Three Poems by Annelinde Metzner

  To spend time in nature and deeply connect with Her is to allow enough time for Her surprising wisdom and dreamlike insights to open up for me.  I call this “Plein Air Poetry.”  It’s a joy to wait in nature and see who connects with me on any given day.

     These poems come with the gratitude of very early Spring when Her first shoots and flowers, such as the weeping cherry which birds have planted all over my yard, begin to appear like mysterious veils over winter’s greyness.

Greening              April 6, 2022

Suddenly I awaken, early April,
and a diaphanous green veil
has draped over the weeping cherries,
the first to bloom with delicate, drooping grace.

Like a green bride, like Salome dancing,
the tiny new leaflets shyly appear.
Soon the new greening will climb stately
up the sides of Lakey Mountain.
On the dogwood trees, creamy flowers,
not yet full grown,
but already gracefully held by each small stem.

With joy, the catbird
repeats, repeats her thoughts,
new, always fresh and new.
The slightest breeze sets the leaves dancing.

The bumblebee awakens, floats into my vision.

O Goddess of regeneration,
Rebirth is Your watchword!
Welcome, welcome!

I breathe deeply of Your fresh greenness.

 Birthday                                                     May 15, 2020

My grossmutter’s birthday, May 15th,

    this year’s Pisces Moon.

I am blessed with uninterrupted time,

    here between the two ponds on Nels’ land.

One pond is covered in water lilies now,

    just opening before June’s riotous heat.

All around the ponds, the yellow iris,

    Nels’ legacy, I know

    here where she painted with petals and fronds

    rivaling Monet himself.

Under the trees, poplar and maple,

    the new green is almost a yellow,

    ecstatic with its own newborn chlorophyll,

    each leaf a tender maiden

    brazenly courting the Sun.

“Wake up!” cries the crow,

    “It’s worth it, worth it, worth it!

    How much do you value all this, human?”

At three in the afternoon, no deadline, no time limits,

    the frogs lazily emit their first glurps

    from the sunshine on each iris at pond’s edge.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to be.

Still grateful, wide open to timeless being.

I sit here, just a human,

    just a bit of the all and all.

The Healing Song                             7/13/95

Green shoots through branches, baking in sun.

I grasp green with my lips, my heart.

There’s a vine in here, wanting sun!

Green, tight with veins and stems,

fiery, fluid, reaching.

From my lips, a vine, and with it words.

I remember our kinship. We are one!

My mouth holds vines, brilliant tendrils.

If I’m still long enough, they will shoot out from me!

From my toes, roots, cool earth pulling them along.

From my fingers, tendrils

straining for sun. More brilliance!

A long July day of brilliance, heat,

a green burning, making nutriment,

chlorophyll, melanin, colors reaching,

reaching to paint life in air,

and then singing!

The green and red blood become singing,

the sun’s song, the cool brown earth’s song,

the burning red-green light of creation, the healing song, green, burning.

BIO: Annelinde Metzner honors the Divine Feminine with her poetry and music. She has composed many praise songs included in her songbook, “Lady of Ten Thousand Names,” and has created and produced concerts for the Goddess including most recently, “Feminine Faces of God.” She directs the choir at the UUCSV in Black Mountain, NC, and founded the women’s choirs Womansong and Sahara Peace Choir in Asheville NC. http://annelindesworld.blogspot.com

BIO: Deb Pollard is an artist, musician, and professional cook. She lives in the gorgeous and mysterious mountains of North Carolina with her husband and two cats.

Materials: Watercolor, pencil and marker on paper.