Poetry

Serenity

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2024

I felt serenity today.

This was not a feeling I expected to feel,

Not after the grief

Not after the despair

Not after the utter loss of faith in…

Everything:

My god,

My self,

My fellow human,

My belief in the rising tide of humanity,

Not after hope was stripped away from me like the bark off a branch that is

Waiting to be whittled into something new.


I felt serenity today.

It rose up in me

Unexpected

Quiet

Filling like a spring from some hidden source

Finding its level around my heart center

Inviting me to dwell there with it

To stare into calm water.


I’m not sure what triggered this feeling.

Perhaps it was the kiss of late autumn sunshine on my hair.

Perhaps it was the azure skies 

Or the breath of cool air in my lungs.

Perhaps it was the working of my biceps as I squeezed the loppers around yet another

Rouge branch of my peach tree.

Perhaps it was the accomplishment of a physical labor well done

Or the metaphor of pruning,

Of cutting back what is not wanted

So new growth can occur.


Or maybe this serenity sprouted from the seeds planted the night before

During a gather of friends

And food

And wine

Of hugs and laughter and understanding when

Just hours before

I was convinced I’d never laugh again.

Perhaps serenity sprang from the warm embrace of community.


I had spent days churning through the stages of grief

Like a paddle wheel digging into the river

Bringing up buckets of tears

Then rage

Then again, unbidden weeping

Followed equally unexpectedly by the urge to smash something.


And if shock is denial,

And if the hope that

Something

Might yet change teeters between denial and bargaining,

Then I felt those stages, too.


But not acceptance.

I could never feel acceptance.

I could not accept what my mind screamed

With complete certainty

Was the unacceptable.


And yet today

Through sheer grace

I felt serenity

And if the gift of serenity,

However fleeting,

Is one flavor of acceptance,

Then I have tasted even this stage.


So I shall savor it when it comes.

I shall marvel at the wonder of it.

I shall let it glow like an ember at the core of my being

Not expecting it to burst into flame 

But perhaps radiating enough heat 

To warm a grieving heart

If only for an afternoon.

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Poetry

On Writing Poetry

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© September 22, 2024

I want words

Rolling vowels ’round my mouth

Crunching consonants between back teeth

Alliterations skittering like skipping stones

Tripping off my tongue.


I want words

Sprouting from my ears

Vining through my brain

Weaving dense tangles

Nonsensical in the tendrils but revelatory in the thicket

Each thread the messenger

The entire tapestry the message.


I want words

Dripping from my fingertips like water

Tap

Tap 

Tapping on the keyboard

Each quiet click rousing the

Tick

Tick 

Tick of Grandma’s knitting needles.


Words 

Flowing through my fingers like yarn

Loops and chains tugging knots from skeins

Insisting

Commanding

Patiently coaxing.


Where stern and loving intersect

Chaos must yield to order

Entropy must abate

Bashful droplets wooed closer

Closer still and

Now 

A cloud is forming

An heirloom emerges lofty strong

A memory endures to drape its warm embrace 

Around the shoulders of future generations.


I want words 

Laboring like supernovas

Bellies growing then

Collapsing in upon themselves to cook the elements

Hotter

Denser

Before calving them into space

Hurling infant spawn into the void

Not knowing where they’ll land.


These words

Spiraling like galaxies

Spewing creations into nothingness 

Photons into darkness from outstretched 

Dervish arms

Her head thrown back

Laughing

Whirling

Laughing

Whirling

Her soul’s rebirth 

A mere breath

From madness.

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Poetry

The Most Powerful

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

The most powerful weapon

In the human arsenal

Is Love.

When your heart flows with adoration

For the smallest speck

On every hair

On the head of each one of your so-called “enemies,”

Wars on this planet will cease to exist.


The most powerful fuel

In the human engine

Is Compassion.

When you see and acknowledge

The plight of another

And see each struggle as potentially your own

You will lift humanity to glorious heights

And soar.


The most powerful force

Of human attraction

Is Oneness.

Stronger than gravity

Than nuclear bonds

Than electromagnetism

Is the recognition that

My pain is your pain

Your ache is my ache

My triumph is your triumph, too.

In our quantum entanglement

There is no time

No distance

Between your world and mine.

We are in an overlapping space

Footsteps walking in identical prints in damp sand

Separated by an illusion

Drinking in

And sighing out

The self-same

Breath.

