Footprints

  My life was touched by another today. A broken soul, lost in darkness. Yet I saw so much more; determination, passion, hope. Amazing isn’t it, how we can be surrounded by caring hearts yet sometimes feel so alone. But can we ever truly be broken, if still holding hope that tomorrow may bring with it even the slightest chance of healing?

  The intense emotion of these internal battles, with angels and demons pit against one another is unsettling, yet exhilarating. Emotions of others wash over me as water over rock, and if in so doing they erode me they also polish and refine my edges. The tide of despondence is almost relentless, yet every wave brings with it for me a new experience, a new piece of life. With this too comes guilt for taking interest in the pain of others, but paradoxically allows greater understanding and ultimately strength to walk beside them. The darkness is captivating. I’m drawn not because I wish to see it consume, but because it’s so often accompanied by light. This I’ve found unwavering. As much as we may feel so, none of us truly will find contentment forever bathed in shadows.

  We don’t stand alone uninfluenced or unaffecting; every breath we take, every single heartbeat echoes in another. Each word we speak affects someone. We wear our conversations like clothes, wrapping ourselves in compassionate words, eager to keep warm and safe. If scornful they hang off us like tattered rags.

  Every woman, each man and child influences us through their presence. We give and take of ourselves as much in passing on the sidewalk as through constant interaction. Why must we feel we walk the earth weightless without leaving imprints behind? Our footprints are not always visible to our eye but they are there, and they are followed. They’re ours to make deep so that others may have a solid footing.

  My life was touched by another today. And through the manic deluge of emotion and uncertainty she allowed a glimpse of light, interspersed amongst the heaviness of her words. And I felt strangely comforted. Because where light glimmers, hope glimmers in anticipation.

Photo credit http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/phrase/883/footprints.html

The Unpublished Poem ("Love Story")

I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to post this. It’s the first and only poem I’ve ever written for somebody to give to someone else. I’ll give you the background behind it.

I first began blogging in March of last year, and very shortly afterwards stumbled across the blog of a young woman in Australia. The way she wrote about her boyfriend was charming and completely captivated me. It was innocent, and honest, and passionate, and everything it should be. We started corresponding and soon became good friends. Several months later she revealed that she was much younger than I had thought, and that she had been writing under a pen name to protect her privacy. I thought it was a smart decision. Telling me was a huge step for her, she was afraid she’d lose my friendship. She didn’t.

In the following months she experienced an extremely traumatic event in her life which she confided in me, we were able to talk through it and it strengthened our relationship. (She and Sandy traded a few e-mails as well). She became not only a friend but I felt as protective of her as someone would their own daughter. It became an incredible relationship.

We don’t talk as often as we used to but are still in touch. It’s been an amazing thing to watch her grow through this part of her life, to see her learn from her experiences good and bad. She’s a fighter and has moved on, and although the relationship I wrote the poem about has since ended she’s found another who treats her well. Makes me very happy.

Most lines in the poem refer specifically to their relationship. She loved the Taylor Swift song it's named after. He always got down on one knee and proposed marriage, and she always accepted (“So come to me on bended knee”). He was her ‘prince’, she was his ‘Juliet’. Said he made love like a tiger, hence “tiger skin”. And so on.

So here it is. One chapter in a young woman's life whose book has just begun.

Love Story

So come to me on bended knee,

And calm my insecurity.

We'll lay beneath the Aussie skies,

Fight the dark and greet sunrise.

With stained-glass rays to warm our face

We'll run each day's uncertain race.

Love's moments spent near or apart

With you forever in my heart.

On crashing beach and windswept plain,

Through winter's chill or summer's rain,

We'll act like fools for all to see

Or be content to simply be.

Stolen nights entwined as one

When passion's dance has just begun,

Your deep blue eyes and 'tiger' skin
With every breath I'll breathe you in.

Then hand-in-hand we'll face the day,

Climb obstacles that come our way

And thank the day that we both met

My shining Prince.

Your Juliet.

S., thanks for agreeing to have this published. Our friendship means more to me than I can say.

Timeless (poem)

Timeless


Tears on your window from saddened skies
Seek quiet refuge in your eyes,
As lanterns filled with fireflies
Bring light this dreary day denies.

