Whale swimming through clouds with birds nearby - Poems by Renee Podunovich

POEMS BY RENEE PODUNOVICH: Darkening, Witness(ed), Allowing, The Self-Caring Sea

Last updated: November 26th, 2018

Darkening

I.

Put the light out,

go dark.

Retreat back to the humming earth,

her cloak opens to enfold you

as you will unfold your subtle body

into the filaments of the universe nocturnal.

 

II.

Rest your trauma-heart.

Let the Godmothers take care of these sufferings

while you burrow and dream,

be a white rabbit so still

only a quiver of whiskers reveals you, waiting

to dart unrestricted into open spaces,

through expansive meadow and yawning glade—

 

III.

But that is not yet.

Now is to repose, become invisible,

though not in a deficient, aching way.

Be unseen in softness,

the way a black velvet scarf brushes

along your soulskin, touched

by mystery so vast in its sentience

that all you can do is listen

 

IV.

and if you are diligent, you will catch one note

of cosmic music echoing like whale song

with no words legible

yet every cell recognizes

that sorrow, that longing for pod,

that joy in swimming

 

full and large and unapologetic

in the elements—

free in the fleeting

 

Witness(ed)

a healing story unfolds like

the inner curve of shell,

lined with a smoothness

that comes from allowing

the heart to be observed

vulnerable,

the risk of contact,

the bind of shame,

the need to be seen

and the push away from need

 

a dry river stone narrative

cautiously quarried from exile,

once recognized and considered

is a dull grey weight in the hand

 

now, submerged in the gaze of another

or in water-under-ice-flowing-yet-in-winter,

unexpected hidden colours are revealed—

sage, umber, amethyst, gold,

hues that fold fragments of self

back into an abiding

unbound

whole

 

tender in the mending
 

Allowing

There was no way to clear
this ancient oak grove
without adding
one more grief to the world.

So just let it exist
in its own natural intelligence—
teaching us to be
wild and tangled and uncertain.

All of the leaves are on the branches
or have fallen to soil,
except the one
pressed on this page of my journal.
 

The Self-Caring Sea

The smell of salt air will heal the ache in your soul.
The whales will sing your bones alive again.
You will leave behind the person you thought you were—
the scared one wrapped in a familiar scarf of smallness,
as you step into the mystery of the dreamtime,
in the powerful company of sisters.

You will return with joy like a Raven
fluttering in your heart,
soaring within the spaciousness
that appears by caring for your own suffering—

by tending to your own deep wounds.

You will carry home a basket of shells, songs and images
washed up from the depths of the Great Mother Sea—
she will carry you back to the ones you love,
and always, patiently, she awaits your return.

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Note: Instead of being licensed as Creative Commons BY-SA like the majority of the site’s content, these poems are licensed as Creative Commons BY-ND. As a result, if the poems are reprinted, no alterations are permitted.

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  1. Renee, these poems are hypnotic, entrancing , haunting as they pull me in to a different level of consciousness, a different world. Thank you for the journey.

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