"I Felt Those Nails Again"

"It was a while back that you came to Me
And I was happy child
To have you walk with your hand in Mine
And teach you meek and mild.
We were pretty close then,
But then you went away and I watched sadly
As you walked a different path.

And I felt those nails
When you turned away from Me
I felt those nails again
Just like I did back then
When they crucified My Love
And refused to look above...
For the best of ways to live!
My child I want to give you everything!

You know I was there
When the one you so loved hurt you
And I was there a little later when
Your son went to live with him
Later still your daughter followed
And you thought you'd lose your mind.
So you turned away from Me
You thought I wasn't there!

And I felt those nails
When you turned away from Me
I felt those nails again
Just like I did back then
When they crucified My Love
And refused to look above
For the best of ways to live!
My child I want to give you everything!

But I was there!
When you lay alone on your bed
To weep your grief and cry
And I was there!
When the sun shone through your window
But you turned away.
You didn't see the rainbow
That I put beside the cloud
Where the vision of the angel
Was meant to bring you Home
You see child...I was always there!"

cailin raine

Sifting Out The Silly

So much of it has been a dusty waste

Like mold on a good, old book

It can never really be totally wiped away

Maybe sponged and dried, smeared a bit

But still there, dammit, just under the surface

Wrecking my smile.

I look old now when I glimpse my face in the mirror

Thinking I am combed and groomed enough

But the day shows my wear, the tears in my fibre

The tears in my eyes, wet enough sometimes to

Roll down to my chin, lower now than ever before.

We just don’t last long… not like a few decades back

My Para Med client had said that we “keep good these days”

But my thirties are long gone… dusty now, yes the dirty thirties!

I am sad when Kelli sings the song, “The Cows Aren’t Comin’ Home”

That was my Dad too… walking the fields in old coveralls

Baggy pant legs and rolled up white shirts, crooked straw hat

But he looked like the best man in the whole world to me.

It was so very sad when the cows went away one last time

Never again would I trod through high grass with my brother

To find the cows grazing, but ready to come to the barn for

The “milkin’” … Milkin’ time had a real ring to it

It meant all the animals inside the barn, cozy, busy, warm

The cats came from afar to catch the spray of milk in the air

Dad and Glenn squirting the milk high on purpose for them

Comical to watch, jumping up to put their tongue right where

The milk shot in a straight stream from the cow’s teat

You don’t see that anymore, everything high tech and encased

There was a freedom in that old barn, boards worn and creaking

And I knew every step and crack and seam, loved the soft rain

On the tin roof, making a music all its own… like no other.

Just a dream now, but still so strong.  An impenetrable feeling

Images strung along my farm girl life… the moist breathe of a cow

Sniffing your face and trying to lick your hair into its mouth

Patting the wee calves and bottle feeding some whose mother

Hadn’t enough milk or had passed on to another realm of life

The sadness at a time of death was overwhelming and too much

For a little girl’s heart.  Each loss was a deep pain that left scars.

So now here I am, a scarred old lady in so many ways I can’t count

Too much hurt can just get bottled up, ya know?  Too much jumble

And now we have to sift out all the silly, take the grain from the chaff

And leave behind only the good parts, because the sully got healed.

I pray for enough time on this earth to get that tarnish all out

To heal the sad memories and redo past wrongs, so that

Everyone left behind can move on without the dust, free as they can be.

Because one day they will be getting old too, grey hairs and slow steps

And they will look back and know they have to do the job that is left

Sift out all that silly, and leave the golden sun and rainbows behind.

cailin raine

Old House, Back Road

Oh see the mauve thistles … watch them sway in forever motion

They are cast upon the back drop of green grasses and tough, springy shrub

Back in behind the scatter of purple on green, lies an old frame house

Forgotten…burgundy siding still clinging to days gone by… time departed

Lingering in memory of hands, busy and worn, long passed on to another place

See the pale blue sky strewn with tufty white, touching the landscape

This soft frame blanketed about the heavy brick and rock of tumbled fireplace

Bricks standing still, so high that it strikes one how out of proportion it is

How important it had been to heat that old house, to provide a sturdy place

To cook and provide sustenance to the shadowy family moved on, ghosts now

Its craggy height seems like a small mountain … and is that a tiny girl

Pigtails around her face, dimpled cheeks, shy dark eyes peering out from behind

That fortress of red slab, but no only a shadow cast by the fruit trees, or was it?

I snapped my photos to keep a small part of this enchanting scene in my heart

But nothing would retain this essence, nothing could compare, this pink verbena

Underfoot already had a piece of my soul and I could feel the history seeping

Into this poet’s mind, grateful for the gentle breeze which stirred the leaves

Huge maples overhead telling their own stories of when the house was happy

Full of its family, fed and clothed and warm, little feet scampering on the lawn

Wild now immersed with the fields and air, indented with the soft wind, creased

Like lines in the old faces that would have shown sadness at leaving this haven

I feel their life; I have wished for so long to be a part of such a sweetness as this.

cailin raine

My Comment:  This is a real place, a dilapidated farm on the gently rolling hills near Collingwood, Ontario.  I was alone, parked my Rav on the side of the gravel road with no one else around and I let my imagination roam as I explored this old homestead.  As always the ghosts of a time past come to murmur about the corners and in the dark spaces behind windows and doors ... it is not only the wind that stirs the flowers and not only the breeze that whispers.