Poems by Annelinde Metzner

For a number of years, I’ve been staying at the St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina home of Ifetayo White, Reiki Master, teacher of doulas, and healer in many modalities. I am always deeply healed by Ifetayo’s presence, and by the island itself.  This island near Beaufort is the home of the Gullah people, who have kept their land since Reconstruction according to a legal system called “Heir’s Property.”

The spirits are strong here, and I’ve tried to capture some of the essence of the island and of Ifetayo, in these poems.  In the first, I describe Ifetayo’s wonderful healing room.  The second features the Grandmother Tree, one of the live oaks covered with Spanish moss, so prevalent in the Low Country.  The third features the Resurrection Fern, which appears brown and almost dead on the limbs of the oaks, but springs into vivid greenness after a rain.

The Healer’s Home                           3/1/24

In the front room, the living room,
of course!  A majestic altar.
Quan Yin, Mother Mary, Yemaya,
animals of the earth and sea,
winged ones, stone people,
arrayed around the biggest rose quartz
you’ve ever seen.
Love radiates throughout the house.

But in the back room, the healing room…
Windows open to live oaks,
“old greybeard” moss swaying in the breeze,
vermillion camellias, pink azaleas…
all this surrounds the souls who come here
to Ifetayo’s table 
to be healed and made whole.
At the windows of the expansive room,
oils for the body, tinctures for each organ,
labels worn illegible with use.
An altar more wild than the first,
wands of selenite and quartz,
incense of all kinds, palo santo, sage…
and the healing table, so warm
the cats spend hours there.
Multitudinous feathers, Tarot cards,
Tibetan bowls, salt lamps,
Native dolls, tissues for healing tears.
A photo in black and white, 
young nursing students at Penn Center,
breathless and eager in their starched collars.
African dancers, sea turtles,
and a woman giving birth.
A frame drum for healing sound,
a sistrum, a shekere, cowrie shells,
two rolling balls and a trampoline!

As I float through here in the morning quiet,
gazing at the sacred things,
Ifetayo, barefoot, walks the beach,
recharging for the next busy day. 
I too am healed.
How can I not be?
I bask in the love and warmth,
smiles of the ancestors all around.
Sanctuary.

Rebirth                                               4/1/18

After a while you calm down.
After a few days at St. Helena’s,
     you leave the world behind,
 you entrain with the deeper notes,
     the infrasound around us,
     those thrumming bass notes that the whales attune to,
     with which the whales speak to us all day long.
You breathe.
Small muscles relax in places
     you didn’t know were tight.
 Some must be around your eyes
     because you start to see-
     no, not see but something else-
Beings express themselves to you, they greet you,
     they are welcoming you!
At seven AM the birds chorus,
     welcoming the sun at the edge of the sea,
     singing to the big round moon as She dips into the West.
  “How glad I am you’ve awakened,” they sing,
     and the Grandmother tree reaches Her arms
     to embrace you, healing, 
     humming Her love to you
     as the Resurrection Fern lifts Her green eyes.
“I am listening, I am seeing!” you confirm to the Heavens,
     and here on St. Helena’s all the beings nod,
     giggling back with delight in their eyes.

Resurrection Fern                                         3/2/24

Leaving Ifetayo’s home on St. Helena’s one morning,
the blue jay called to me, “raaaaack!”
“Where are you?” I called to the winged one.
“Raaaack!” I heard again, by the Grandmother Tree this time.
“Come over here to me!”
I stepped into the magnetic vortex 
of the huge, ancient limbs.
And on each branch, the greening of 
the Resurrection Fern!
After a night and day of rain,
She leafed out gloriously,
lush foliage where only grey had been.
The Resurrection Fern.
“Regenerate!  Have no fear!
Do you fathom the wonders I can do?”
Grandmother spoke to me loud and clear,
from Her vast root system and Her stately calm.
“Resurrection, dear one.
This is what we do.”

Annelinde Metzner, St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina