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.

 


Of All Things Let Go, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Of All Things Let Go

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

morning snow 2

 

It’s possible to imagine snow

As time silently shrouding

Everything.  It’s possible

To think of snow

As the gradual smoothing

Of all the rough edges;

Sometimes you can

See Lady Winter draping shawls

Over the shoulders of the trees,

And, of course, you can see

Snow as burden, as the laying down

Of funeral blankets on flowers,

It is the great quieter of color

And the crumbler of fruit,

It is the world gone still and

More trudging, yes, and sometimes,

Go out and stand, allow

The cold kisses to touch your face;

Lift your arms and let them

Be blessed with that so uncommon

Feeling of being alive, and watch–

The snow falls from the unseeable sky,

Look– the crystal stars form

On your sleeves, each one

Bestowed with infinity—that alone is enough

To fill one with swooning wonder,

Notice too, how your breath

Issues its swirling ghosts

Of all things let go,

How winter absorbs them

Into herself as the prayers

That they are, and treasures them

Until one day, when she turns

Her great skirts and drifts away

Over the houses and hillsides

Leaving all that was let go

For spring to tend and encourage

With warm hands, their rebirth

Into the sun.

 

 


 

All donations go to medical bills and groceries.  Thank you for your kind support. <3


First Snow, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

First Snow

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

The sky says:

Shh—Listen.

 

Hear that?  No?

Good.

 

Close your eyes,

Listen more.

 

Hear that? No?

Good.

 

That silence

Is there

For a reason.

 

Grab a coat,

Step outside,

Open your arms,

Lift your face to the sky.

 

Hear that?

Good.  Feel that?

Good.  That is

The reason, that is–

Such marvelous,

Dazzling stillness;

Such exquisite

Calm, such soothing

Kisses from winter’s

Hushed lips.

 

Breathe in, feel that—

That briskness and quickening.

Good.

 

There are

A million reasons,

So many reasons,

Each one crystalline

And delicate, yet

Powerful enough

To quiet the world—

If only for a moment—

If only long enough

For you

 

To feel and to listen

To love’s softening,

To winter’s patient

Blanketing.

 

That silence is there

Not to threaten,

But to assure you

You are alive.

 

As you go back

Inside, to the noise

Of notifications

And important things to do—

You are invited,

You are allowed,

You are known.

 

You are part

Of the wisdom of the sky

That says: shh.

 

first snow buddha

 

 


 

 

All donations go to medical bills and groceries.  Thank you for your support. <3


Rising, Falling, Rising, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Rising, Falling, Rising

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Watching the particles of dust

Falling in the lamplight

Of my bedroom reminds me

 

We are all falling,

Largely unseen in a light

So bright we careen into it, like

So many infinitesimally small moths.

 

Have you ever tried

Focusing your eyes

On a specific speck of falling dust–

The tiniest sliver of a snowflake,

As it sailed the currents

Of air in your room?

 

I have. After several attempts,

Which resulted in losing sight

Of the scintilla of dust in the white of the wall,

I was finally able to trace one

Descend, like the smallest slice of string

From some disintegrating, illuminated leaf,

 

It fell, and I saw it rise

When I exhaled, dip suddenly

When I inhaled, bank wanderingly

Towards the wall, tail back

And make my eyes cross

When it landed on my face.

 

Remember this:

After you turn out the light

Grains of dust fall upon you,

Pieces of pieces of falling white feathers

Slowly, methodically, like

The faintest of snow falls,

Covers you and everything

You love, like snow-embers

From some unseen fire,

 

And one day, when you realize

Your life is being traced by a greater

Vision, you will wake up

And see your life brushed

With ash, and you will rise,

Shake it off, remember

You are a pinch of stardust,

A dash of spice, a smidgen

Of fragrance, and it is time

To elaborate on the trajectory

Of your dreams, and turn the unavoidable

Process of falling

Into flying—

Flying into the light

Of your own brilliant desires.

 

 


 


 




Light-Hearted

Light-Hearted
By
Joseph Anthony Petro

 

Snow descends slowly and soft, like
So many hours and days; drifting
And banking up against houses
And closed garage doors.

And the silence with which it falls,
Lulls us into thinking it will last forever.

You go to sleep and the roads are clear.
You wake and they’ve turned into scrolls
Unfurling in a dazzling emptiness
And a blinding story you cannot make heads
Or tails of, and there’s no way
To even compose a coherent life or a song upon
Such vast, frozen pages.

So why rise at all? Why not
Sink back into bed? Why get on
All that gear and clear off the cars
And shovel the drive when there’s no place to go?

Truly I haven’t a clue, except winter casts
A spell that draws us out of our warm
And familiar lives and into another world,
Another planet called Wonder or Hush.
There is white magic in the steadiness,
In the hypnotic piling up of flat, geometric
Prisms—each one different, infinitesimally small—light—
Hearted and easily dissolved into the ground.

And when we wake to the brilliance
Of such an elaborate, albeit cold opportunity,
One in which we can freely choose to participate, or not;
One in which we bring our own warmth
And sense of adventure, and we step out of our safe space
And into the holy silence, all geared up and as prepared as we can be,
And we trudge in the knee-high drifts until we find a place
Or until a place finds us, and we feel compelled to fall
And make an angel out of our lives; out of the one, geometric,
Light—hearted life of who we really are.

 

 


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