Five Poems by Karen A VandenBos

 

Stillness Comes With Secrets

 

Blue eyes, night skies

reflecting on the surface

of the water.

I let myself slip into the

depths of silence, slowly

releasing my breath and

listen for the call of the

ancients that held me in

the womb of my mother.

Stillness comes with

secrets, sadness releases

a blue so deep I forget

to breathe.

It is the mermaids who

rescue me, fill my lungs

with light, feed me the

words to the songs I have

forgotten.

I feel my voice vibrate,

echo like the sound of

the blue whale who from

the beginning floated

with me in the ocean that

gave me life.

Now, as I sit on the edge

of the river, the blue moon

touches my throat releasing

a breath that comes from

the dust of stars.

 

 

Be Not Afraid

 

Do not forget

the message the stars

left for you on the map.

Heed the warnings

and be guided by the

ribbon of moon that

breaks upon the water.

Fear not the wind

and do not turn away

from the flame.

Behold the silence

as you stand in the light

of the reflecting pond

and demand your right

to claim who the ancients

dared you to become.

Be not afraid.

 

 

Child of the Marshlands

 

She swallows the river and feels it's pulse

beating inside her as she learns to read the

ripples on the surface of water and interpret

the stories that lie below. She smells of mud

and dead flies.

 

It is in the realm of the marshlands where

she lies submerged in magic and seaweed

is braided in her hair. Songs of mermaids

are her second language and she learns to

stay clear of the sirens call.

 

When she dips oars into the still waters,

memories are whispered by the minnows

and the hooves of water horses rush against

the side of her canoe. She learns to live

her life in rhythm with the tides.

 

A child of the water, she skates on the river,

a silver ribbon under the moon where she

learns to navigate by stars and silence the

waves. As darkness falls she nestles in the

river bed and dreams under the watch of loons.

 

 

Begin

 

Lie down under still waters where rivers

hold memories of birch bark canoes and

gather the songs of water and driftwood

crafting them into little altars among the

reeds.

 

Gather worn pebbles rubbed by ancient

hands, a ring worn by your mother, the

feather of a crow and the remains of a

bad dream. Light them on fire and build

an altar of their ashes and bones. Watch

as the wind rearranges their future.

 

Build altars of twigs and acorns on moss

covered rocks where women will come

stained by tears to bleed and leave touched

by the moon. Begin building little altars

everywhere, listen as prayers exhale their

grief.

 

 

Orb Weaver

 

The fire is dying, the old language

forgotten and their stories no

longer told. Swiftly she goes

to the woods where spider

lives and summons her

to gather threads

and reweave

the lost

ways. 

 

Karen A VandenBos was born on a warm July morn in Kalamazoo, MI. She has a PhD in Holistic Health where a course in shamanism taught her to travel between two worlds. She can be found unleashing her imagination in two online writing groups and her writing has been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Blue Heron Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, One Art: a journal of poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Ekphrastic Review, Southern Arizona Press, MacQueen's Quinterlyand others. She has been selected as a Best of the Net nominee.