Moon Belly Dancing

Shadows of children dancing beneath my belly

In ethereal moonlight

Full moon shining on my pillow

Making me dream of young days

When my stomach was in rhythm

With the moon and the prowling world of men.

My heart is wistful because the moon no longer moves

My body into fertile response

The cycle is gently winding down

To another pathway of shadowy lane

Where the ghosts of children who might have been

Dance one more time to my heartbeat

Before they must leave and move on

Past this life chance to another.

Some other woman body will hold

Some other female cup will mold and mother

But not me, not mine, not my breast.

We have done this belly dance for so long

These ghosts and I, they, spirits on

The other side, dancing, dancing ‘round

My mother soul, waiting, wanting to be born.

Now they see the slowing and the tender sadness

Now they see me stoop, a little

Mother soul calls out in ancient longing

A rhythm never to be forgotten

A rhyming and a singing always in my heart

There were more you see

More babies to cuddle and hold.

My belly groans with goodbye.

cailin raine

A Nod To The Velveteen Rabbit

This piece is not really "poetry" per se, but in a way it is, and it certainly is to me.  I have loved this for so long, and just felt compelled to share it here, as I think our world is sadly in need of a reminder of what is truly "real".

The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

"What is real?", asked the Rabbit one day when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.  "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse.  "It's a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.        "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.  "You become!  It takes a long time.  That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

....says a lot does it not?  At this point in life I am feeling pretty loose-jointed and definitely shabby...  my eyes have not dropped out yet, but I spend a lot of time looking for my glasses!

cailin raine

Menesetung

The Sign said “Laughing Water” and I stopped to listen…

Indeed there was a chattering far down below the bridge

Where the water danced its way along the rocky bottom,

Babbling this and prattling that, it bounced a path of life.

It’s at the Piper’s Dam they say there is a deep, Black Hole…

“Bottomless” says the legend, unknown, immeasurable.

Just think, a fathomless crater-like cavity filled with inky

Water, sightless molecules smothered in blind irrigation.

The Maitland water is pretty and calm where the dam used to be…

Once there was a busy mill and people bustled, came and went,

Work continuing in normalcy while a deep, dark  cavernous hole

Sat hidden beneath the water, like a limp secret sitting in solitude.

Now a slab of flat stone sits reminding us of where the mill once stood

And weeds, tall grass, erosion work at obliterating even those remains

But the memories lurk and you can almost see the men in trousers, boots

Buzzing like bees, resembling Mennonites, knowing how to get it done.

On a back road on the way home to where I live, there is a house…

Tiny, tumbling into disarray, sad in countenance and  lopsided.

Its windows are piled high with mumble jumble, relics, refuse,

Clutter crammed into cracks and holes, a carnival of rubbish.

I muse about the way our lives are like the aging of old buildings

Like the tumble-down shanty, no longer able to stand without leaning

Or like the river, where buried in its unreachable depths there

Is a spot of darkness where no light can enter and mystery remains.

cailin raine

Stages Of Faith

Take a page of stark black and white

Blend and smudge the edges,

Until there are no lines

And areas of grey define.

Let a single teardrop

Roll down along the page,

Its simple path will choose

Each how or when or where

Each what, or stage

Of faith that she will follow

And then make her own.

Until she chooses from within

She won't be truly home.

Then somewhere near the bottom,

The teardrop gently sinks,

And leaves her mark upon the page 

Forever in indelible ink.

cailin raine

All of my poetry is protected by Copyright © Colleen Weber