Woman standing in field of yellow flowers looking at trees and sky - Poems by Sherin Shefik

POEMS BY SHERINSHE: Dear Mother Nature, Einstein’s Cosmic Religion, Goodbye, Hello Trees

Last updated: April 9th, 2019

Dear Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature;
My loyal friend, my sister,
My mother, my creator.

Why would I ever need to step foot
Inside a church?
It is cold on my feet, the air stifled,
And the rules all human-made.

You are my place of worship.
You feed my soul
With your rhythmic waves,
Your soaring birds,
Your warm caressing sand.

Your earth, and your oceans,
I worship.
I bow in gratitude
And with humility.

Oh, good evening red spiky starfish.
“Where have you been for so long?” It asked.
I don’t know.
But when my hand slips out of yours,
When I can’t hear the beat of your heart,
I see less, I feel less, I am less.

You slow my spin,
You dissolve my complex world into
Simple streamlined geometric shapes.
I understand you, and you, me.

You gently nudge me, like a nurturing mother deer,
Towards a spiral path.
You light up the circular stepping stones
With the last burnt yellow rays of your day.

You lead me all the way back,
Back to myself.
You welcome me home.

Einstein’s Cosmic Religion

Doesn’t it make your feet itch?
I ask you.
Not you plural, but you singular.
Doesn’t it make your skin crawl?
To know that human desires are
Mostly futile.

Doesn’t it drive you insane?
I ask you.
Keep you up at night
Scratching in the dark?
That we stare at that stagnant pond
Apathetic as to what’s beneath the
Opaque surface.

Have you really seen that willow tree?
I ask you.
Humbly revealing the
Majestic magnificence of nature.

Have you really felt Neruda’s poems?
I ask you.
Humbly revealing the
Buzzing world of words and thought.

Doesn’t it make you want to cry?
Tears of euphoria and wonder,
To know that there is
A sublime and marvellous order
And it’s right there in front of you.
Right here, actually.
Look! And you will see.

It’s the spinning wildly
Round and round in the meadow,
And the falling down laughing,
Bewildered,
Dizzy with Einstein’s cosmic religion.

Let the crackling of that bonfire
Snap you out of your sleepwalk,
Stir something inside of you.
Come. Take my hand.
Let’s go find some
Dusty old matches
And some slender woody shoots.

Goodbye

We inter-weaved ourselves in
An intimate knot,
As I learned to recite you,
And you, me.

The ropes would not be the ropes
Without the knot.
But the time has come now
To undo the knot.

The muscle memory will remain
Imprinted though.
With grace and gratitude
With love and pain.

Hello Trees

The girl was sitting on a wooden bench
Eating a cheese brown-breaded sandwich
Minding her own business
Watching the trees dance in the wind.

When suddenly, with no warning,
The trees whispered “hello” to her.
They opened their branches wide and
Revealed the blueprint of their leaves,
Exposing their sacred circles of wisdom
Underneath the brown scales of their bark.

Her eyes grew wider as the
Seemingly r a nd o m patterns of the universe
Were no longer random anymore.

The glittering trees were inviting the girl to
Really see.
So the girl whispered back, “Hello trees!”
And bowed in awesome deference.

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[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Sherin (Sherinshe) is a lawyer, a Fulbright Scholar, a Yoga teacher, a painter and a poet. She believes that poetry is a powerful force for change. As Audre Lorde said, “Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” Sherin is honoured to share her poetry with The Mindful Word’s readers.

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