Gale Messick Cantrell Poems

" There is nothing here you should be afraid of. Nothing but poetry. "
~ Pablo Neruda

Unread Poems

Unread poems are the best
You said
I understand
I said
An unread poem is magic anticipated
A poem read is power released
Poetry sears the soul
I said
And opens wounds
You said

Yet the pain of poetry is beautiful

Dulcimer

Your dulcet tones
Entice my soul back deep into it's roots
Moving it in the most visceral of ways
So that I feel the strumming
Tingling in my skin

Your very name harkens up sweetness
And honey drips from your strings
Echoing through the hollows
Stirring up the ghosts
Tolling out an invocation

Come place your hands upon me
And know what I know
Life is joyous
         And sad
               And over
With the finality of one last chord

There Are Days

There are days
When everything is poetry
Everything I see
                     Hear
                          Smell
And touch
Is a poem
I love those days
When my efforts may be feeble
But they are my own
And each is cherished
Like a newborn babe
Sweet maybe to no one else
Yet sweet all the same
Each word
A vine-ripened strawberry
Luscious in my mouth

Volcano

Poetry came to me
Like a volcano
Pent up for years
It rumbled with warning
It hissed and spewed
I anticipated it's outburst
Collecting journal after journal
Lined and unlined pages
Patiently waiting for the time
When my words would erupt forth
Ash clouds in the stratosphere
Hot lava
To burn these pages

Lightning Bugs

They come magically
Falling from heaven
Envoys from the stars above
Descended
They disperse
A myriad of blinking beacons
In the dark, dark woods
What is their message?
One of hope
Or one of warning?

One

The farther we are apart
The longer we do not speak
The closer you are in spirit.
I see you everywhere
You gaze through the eyes of my cat
Last night I saw you in the lightning bugs
Two of them hovering in front of me
They are you and I
And they comfort me

In my cat, in the lightning bugs
Where next, I wonder
Will you become the very air I breathe?
Will I inhale you?
Will you course through my veins
And glow through my eyes?
Will you become me
And we become one?