my crown
Immodest in their announcement
There is a slaughter going on
Though fruitless against
The merry revenge of
The Hydra of age, as
Three more sprout
For each brilliant spring that is lovelessly snatched
When will I grow up
To love
The ageless rebellion in me
That wills itself
To live
Against all odds?
God Washes Away the Devil
I used to I used to
I used to know
Who I am
Chaos
(Turn)
Doesn't the devil do his work?
Under disguise
Pain is dependence
(Turn)
Listen
Go In
In in in, friend
Down down down
Light call it
Relax soft
In call in the light
Down down down
Let it fill tendency
Pain is the opening
Tenderness
Of God
You are right
This is who you are
Remember
God washes away the devil
Arizona
How different we are
If different is the word
For your dirty feet
Nestled sweetly together
Two tired pigeons
The sun bakes the heat into the pavement like a griddle
Searing any skin it touches
Not fit for a human
To walk here
Under this overpass
By the concrete park
You are grey dust
Grey shirt grey mess hair
In a haze of busy avenue shadows
If it's the great eternal sleep you seek
No one knows when it will come
My baby and I
Unnoticed in our walk's chirping and song
Toward the bright books of the library
Where the AC’s on
Where babies babble and play
With puppets and toys
You’re asleep
I hope not dead
Has no one has looked you in the eye
To tell you the green trees
Against the blazing sky?
Have you seen the purple sunset?
Perhaps there is a place in the city
To walk
Where you can hug the shadows
As the sun dips
All day
The desert cooks the colors
Lifting from the traffic and cactus
Bruised light into the sky
A watercolor of grey-purple grey-pink
You wouldn't think such moist life would survive this heat
You just have to look up
To know you're alive
Did you know
That’s what we’re famous for?
Touching the Earth
When you are left behind
In the herd's movements and young potency
And you forget who you are
Remember: you know how to listen
Compassion doesn’t make appointments
Why did I cry during the teleconference?
I opened my mouth and
Knew
The tears would come
As you spoke about the death of your father
I see myself on the screen in
What listening looks like:
Shiny desperation mixed with refusal
I have a primordial itch
The deep "next"
Reaching out and away from myself
To anything else
This is not suffering
"It's good, basically good. That's my life: the simple things"
The waves of pain wash you
As you tread gracefully
Accepting the world as it is
On my turn to talk
Having been touched
I can feel myself again
Your pain is all pain
My heart, speaking for me, is
Red-faced and her voice wobbly with emotion
I am a contortion of grace
That will not be silenced
Remembering to return to
The bed of fear
(Free-falling as it does)
I do not hold on
This is surrender
Under the Black Moon
I.
Mercury / black moon
Breathe
Little cat gripping the walls of the tub
Start over and trust that I can
II.
I wasn't old enough to even buy
cigarettes
Sought out trouble
The black sickness
Crouched over the hypnotic whirr of the ceramic wheel
My hands lost
in the curative water of clay slip
The clay demands perfect balance
or else warps off center
I allow perfection to emerge
from me
Until the darkness leaves once and for all