No longer gripped in passion's throes
Wondering where the rapture goes,
Mind drifts to misty long agos
When romance lived beyond the rose.

I'll sing you tales of maidens fair
With strands of sunlight in their hair,
Forever bathed in golden rays
Warmed by summer's yesterdays.

Playfully chased through billowed field
Each feigned protest artfully revealed,
With chivalrous advance their fate lay sealed
And love's sweet innocence sworn to yield.

It's grandeur of these days you seek
Forever's tears upon your cheek,
Flames rage within your wild heart still
Though tightly grasped in winter's chill.

As shadows play rest heavy eyes
Lost in Gothic lullabies,
Where longing for what's lost subsides
And your knight in shining armour rides.

~Barry O'Shea





Photo credit here. Ice Maiden by ChrisseCool.  2007-2010.

Adrift

For someone who had courage to unfurl her sails.



Adrift



The heart is a ship.
Moored safely in port
It encounters neither danger nor adventure,
Biding time until sun awakens over clear waters.
With bearings plotted it embarks,
Certain of the course to be taken.
But storms lurk
On horizons yet uncharted,
Seas will swell
And toss this frail craft about.

Point your sails into a wind
That steers around the storm,
The brightest star
Calling from darkened skies
Will cast its light upon your bow
To show the way.

And when the winds have died
And your heart is left adrift
A friend will fill your sails
And guide the rest of the way
Until your safe return
To harbour.




Photo credit.

Solitude

"Don’t knock on my door
And you won’t know I've shut you out,
Don’t call me
And you won’t know I'm ignoring you.
Let me deal with this
In my own way
Like I always do.



Alone.




Maybe these things
I keep bottled inside
Will somehow dissipate on their own,
Like carbonation
Fading over time.
It hasn’t happened yet
After all these years.
Maybe this time will be different."


So...how's this working for you so far?

Photo credit here.

Lost

                                       
  For Agata, who has always inspired me with words such as these.


Lost


His touch like summer upon your skin
No place you’d rather be,
Waken in dawn’s early light
To find it’s all a memory.

Did he call you baby
Write your name deep in the sand,
Explain the things you never knew
Or didn’t understand.
Did he chase away the lurking ghosts
Of lovers from another day
As you surrendered to him completely
And got carried away.

Was he just another shadowed hope
Or The One dressed in disguise,
Among the incidents and accidents
You got tripped up in his lies.
Did he call you his sweet darlin’
While he looked into your eyes
As each and every heart beat
Echoed his goodbyes.
Just what is it makes a man
Turn his back I cannot say,
You got lost on his horizon
And were carried away,
Just carried away.

And the days roll by like freight trains
Speeding down a wrong way track
Try to still the memories in your head
But there ain’t no turning back.
All along you somehow knew
You’d breathe for yourself one day.
Swept up like debris caught in his tide
As you got carried away,
Carried away.

Now you stand on higher ground
In a place where you belong,
Took some time to find yourself
But you were with you all along.
All the love you hold inside
Someone will see one day,
Then I’ll watch the words fall off your page
That you‘ve been carried away.

I’ll sit upon that shore again
And watch you carried away.

Darkness

Darkness


Until that night I dared follow
When you thought me not around,
To the shadowed place where you retreat
To play within your darkness.

Silent through midnight’s blue,
Night fell cool upon your breast
Nightgown clinging, hair blown by untamed gale.

Rage of frail curtains blown tattered upon your window,
Tossed asunder.

And I, your eyes averted,
Silently mirrored your descent down spiral stairs.
Brushing aside cobwebbed memories
With each cautious step.

You asked aloud for someone there,
No one answered but the night.
And within your windblown heart
I wonder if you remembered
That I once swept through there too.

Daybreak peered through gaping floorboards.
And huddled in a corner,
Knees pulled to chest
You did not stir.
Nothing but to hold silent vigil
Until you were ready
To face the light again.

If I close my eyes
Will you take me to your hiding place
Where you mend pieces of your shattered past,
In those quietest of hours
Lit by memories of brighter days
And a more hopeful tomorrow?




Photo credit here.