From an Upper Floor

Always. . . the farm woman. . . .

The Farm Woman. .

Woman of the Earth, you are loved.
You gather the fruits of your labors
to your bosom and feed the children.

You’ve inched your way along the path
with back bent in great fatigue
and cultivated the rows yielding wise fruit.

You would feed out of your mouth, those
you think hungry and then beyond measure.

The fruits are the heart of your labors,
the harvest of your mind’s philosophy,
spilling indiscriminately.

Who is left to feed you, farm woman?
What commissary is left open
to feed your hungry soul after hours?

What bookstall will house the words
between stiff covers to increase your harvest?
Labor till the sun closes its blinds on the day.

Restless legs will speed you through the night,
to find the bins ever full.

This has been an exceedingly difficult year and I am wont to say, it has been the hardest I can remember. Living so long I see excellent surgical and medical care deteriorating simply because of longevity. Medicines that served well previously now have serious adverse reactions. Laughingly under breath we still call it practicing medicine.

The past dozen years on my blog, show my journey has been with insights I had no way of consciously harboring. Everything has come with a very high cost.

It has been too many pairs of sneakers worn threadbare walking the neighborhood because there was no way to prevent mentally fragmenting except by not taking one more step. And having no support system in an unknown endeavor by people who only knew questioning heaven’s principles had one dancing with the devil.

When I found myself in a loud voice saying I had to get back to teaching, I knew it was another memory needing a putting place. Having had no credentials in this lifetime, yet over a half century of daily journals had been scribed and integrated.

Our sons and I haunted libraries and I learned to call my independent study a journey. My only wish was not to embarrass these sons who took to soaring knowledge. Also evident was the fact there was nothing new under the sun. Just new to me yet.

And this year still breathing and wondering why, has been physically difficult. I am no closer to anything provable except my experiences noted and discussed and holding me upright yet. I have loved and alibied my commitments to kingdom come. Now I lack the energy to conjure the exuberance I miss sorely.

I still wonder who harbors within who we are. When the hand was offered after the birth of my youngest when I turned sour, I could not lift my hand to grasp that hand. The babies were mine and I grew them beneath my heart. The hand withdrew.
These two poems come to mind needing putting places, I start and end with both.

Hidden Knowledge
Inexplicably circling my nimbus.
unassailingly circling my heart,
I stand mute and forever chastised
knowing my presence is forever challenged.

Albeit a lay person without credentials
has no merit in the eyes
of the knowledgeable.
A vulgar vessel for eloquence
has no place in a system so esteemed.

But the Farm has nurtured
the seed sown in soil so fertile,
that ribbons of knowledge were carried
in enamel vessels having no crack.

In opinion, heavily laden, garnished,
the knowledge is earned by sheer effort.
The child held the seed
so tenderly and astonished the sages
who wisecracked to themselves
about the wisdom of a God
who hid the sacred teachings
in such a primitive mold.

The wisdom succeeded in succeeding itself
and children thrived when the New World
was born in massive splendor.

Funny, Man thought the God so perverse
that he didn’t choose one of Us.
Man would not accept the child and later

could not accept the child grown Woman.

March 18, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Life’s Connectedness is what must endure. . . . .

I wrote to Maria Wulf (fullmoonfiberart.com) for permission to share her post which drew my attention. It is such a deep pleasure for one like me to share the larger picture when our thoughts merge.

There is a connection in the soul that has no word coming to mind, describing
what happens when an Other draws a picture connecting minds albeit artistic.

The feeling of isolation falls away and there is the feeling of community that persists. It is a connectedness that shows what no longer divides us but what unites all of us in the enhancement of life.

With so much talk of individual effort and not needing others, one wonders how long human life can endure without the virtual humanity of even a mental hug.

Proving to me again, even in a cyber age, the connection in the larger composition of life, of a cardinal in a bare tree. Carried further, the song of the cardinal is heard by the blue boy with his mother walking and the song acknowledged.

