Author Archives: Jennifer
This Heart, By Jennifer Angelina Petro
This Heart
By Jennifer Angelina Petro
This snow slows time; falls
With patience only grief understands.
Watching from this bed,
These legs folded under,
These hands resting on these thighs;
This snow becomes everything
This heart is not.
This nearly motionless drifting,
This meticulous chaos beautifully covering
Roads and rooftops, this insinuating
Itself through exposed crowns of trees,
This cold made visible, this sky
Reminding all of us it does whatever wants.
Things it does not accomplish:
Reaching the little flames of seeds,
Shrouding this fierce compassion burning
Inside this heart—coursing through this blood—
Not here, not today—
The furnace of this heart rages on.
The Occasional Heart, by Jennifer Angelina Petro
The Occasional Heart
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Some things are better left broken—
Seeds and cicada husks, the robin’s egg,
The chrysalis, the occasional heart.
Some things cannot be healed—
Not simply because they aren’t illnesses–
But because experiences cannot be
Undone. And besides,
Some wounds
Are delicious—the taste of blood
Metallic and sacred, free of pity—
Fortifying the bones.
Wounds happen,
No rhyme, no reason, no
Providence. They are moments
In the absurdity and the ridiculous wonder
Of living, of breaking open,
Of blossoming into the air,
Of wings settling and elongating,
Of the gift of spiraling inwards and
Outwards during sleep, during death, and unfolding—
Sifting through the branches of your life–
A most spectacular storm,
A most radiant calm.
Sit with grief. Allow it to breathe.
It isn’t something
To be cured. It isn’t
A sickness.
It is you, the self-same you–
Just as joy is your name.
Consider yourself
Whole—
Nothing
Missing, nothing worthy
Of stealing for, killing for, dying for.
Live. Your soul–ever
Untarnished, uncorruptible—
Is more you than you. Live.
As for the rest of it—yes—
The mind, body, the spirit—
These, like wings, can all
Be broken. Rest as you move.
Everything gradually
Falls apart and wishes itself
Into the ground and sky.
Nothing can stop the holy breaking
Open. Live. Leap
Into the vastness
Of possibility. Live.
Bury the dead, nourish the living,
And roar—
Dancing
Into your life.
Naming the Way, by, Jennifer Angelina Petro
Naming the Way
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Go outside late October.
Lock your eyes on one falling leaf.
Try to find the moment
As close to the beginning
Of it’s letting go from the branch
As you can. Really follow that leaf—
That one in a million leaf.
Train your eyes on it. Focus.
Notice the way the wind carries it,
Breathes it. Watch how it turns
Gently over and around, catching little
Fleeting currents, and then
Smoothing out into a kind
Of easy drifting. Its descent held
In the palms of the wind. See
How golden. See how tenderly
It is placed in the stream.
Give that leaf a name—your
Name, and then,
Go back inside
To pray.
The Wandering Now, by Jennifer Angelina Petro
The Wandering Now
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Are there times, plural? Times
That exist multiplied, added,
Subtracted, divided?
Or is it one time and one time only?
Is it one borderless time—no alpha,
No omega time? No chronos,
No Kairos, no linear, no anywhere time?
We do know there are
Rhythms of moons and seasons,
We do know we breathe—
Our lives,
Our breath,
Sifts through many branches,
Spreads through many bodies,
Moves in a wind that is kin to silence—
Yet even amidst the changes that don’t
Really change, even amidst the sound
Living in silence, and the silence living in sound
It is still a breath—an expansion and contraction
Of our place in time—
A breath that is, in itself, a spirit,
A spirit that is, in itself, a body—
A body that is, in itself, the now made manifest.
And from where we stand,
In all of the mystery, and all
The effort to find a center
We blossom and wither
In no time at all—
So here we are—maybe
You need to join me in
Lifting our head, lifting our hands—
And with all the earnestness of a lost soul–
Say to the everywhere:
“Show me.”