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Poetry

Mastery of Surrender

Light bends along a distant path

And makes the foreign home.


Corkscrews unbraid bottles of wine 

To soak the silky loam.


The present folds in on itself

And sands the edges smooth.


The rainbow crosses lines unknown 

The spirit’s course to soothe.


Obscurity is not my game

Though history’s not yet written.


My love goes deep

And broad

And high

So long ago that bug hath bitten.


When it all makes sense it’ll be too late.

When it all makes sense, it’s over.


Live now, My Love

Live here

In grateful penitence.

Inhale the fresh-mown clover.

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Poetry

Not Knowing Why

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

When the bones jump in my body

And scrape against each other

Dry chalk on chalkboard

And the screeching of it pours icy fears through my veins


When the body itself is a runaway train

Lassoed by spiderweb threads

Trying to break free

Held still 

On the outside

Only by discipline

By training

By habit

But inside urging me to flee


When the bubbles boil and pop

On the surface

And rise to my eyes

And sting

And threaten to spill


And I don’t know why

I don’t know why

I ask

I ask why

And there is no answer 

Why


My body feels like a wild thing

Trapped and restless

With nowhere to run

No language to speak

No reason to give

Just pure, chemical reactions

Exploding

Catalyzing

Coursing unchecked

Dominoes tripping each other

Into chaotic destruction


And then

For just a moment

I breathe

And the churning waters calm

And I back away from myself

And I marvel at the sudden ease

I watch it spread from the center outwards

I know all is well

Finally, well

Finally

Okay


And I still don’t know why.

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Poetry

The Fixer

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

The fixer.

The tinkerer.

The repairman.


The fiddler.

The meddler.

The taker-apart.

The reassembler.


The one with the calm connection

The perspective

The insights

The inspired words

That ease what’s broken.


The one who hears the noises

The aches

The screeching cries, and who

By disassembling

Cleaning

Clearing

And piecing back together

Eases the fears

The angers

The frustrations

The disappointments

That had been clogging up the gears.


So skilled was I 

That I would oil every squeak

Even before it began

Spending more 

And more of my time

Anticipating every soreness

Circumventing every pain.


And yet

My eyes grow cloudy

And my fingers clumsy

And I can no longer fix

Every complaint.


Despite my best efforts

The noises return

And scream fix me!

Fix me!

Fix me!


I yearn to help

And yet

I begin to understand

As my ability wanes

And my maturity waxes

That not every break

Is meant to be mended,

That not every intervention

Is a gift,

That sometimes the grit in the cog

Must work its way through

On its own,

That part of the grand design 

Of this glorious machine

Is to allow the dirt in

And by sticking the gears

And jamming the pulleys

New pathways are grazed and gouged and formed

And beautiful new mechanisms 

Are born.


The oyster’s sand is that from which the 

Precious grows.


If I am brutally honest 

I also nod to those times

When by taking it apart

I broke it more

Made it worse

Deepened the sorrow

Foiled my best intentions.


So finally

I retire

Step back

Look from a distance

And begin to see beauty in the rusty patches

Hear harmony in the creaks and groans

Notice the miracle of new life

Spontaneously sprung

From the remnants of what I once fled,

From what I once worked

So hard

To avoid,

From the ravages of time

And life

And entropy

And wrong turns

And missed opportunities

And crossed wires

And misfires

And parts worn through with age.


These are no longer my job to salvage

Indeed

Decay is the fertile ground

That feeds the desire

For scrapping the dysfunctional

For releasing old designs

For beginning

Finally

Anew.

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Poetry

The Folly of Hate

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

You don’t have to hate a thing

To let it go.

You don’t have to wait for the shirt

To fall into tatters in the closet

Or the leftovers to sour

And gather thick layers of mold

In the deepest recesses of the refrigerator.


You don’t have to hate a thing

To let it go.

You don’t have to rail against the home

Or the job

Or the relationship

That you once adored

But have long since outgrown.


You don’t have to find every fault in a thing

To rationalize bidding it adieu.

You can acknowledge 

Simply

That it no longer fits

That desire for it has faded

That it no longer quite suits your current

Living

Appetites.


Just as it is not necessary

To stuff a body to revulsion 

Before deciding to stop filling it with food,

So is it unnecessary

To feed on distaste for where you are

To get to where you want to go.


We humans seem to believe

That we must build a case

Argument by argument

Stacked solid and uncrackable

For leaving something behind.

We must have reasons.

There must be logic.

