Energies of Creation » Poetry

Shirley

Lexi Sundell — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:07:25 +0000

I have been thinking of an artist friend of mine who passed away almost 12 years ago. Shirley Wright lived on Lopez Island in Puget Sound in a huge rambling building that housed Grayling Gallery, three sets of living quarters, two painting studios, a wood shop, a ceramic studio, a photography darkroom, and a large roofed courtyard.

Shirley was an excellent painter. She gardened and loved to paint flowers, but her finest work was her figurative series of women. Those paintings are simply amazing in their qualities of light and color.

The most memorable painting in that series was of an old lady sitting on a chair holding her purse. The chair had pink wings and was ascending to heaven. In startling contrast was a beautiful nude young woman with flaming red hair ascending alongside the little old lady. Shirley always said inside every old woman was the young woman she used to be.

Shirley had emphysema from years of smoking and died earlier than her strong family genetics might have otherwise allowed. Until we moved to Montana I used to go start her wood stove in the morning so that she would not endanger herself with the oxygen tank near the fire.

One cold winter night she called to say her time had come and she was dying. We were the last ones to speak with her. I was restless and could not sleep, so around 2 a.m. I wrote the following poem.

Great Hall of Art
Stands in silent momory,
A cathedral of dreams
Made manifest.
Empty rooms hold
Uncanny absence,
The owner away.
Moonlight slides gently
Overall,
Deep shadows of trees
Touch the sleeping garden.

The artist,
Caught between times,
Struggles afar,
Battlefield of body,
Once in delighted dance,
Lies entangled,
Pathways of fear
Too well traveled
To endure long.
Spirit seeks
A welcome conclusion,
Rebirth in a new world.
The body falters,
Layers of cells
Falling away.
Leaves in decay.

Spirit aims
With steady hand,
Poised for flight
Into unknown stars
Where paintings are born.

And yet, pauses,
Just a moment,
A wave of emotion
Engulfs every beloved
Touch of home.
No easy passage
To a world unseen
When the old
Lies so familiar,
So near, so dear.

Spirit stands patient,
Allowing time
To embrace home,
The hearts who remain,
Sad solemn leavetaking.

Until, at last,
Completion!
Miraculous note of joy
Rises to the stars,
A flying chair
Gone from our midst.

This post appears in the Carnival of Truth.

Winds of Creation

Lexi Sundell — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:35:34 +0000

I feel the paint blowing through me
Bearing feathers and flower petals.
An inexorable softness
Shapes the universe
In songs of color.

Note about Lexi Sundell’s painting: “Poppy Dancer” is acrylic on canvas. Other original paintings and prints available at RiverStone Gallery.

The Apocalyptic Egg

Lexi Sundell — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:21:15 +0000

Chiseling holes in the dike with words,
ancient barrier looming invisible,
so long unseen it rises in the fog a mighty surprise.
The unnoticed walls enclose most powerfully,
even if made of crumbling mortar and loose stones.
Unnoticed walls seal the beyond from thought, hope, and desire,
a void does not beckon with enticing possibilities.
One hides from the void, building barriers
and then forgetting the building of them,
narrowing existence to the slender beam,
a narrow world within walls, with the certainty one can see all.
A dangerous illusion, entrapping one further.

Huge, looming barriers are but gossamer figments of mind,
a veil of thought, insubstantial
yet inexorable in their power to contain.

Words chip at the edges of the invisible, making tiny cracks,
clues to the shape of the barrier,
cracks forming webs until egglike,
new life bursts forth with unmatched intensity and focus.

The void holds all possibilities,
limitless dance of unsung songs,
the wordless incantation to the universe,
words crystallize in the void,
falling through space, through cracks in time,
falling into my head and out onto paper,
words chasing the sky-demons and nightdragons of ancient times,
a paean of words lifting the veil.

Let the covered wounds be made whole,
the flesh vibrant and thirsting for life,
the electric charge of the stars coursing in powerful crescendo,
bringing the unknown stillness,
the point of balance in the hologram,
the place where the slight movement of a spider makes kingdoms shake and fall,
a place for silent reverence and purity of thought.
Pass beyond the dramas of life
and see the unnoticed essence
we long ago walled away, with the barriers of fear.

Emotion and thought trapped in flesh,
we pose our own conundrums, our own solutions beyond description,
but words tear at the mystery,
slicing layers of darkness from our eyes
until we see at last ourselves in the void.

Faceless shadow on the waters turns to light, love, surrender,
a great gale of joy ascends the heavens,
spirals of energy leaping, overlapping eons in the twinkling moment,
a dance of stillness.

One goes within the stillpoint,
hologram enfolds, unfolds, revolves around one,
the mystery lies visible at last.

Hold the energy,
still aimed precision, the cosmos is born.
Hold the energy still,
power thunders even through hell itself,
the goddess unleashed reigns.

A great truth, fleeting from words,
words reveal and then conceal, mind-tricks of ink.
Be not deceived,
only in the stillpoint lies the word of all words.
Let the pen aim clearly.
One chooses randomness
or the still center.
Choose wisely.

Poppies of the Dawn

Lexi Sundell — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:07:57 +0000

Poppies of the dawn wear soft veils of knowing,
Gently kissed by light arriving from the void.

Translucent petals
Shimmer in trembling air,
Deceptively fragile,
Yet brimming
With indomitable purpose.

The flowers begin to rouse the bees
To worship at their golden altars of life.

The mysteries of pollen
Hold the songs of creation,
Crystalline poppy forms
Bringing petals born of times past
To blossom in moments yet unseen.

New morning poppies dance each gentle breeze,
Eternal cycles of being caught in their petals.

This post is included in the Garden Fest carnival, and I recommend you check out the other articles as well.

Note about Lexi Sundell’s painting: “Dawn Poppies” is a specially commissioned painting used as an architectural element in the home. Other original paintings and prints available at RiverStone Gallery.