The leaves have fallen,
the rose has withered,
and snowflakes bury it,
in a blanket of ice,
preserving life for the spring.
Teardrops on rose petals,
the past flies away,
on the cold winter wind,
and I learn,
to hope for the spring.
Out of nothing,
new life is born,
when I bring my soul,
to the heart of the light,
where rosebuds are born in the spring,
and petals unfold in the summer.
A rose blooms in the snow,
gently caressed by the sun,
who softly strikes the petals with her fingers.
Below ground life prepares itself,
for new changes in the spring,
as the acorns are looking for their owners.
I cry like an eagle across the Grand Canyon,
searching for water between the deep cliffs,
but the light feeds me from the inside.
My wings dance in the sky,
where my feet make pirouettes on thin ice.
Faith is believing in the greatest outcome,
like a rose blooming in midwinter!
An energy flows like a river through my veins,
providing a place for many different kinds of life,
to live and breathe and allow me to be me in.
My feet step into this stream as if it is a lake,
where I float on my back with my arms spread,
looking up at the sky as I can finally breathe.
Hope, joy, kindness, and peace are colors,
surrounding me with an overwhelming electricity,
of destroying all the negativity inside of me.
The world is more alive when I am connected,
to this life-giving river inside of me,
that is made of the purest light and love.
I can cry tears of pure joy as streams of gold,
gently surround my entire body until it carries me,
into the here and now where all I have to be is present.
When the hands of Light are carrying me in love,
the energy is more powerful than I could ever dream off,
and nothing will ever be beyond my greatest ability.
The ocean calmly beats,
the steady rocks on the shore,
where my naked feet wait,
to be kissed by the stream.
My heart dances in the waves,
as the sun rises at the horizon,
and the first birds fly overhead,
as a sign of a new day.
Seashells scattered across the beach,
shimmer in the sun light,
like little clumps of gold,
waiting to be treasured and admired.
My heart finds peace,
in the silence of this morning,
where the bustle of the city,
is a million miles away,
so, I stay a little longer.
The first people walk passed me,
searching for the same serenity,
I have been looking for,
in the early hours of the morning,
so, I smile at them,
as a hopeful encouragement,
to never stop searching.
I look into the sun,
and I am almost blinded by her light,
but I smile again,
at the great familiarity,
that trickles like rain into my heart
I cannot catch the light,
and store it in my heart,
I can only capture it,
and pass it on,
into the world,
as a sign of hope,
in the early morning.
The torn womb bleeds,
the deepest color red,
as broken dreams scatter,
across an endless waterfall,
where my tears,
are salty on my cheek.
The leaves fall down,
onto the damp ground,
where a swamp,
is growing grey and old.
Twigs breaks on the wind,
that is howling,
like a sad and lonely wolf.
Desolate places scream,
for endless rains of mercy,
but deaf ears cannot see,
this crystal clear reality,
that the winter will not end,
until the beginning,
of the first spring.
Fleeting hope breaks,
the fragile heart in two,
but when the soul,
is willing to fall in love,
hope arises like an eagle,
on the wings of a swan,
and burns like a golden torch,
for all eternity.
After I saw a video on the BBC about the situation in India, I wrote this poem. It is the grief in my own heart that I have felt since my mother passed away, almost three years ago, of cancer, combined with the grief I saw in that video and the grief that I know exists all around the world. Losing someone is so painful, undescribable in words, but please know that rays of hope glimmer at the horizon! xox Gineke
Healing Heart
My heart contracts in pain,
as tear drops trickle down the veins,
forcing primal cries from the depths,
of my shattered soul staring at me,
in the broken mirror reflections on the floor.
My hands lifted you up in love,
carried you around a desolated city,
searching for one heart willing to help,
but the silence has fired back at me,
like a thousand knives stabbing me,
in a defenseless attack I cannot win!
I am holding your picture in my hands,
unable to understand how this happened,
yet fully aware that death can come knocking,
at my own front door at any time,
so I close the door and wonder why,
the future has abandoned us this time?
As the sun comes up in the east,
the first rays of hope move across the land,
like little drops of gold being spread,
and I cannot wait for the sun in the sky,
bringing a rainbow into my hands,
where memory and hope can blend,
in a healing heart that will one day learn,
how to give her love once again.
