A Fine Substitute

Poetry is a fine substitute for scripture in any ceremony, especially funerals.  The juice has been wrung out of scripture and I crave juicier reflections of human experience as it relates to the profound and mundane.

Kelly Voelker

Beauty Endures

Without beauty I created comfort

Without beauty I created duty

Without beauty I suffered loss

Without beauty I couldn’t cross

From loss to grief to moving on

I could not grieve but stalled at stoic

I felt the sadness but was heroic

Facilitating links of change and tasks

Why can’t I grieve? I asked

Then one day with nothing to do

I created beauty

Then one day with nothing to hear

I listened to enduring music

Too beautiful to accuse it

Of making me sad

It took beauty to release me glad

Through grief pure and hot

Wondering why some beauty is not

Enduring yet others continue

Before and past beginnings and endings

It matters not what we’ve been through

Beauty endures and soothes the senses

Through the borders, lines and fences.

-Kelly Voelker

 

The Clearest Majesty

Even in our sorrow

Can we not see

Past our imaginations

How a soul refreshed

Could now be gifted

Such a renewal beyond the minds eye

Beyond roles or identity

Still observing as one's true self

The clearest majesty of creation once more held?

-Kelly Voelker

Sense of Loss

 At last, I've put a finger

Firmly on a strange feeling

Before now I couldn't identify

When one sees pictures of hieroglyphs

Or tours a grand home from the previous century

Or as now when I carefully sift through

What is left of my parent's long life together.

Or when I see where a railroad track was removed

Or a one room schoolhouse standing in ruin. 

What is this feeling so sad and so dear

It is the profound 'sense of loss.'

I feel we are losing the ability to be simple and free

I feel we are losing our basic survival instincts

To a mountain of plastic nothingness.

Our virtues are tied to commercial holidays

Our emotions milked with well designed ploys

We rely on calculators as we rely on this nothingness

To chart our lives as emptiness drives so many

Out of their minds.

No stability thrives, as security hides 

From the amplified chaos the nothingness breeds

Can one construct from what's left

A life to preserve and use what others would refuse

In solitary satisfaction that these were correct actions

Are these surviving objects futile or essential clues?

-Kelly Voelker

The Problem With Life

The problem with life is my emotional sensitivity is aghast at 'what is.'

This without overly romanticizing occurs 

Without a second thought or word.

The problem with life is no one sees

Romance and tragedy in the same degrees

Some are elated and pleasant to witness

Some are deflated, weak and listless

The problem with life is no one agrees

People compete and resort to sleaze

The problem with life is we sprout without purpose

Survival and limits corrupt and coerce us

The problem with life is what it consists of

Aside from poetic expansions of reality

Life is a tendency to have constructed intentions

Hijacked, rerouted, punctured or blunted

Eventually or before it's performed it's main function

To live is complicated by others it seems

So some will choose to go it alone

Observing and pondering with attempts to postpone

The reality is no one will finally atone

Fiction will argue but I often see

Life is a friction not a slip-stream it seems

Grounding the static in what ever way works

Will send strife back down so we can feel our true worth.

- Kelly Write Away

aghast - filled with horror or shock

listless - (of a person or their manner) lacking energy or enthusiasm

sleaze - immoral, sordid, and corrupt behavior or material, especially in business or politics

coerce - persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats

atone - make amends or reparation

friction - conflict or animosity caused by a clash of wills, temperaments, or opinions

strife - angry or bitter disagreement over fundamental issues; conflict

Marestail - A Poem

Marestail (Horseweed) 

In a world of poisons

I stand and flourish

I will adapt quickly

I will grow through

Difficult conditions

Drought and flood

With enduring vitality

I offer my healing to you

As a simple cup of tea

I am going nowhere

No matter what

I will come back 

I will always be here

Take some comfort in that.

-Kelly Voelker

                                                          

Among the Grass

Among the grasses and shrub

Some sure part of me is veiled

Just as the wild animals 

Wait and watch in dappled light

The wind and treelines occlude

Detection from those 

Who would extrude or presume

To know our identities

There among the grass and rush*

To weed and thin is like

Destroying a part of me; a sin.

-Kelly Voelker

*rush any of several flowering plants distinguished by cylindrical stalks or hollow, stemlike leaves. 

The Clouds Rested

The clouds were parked in the sky

Like ships in the doldrums

The clouds rested 

They were parked vehicles of change

Cargoes of moisture and shade

Their anger had disappeared

They were light and lofty

No drift or unrest

Just floating 

Awaiting their behest*.

-Kelly Voelker

*behest - orders

Idle but Clever

The quietness contends with patterns now broken

The feeling persists, is felt but not spoken

My purpose in neutral, scatters my focus

I will separate my thoughts and ambitions 

Far enough apart to allow superstitions

Their rightful place among daily endeavors

Waiting to show me I'm idle, but clever.

-Kelly Voelker

Good Horsemanship

How are people both irreplaceable and insignificant?

How is life both fragile and resilient? 

Does perfect health require assistance or does innate orchestration manage it all?

How can the body choose to die without the permission of the mind?

How do some people evade odds and probable outcomes?

Is being “normal” healthy or deadly?

Is doing something differently, weird or genius?

Is consistency the secret for maintaining a tolerable long life?

Does a wayward lifestyle play too many notes at once for the body and mind to flourish?

Tell me, what are the attributes most congruent to a lifespan which provides satisfaction and contentment?

Being as one with the body through life is most akin to good horsemanship. 

Talk to oneself in a calm and reassuring way. 

Not too rich a diet, sustainable boundaries with enough range to keep the spirit alive and in wonder. 

Trust your body and your body will trust you. Don’t let others lead your body or mind astray.

The trail of life is a compromise between freedom and sustainable stability.

The horse and rider cooperate to "get the job done" or to simply enjoy the scenery.

They allow each other unproductive browsing when left to themselves.

-Kelly Voelker

Tentatively Touching the Same Little Path

The repetition of soft little feet

From rabbits patrolling the fenceline in Spring

Before colors green emerge in the field

Tentatively touching the same little path

Small meandering trails from their entrance

To tall brown dry grass over which 

Snow never visited

Shunning the ground as the wind made harsh

The rest of the field our rabbits avoided

Nestling under the large strong spruce fortress

Last year's dry grass agreed to stay 'round

Escorting the rabbits until warmth can be found. 

-Kelly Voelker

The Four Deer

They cut through the rows

Of the cornfield in front

They ran past the mailbox

Leapt over the fence

They ignored the light poles, borders and went

Like ghosts from the wild past

Disregarding our ways

The four deer will always

Transcend and amaze.

-Kelly Voelker