It must be possible for everyone else to see

And confirm 

Our conviction.

They must all agree that we were in the right

To make a change in our world.


We somehow think that hate greases the hinges

Of the exit door

That it makes the opening wider.

But hate is a poor lubricant.

It grows old

And rancid 

And sticky

And soon the door won’t swing.


What we often fail to see is that

In hating a thing

We bind ourselves the closer to it.

We sew threads of energy as strong as steel

From us to it and back again

One stitch more for every 

Justification

Then wonder why we cannot shake the thing

For years to come,

Instead revisiting the trauma 

That we ourselves have created by

Regularly traversing 

Every strand of hate.


It is not necessary to hate a thing

To let it go.

No, in fact

The silicone spray that glides the path of true releasing

Lies in gratitude

In blessing

In love.


Thank your Leaving Thing.

Thank it for its role in your life.

Appreciate its contribution to your journey.

Remember the love

The hope

The promise you felt for it

Once

At the beginning

And send it on its way with sincerest desire

That it serve

In good stead

Another.

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Poetry

Vortex

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

There is a swirling vortex

Off of my port stern

Behind me

Far enough

To be not quite visible

Yet I can hear its rumbling roar

Taunting my left ear.


The wind of it

Inflates my sails

And it moves with me 

Staying

Always

Just behind my reckoning.

I hear its menacing growl

I feel a chill scrape my left side.


If I run my sails hard enough

I can keep ahead of it

But if I linger

Only slightly

I fear it will draw me in

I will skate along its edge

Circle ‘round its gravity well

Spiral into darkness

And oblivion.


I can’t ignore its screeching howl

Nor the stench of its foul breath

I can only trim my sails the harder

To flee its icy depth.


It follows me

Follows me

Follows me.


When seas are calm

It ebbs into soft eddies

That churn their ugly threats

Far below the surface.


And when winds roar anew

It kicks into a frenzy

That spurns me forward and

Away

Escape its wrathful vengeance

Lurking predator

After prey.


What would happen if I came about

Faced my bow headlong into its core?

Would I slice it into smaller swirls,

Spawn more serpents,

Multitudes of

Medusa’s curls?

Or would the bubble of it pop

And glitter rainbow-colored droplets

Harmless

Into salty air?


I only wonder

Daren’t try

For now

I have more waves to run.

I choose 

Instead

Uneasy resignation 

Of its ever-presence off my left shoulder

I live with it

Try to ignore it

And never quite succeed

Yet aim my focus

Forward

Upward

Squint to see

My guiding stars.

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Poetry

Warming Days

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

The days warm

And the sweet sap of gratitude

Rises in my veins.


The days warm

And the ache of longing

Melts

Into an ache of humility

That I

Even I

Could be so blessed.


I have no agency over the warming of the days.

They roll in on capricious currents

Bent by whims

Of wandering jet streams

Touch me

Tease me

Run away

Then one day

Linger long enough to stir that rising hope

Swelling

Effusing

Squeezing from my pores

Dripping into buckets

Soon so full

That to carry them

Is to slosh their sweetness

Along the path

Onto a welcoming ground

And yet still bountiful enough

To circulate within me

To reach my budding branches

To nourish new leaves

Lush with growth

That paint fresh hues

Inside the lines of a once bleak

Once colorless

Landscape.


No, my choice

Only

Is my attention:

To bow my head

Against the angry onslaught 

Of winter’s winds,

Or turn my face

Toward a glittering sun

And appreciate the tender kiss

Of its warming rays.

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Poetry

Sacrifice

by Sigrid E. Mortensen

© 2023

Humans have been making sacrifices

Giving up what they love

What they value

To unseen gods

For as long as there have been humans.


What will you sacrifice?

Will you sacrifice old ideas of you?

Will you part with old beliefs?

Will you give up limitations

Or shed old selves

That no longer serve you?


What will you sacrifice?

Can you toss upon the pyre

Old grudges

Old pain

All the reasons

And justifications for keeping wounds open?

Will you slice into

Your most cherished facade?

Will you risk 

Discovering 

Your true nature that hides

Shyly

Inside the carcass you one loved?


What will you sacrifice?

What are you willing to live without?

What will you give up

To gain the favor of the 

Unseen god

Within you?


How deep is your faith that

Unattached

From old patterns

Old habits

Old judgements

And condemnations

Your True Self

Will bestow blessings upon you

And help you thrive?

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