It’s All Happening Now, By Jennifer Angelina Petro
It’s All Happening Now
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Your awareness
Of your immediate
Surroundings–this
Moment, and
Your breath
Breathing presence
Into the world–
Is valid. Your pain,
Your falling asleep,
Your heartache,
Your little conversations
About how beautiful
The sunset is,
Your worries,
Your looking for your keys,
Your rising, glowing
Body—fluttering
With coming—
All of this—
Is valid.
And can you
Imagine–now, this
Moment–somewhere far
Beneath the ocean’s surface–
A whale drifts—
An acorn-barnacled
Monolith–singing
Light through forests
Of kelp and the bodies
Of a million fish—
Echoing in your very
Own longing—can you
Imagine?
Can you imagine–
Now, this moment–
Somewhere deep
In deep-green leaves—
Leaves as big as faces–
A panther, a shimmering
Piece of the night,
Licking its great paws,
And staring—all the way
From Indonesia—
Directly
Into your eyes?
Oh, can you—
Can you imagine?
It’s all happening
Now.
The Art of Blossoming, By Jennifer Angelina Petro
The Art of Blossoming
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
The art of blossoming
Is simple and yet
Riddled with struggle.
First you find yourself
A seed full of darkness
Surrounded by darkness,
Then you gradually begin
To realize you are full of light,
A light yearning to shine
In the open, remarkable sky,
Next you begin feeling
An even brighter light
Gently tugging, calling,
Singing you out of the earth,
Passed roots and rocks, until,
At last, you break open–
Into the full pageant of the day,
With your light illuminating
Your own life and the lives
Of everyone you touch,
And other lights
Stream through you,
Like liquid sweetness,
And you draw sustenance
From lightning and the rain—
And the fragrance of all
Your efforts–all that darkness,
All that time spent
Wisely unseen–lifts
Into the wind, and your beauty
Weaves through the day
And the night, and other seeds,
Through other gardens,
Through other fields
Awaiting this coming out,
When the world, and the mirror,
Are blessed.
Clear as Day, By Jennifer Angelina Petro
Clear as Day
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
One never knows until never is up,
And then you know whatever it was
You didn’t know before never ran out.
It’s kind of like this: A firefly
Turns its own light on and off
In an effort to get your attention.
Certain questions act the same way—
Bobbing up and down, elusive—
Hints flashing among the dark trees;
Every so often, and often again—
Someplace different—a little to the left,
A little higher, and sometimes, seemingly,
Rising to the moon, all in an effort
To be followed.
Trick is—and it is a trick—keep watching
For the lights—they can bloom anywhere
In the fields of summer darkness;
When you see one, follow its green-tinted
Ribbon where ever it goes, as best you can,
And if you lose sight of it—disappointment,
Frustration—are perfectly valid responses.
Try and remember this:
When you fall asleep, and answers
Lift through the trees—out of reach—
Do your best to not give up.
Your dreams–along with a gathering of angels
And shadows—will ponder the questions for you,
And when morning comes, and the dawning sun shines,
It will all be clear as day.
The Frog, by Jennifer Angelina Petro
The Frog
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
The frog with gold-flecked sclera and black, almond pupils–
Sloped back–green, gleaming with brown moons—
Waits until the last second before leaping
From the half-submerged log into algae-murky waters.
Once I am up the road aways, mind thinking through shafts of light
Of what it would be like to be so smoothly elusive,
Its head inconspicuously breaks the surface of the pond,
Scoping it out, making sure I’m good and gone.
I Don’t Know What Else to Say, by Jennifer Angelina Petro
I Don’t Know What Else to Say
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
The Friesian horse of the night approaches,
In an extended cantor.
When it finally slows to a halt,
May it nuzzle my face and neck,
May the mist of its breath shroud my body
So that I may disappear into the moon light.
And may whatever it was I wanted to say
Be swallowed up into the ground
Only to reappear years later—
As bones wrapped in flowers.