The Habit of Thinking Light, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro, From Words by Sam Lilley, from his book, “Discovering Relatively for Yourself,”

The Habit of Thinking Light

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

From words by Sam Lilley, from his book,

“Discovering Relatively for Yourself,” published 1981, with a few words by me

 

 

Light behaves in many ways.

It is a steady motion

full of fruitful suggestions—

some of them far more subtle

than others—but for all of them

the conclusion is clear:

 

We move through light.

 

And it’s all happening in outer space—

it’s an everyday experience

and a startling idea, with many

radiations intuiting the absurdity

of how the edges move,

of how we are traveling

towards the right and good,

with many little kindnesses

becoming the habit of thinking light.

 

The upshot of it all:

we are love’s out and back journeys,

we are not impossible conclusions,

we are instantaneous events

occupying small intervals of time,

imagining things in new ways,

we are dilations of light,

reaching towards the kind of together

where we surprise one another

with messages of hope coming directly

from the first flash of love and wanting,

that still carry us to somewhere,

to here.

 

 


Bees Lead the Way, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

Bees Lead the Way

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

It’s ok to shelter your heart.
Elegant safety, full of grace, full of heaven,
necessary shadows cradle the light,

bells ring softly, sound merging with forgiveness,
blending with the readying to let go,

bees lead the way to sweet sacristies,
wings thrumming with light,
lifting the sun from holy darkness.

 

 

 

 

 


 


Sunflower in the Dark, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Sunflower in the Dark

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

At night sunflower

bow your head,

so your seeds look

longingly at the ground.

 

Open

your palms so the moon can fill them

with silver light—its drapery liminal

and gauzy, persuading

water to rise to your roots.  It is important.

 

The night says so.  You are

a flower.  You are

radiant.  You are

still growing.

you still carry the future. Remember

the sky.

 

Allow me

to hold you,

in the soft shawl of my arms, allow me

to touch your face

with starlight.  You are

still capable of leaning

into the wind and staying

strong.  You are

holy, so sway,

and sway—

feel that—feel the cool night wind.

 

And know this: you will

turn your face to the sun again, you will

be drenched in light.  You will.

You will.

 

 

 


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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


Cycle of Gladness, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

Cycle of Gladness

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

All winter we shine our little fires

So that the sun may rest,

And we become the light

We need for each other.

 

Come spring, she blooms—

Speaks into our mind: “Thank you.”

And moves closer, warming the world

With her dazzling smile.

 

Come summer, she watches over us

So that we may lose ourselves

In the drifting, sleepy days,

And the evenings when she drapes

The sky with all manner of mingling

Pinks and blues.

 

Come fall, she slowly turns away,

Pulling cool covers around her shoulders,

But not before leaving the trees ablaze with gold,

And not before cherishing the gratitude

Rising from our hearts.

 

 

 


 



Chosen

Chosen
By
Joseph Anthony Petro

 
The thing is
No one believes me.
How the fireflies dazzled their way
To my back screen door, like
A galaxy spiraling towards me.
No one believes their light
Became so strong, so blinding
It simply crossed the threshold
Into my kitchen, gathered me up
In its arms, and lifted me outside
Into the night, and upwards, passed the trees,
Higher, into the clouds of moonlit angel hair,
And higher, to the stars,
Where suddenly it let me go
And still I kept rising, and the mass of fireflies sang—
(I didn’t know fireflies sang),
And I rose to their shimmering chorus up,
Up until the moon grabbed me out of the sky
And swirled me over and over in her jet black hair
As a spider tumbles a fly in a web,
And I laughed as she spun me, for her hair
Was soft as wind, and she sang like the fireflies
An uncluttered lullaby—pure, incandescent, like
Rays of sunlight beaming through a morning forest,
And the more she wove, the more I could breathe,
And her song bathed around me every bit
As softly as her hair, and when she finished,
And I had tumbled one last time
I found myself drifting to sleep in her satin shrouded arms,
And somewhere nearby I could see
The fireflies forming a ring around us,
Encircling us in diamonds and glittering sapphires,
And I could feel her chest rise and fall
As she too began to sleep,
And the dreams we had that night
Were unlike any I have ever had.
To say they were resplendent
Would be putting it mildly—they were dreams
Of pure, radiant light—my mind and soul blazed
With brilliance, sang with silver, rang with bells
Of crystal, and I knew things—answers
To things—questions exploded like fireworks
And then drizzled towards me like
Ribbons of fireflies—because they were fireflies—
Each and every one of my questions was a firefly,
Every one of the answers was too,
And I knew right then and there,
Asleep in the arms of the moon,
Guarded by a legion of fireflies,
That the world, no matter how dark,
No matter how light, was made of light–
Light brighter than we could ever imagine, light
That made the darkness darker so as to illuminate
The way for angels carrying candles, light
That made the sun seem playfully small,
Light that made my problems and their solutions become bubbles of dew,
And everything, everyone was the chosen one,
Every atom, cell, strand of dancing DNA
Was chosen, and lit up from within
With a heavenly darkness,
And loved beyond measure,
Loved beyond fear, loved beyond doubt,
Loved beyond the wildest passions
One could ever hope for—loved beyond belief.
I knew these things asleep in the arms of the moon.
And when I woke I was in my bed,
And when I stood I stumbled,
And when I stumbled I stayed on my knees
And thanked the moon, the fireflies, the stars,
And when I rose to go tell the world
How the answers and the questions—how
Your heart and my heart, your body and my body, your soul
And my soul, your mind and my mind, are all made of light,
How we are all chosen, how we are all known,
And that the way to letting your light shine
Is to go, go through the darkness,
Go through the darkness
Until you sleep in the arms of the moon, like
A baby–when I rose to tell the world
I heard you say, what good will it do?
It’s not about good, I replied. It’s about knowing
That somehow, someway we are all OK,
We are all light destined for light, to hatch into light.
So right now, in this place, in this moment in time and space,
Take my hand, and rejoice, and go, I said,
Go into the darkness—
Run, stumble as I did, stumble for years if you have to, just go,
I will be by your side. Go until you see them—
Angels carrying candles, fireflies lanterning the path,
The moon opening her arms. Go.
Go and be loved by light swaddled in darkness until your own self-love
Dawns like a summer morning in the night of your self-hate.
I know. You’re right. I was wrong about what I said
At the beginning. I know you believe me.