On Dauntless Wings

Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Adrift in darkest night Chained in thought The past confining Lost my way Yet here I stand

Alive

Surviving

Now starlight is dawning

These suns of ancient worlds, Singing their songs from before time They remind me Lest I forget why through This twilight I am walking Why I have come here to this place

It is to find me

Like a lotus, clean out of mire, From this mud I am rising

So’ham Hamsah*

And I am bright forever shining

Child of the prime creator Daughter of barbarian queens Descendant of warriors Seed of once mythical kings

Such precious blood Thrumming in my veins Pulsating drums steadily unwinding Their primal coils of infinite might

Ancestor spirits stand watch beside me Their voices as one Crying out across time

To refine me

I hear their words clear as day Hear their pleas to keep fighting

Their stories living on in my heart Lift me up they're undying

And I am trying

I'm still here trying

© 2018 S.G. Howell

Other people: Are you religious?

Me: Yeah

Other people: Are you Christian?

Me: No

Other people: Jewish?

Me: No

Other people: Then what are you?

Bond and Free

Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Love has earth to which she clings   With hills and circling arms about—   Wall within wall to shut fear out.   But Thought has need of no such things,   For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turf, I see   Where Love has left a printed trace   With straining in the world’s embrace.   And such is Love and glad to be.   But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom   And sits in Sirius’ disc all night,   Till day makes him retrace his flight,   With smell of burning on every plume,   Back past the sun to an earthly room.