A flower growing between the cold stone rocks –
in temperatures that reach far below zero,
and where even the animals do not choose to live,
still survives on the strength within,
that searches for life in the midst of an expected death,
that is who I really am!
It is not the hope or the love that forces me to go on,
but the ever-present reluctancy to give up.
A faith that lives deep inside of me,
tells me everyday that there has got to be more.
More than this endless suffering,
more than this heart-wrenching pain,
that forces my pillow to catch my tears in the night,
and my soul to hide them during the day.
A Force that is bigger than all of this –
bigger than our entire universe,
is what the last piece of my heart holds onto.
All I hope for is that this Force,
takes my pain and nails it on that cross,
where it can die along with my tears,
to restore the hope,
born from love,
that establishes a fountain of joy,
within every corner of my heart!
In my disbelief
When the land is in sight,
after an endless journey,
my heart fills with joy,
until I remember,
that the last steps,
are usually the hardest.
With the sweat on my brow,
I cry silent tears,
in my hopeless heart.
Is it a fata morgana?
An illusion in my mind?
In the extreme exhaustion,
my heart becomes confused,
wondering whether I had it right.
Was this the land,
the land that God asked me to go to?
Or was I mistaken,
wrong about everything I thought,
God spoke to me in dreams?
I pray,
first silently,
then louder and louder,
until my heart screams,
“Why have you forsaken me”?
The inches I walk become slower,
until I stand still in awe of myself,
my misunderstanding,
my hopes and dreams in something,
that might never be.
So, now I am at a crossroad.
Wondering whether to continue,
this extreme endurance,
or whether to go back,
to the life I knew before.
I do not know…
So, I wait for the silent whisper,
gently encouraging me,
to put my one foot,
in front of the other,
in blind courage,
in blind faith,
of an invisible God,
a promise I cannot see,
a situation that seems,
impossible.
Faith is like a mustard seed,
that fell into the ground,
and died.
As my heart is slowly dying,
I know a tree will spring up,
in the depth of my heart,
with strong roots,
able to conquer any storm.
Looking around this endless desert,
I still see the small houses,
shimmering at the horizon,
and no matter how impossible it may seem,
I know,
all I have to do is believe,
that those houses,
no matter how unreal they seem,
are put there for me.
Victory comes to those,
who choose to go on,
when everything inside,
tells them to give up!
So, I choose victory,
in whatever form it comes,
so that one day I can tell,
a world of disbelief,
that the Spirit kept me going,
when I could not belief.
To God be the glory,
for He was with me!
The dance of the starlings
As the content of my soul,
is spilled on the white marble floor,
the history of nature forces me,
to let her guide me along the way.
Through the raindrops I fall down.
Through the fog I rise again,
but the sun remains behind the clouds,
until time is ready to show her off again.
Rainbows bring hope and promises,
of new beginnings and better times,
where the grass is finally greener,
on my side of the meadows,
and where birds joyfully fly.
Life has an art of falling and rising,
like the dance of starlings in the sky,
where one never knows the next step,
but the heart always follows the rhythm of the music,
the soul plays at that particular time.
As my arms spread and my hands open,
I catch the first raindrops of the season,
bringing the joy of my heart to the surface.
However dark the seasons are,
the knowledge of what is ahead,
softens the cracks in my broken heart,
teaching me that the negative will never last.
So, even when I do not know the future,
or what my next step on this road will be,
love is teaching me that greatest endurance,
is learning to dance in the pouring rain,
for the future that is already in sight.
New Rays of Hope
Trees dance in the rain,
as a sparrow shakes his feathers dry,
on the soft sound of the piano keys.
The hot steaming liquid in my mug,
reminds me of the fireplace at home,
but the beach is to inviting to leave now.
Storms on the shore take my tears,
and send them along with the wind,
in bittersweet love letters to far away places.
Small towns are like warms blankets,
keeping the cold out of the weary heart,
where it begs for love to find her.
As an artistic flow of creativity touches me,
I can only take what I have left in my hands,
for it to find a way to come surging out.
With a pencil in hand I sketch the night away,
for the morning to arrive in words and pictures,
that align with the Divine connection with my soul.
For a short moment longer the sea rages on,
and I witness the dark clouds disappear in the distance,
only for the rainbow to whisper the new rays of hope.
Gineke van Keulen 