That loves, is life’s connectedness. And what will endure.

Veronica Hallissey says:

February 28, 2023 at 6:04 pm

Maria, many years ago when I wrote ‘the last bird sings’ my card for the holidays was a cardinal in a bare tree. I never used it because I kept seeing the bare tree as an evergreen. But what I drew was a version of your cardinal in a bare tree, skeleton tree with no leaves. My title for the drawing was ‘even the cardinal wears the bare tree in elegance’.

When I saw your photo, the caption of my drawing came to mind. It seems my head is full of what people don’t want to know. Just ask my family! love you, veronica

Maria says:

February 28, 2023 at 6:38 pm

What beautiful and perfect words for that image Veronica, yours and mine. It’s so interesting how that happens, that you had one image in your head but drew another. As if you needed that image to get to the words. And I want to hear your words Veronica. The mark of a true mystic is people not wanting to know what you have to say, but you say it anyway.

March 5, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
And is god enough . . . . .of course. . .

So Who Cares. . . Nobody they say. . .

Except you know you do. . .
All it takes is just one I hear,
to look for the sun to rise each morning. . . .
to look at the moon at night and wonder,
. . . . where home is. . .
to keep the world turning on its axis.

Just one to hear the promise that
the rose will bloom along the fence
in the dead of winter. . .
to have the promise ring true. . .
and the world to hold its shape.

To have just one
to care enough to rail
and fill the hunger for love
of just one child to the grave,
when the child is harbored abandoned
in the big body, still . .

Brains and body parts halt in growth,
except to clone another just like themselves.
But who cares? You do.

Your Teacher said . . suffer the little children,
tolerate them for he gave unsparingly of himself
to assuage the Unmerciful God from the first book,
though for untold centuries
mankind tried to gain tender mercies . . . . . .

The greatest hurdle. . the Everest to climb
is the not knowing.

Are you the ‘only’ who cares?
You think you are not so different. . .
like others?   And they care too?
Not sure you might be the ‘only’ who cares. . .

to feed and nestle the babe
before you turn off the light,
. . .but someone needs to stay the night . .

so who else cares . . .

. . . . and is god. . . .enough?      Of course.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

February 23, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Always the Empty Chair. . . Times Such as These. . .

It is late. And I am an old woman. I sit here and cannot see the keys of the keyboard because I weep. I have delayed coming and writing this again which seems to be a signature poem of mine and it is not an honor I wish to claim.

In differing times I took the hand of our David and walked him home. I brought him into our world, so when asked, I knew what to do. The empty holy days and holidays we have all struggled with; the empty chair that would not be filled in this our lifetime knows who belonged there.

And since then and I have not chosen to remember, I see by the number of times in this poem’s history, it is far too many times I have posted Times Such as These. I cannot bear to think of families at the tables with empty chairs. Life fills itself with mundane tasks to wipe hours from days and days from years, but life does not know what to do with the silence at the family table.

In the course of events, there are many noble issues concerning weapons that take life. And any effort to halt this carnage would bring halos to heads. But as a mother whose child grows beneath her heart to form a bond we have no language for, for the fathers and sons and siblings who will be forever linked in an eternity which houses them to this minute, the meaning of love will be the one no longer here.

For the ones who still can do something noble, please do it because you also are in eternity and I tell you the pain does not let up.

Times Such As These . . .

I lock up the room
and pocket the last remnants
of words laying about
unattended.

Fearful that pieces of my heart
may be found scattered among them.
And why not?

Times such as these leave us
with little salve to heal the open wounds
which once were hearts.

For whom do we weep?
The children whose siblings
will no longer come to the table
to convey with no doubt
the events which took their innocence?

Or the parents
whose hearts were transplanted
when word came
that these unspent stars
were already breathing the rarified air
as heaven’s most blessed?

Look at us here.
Pleading that our children
will be safe as they try to understand
what we in our dotage
have not learned.
To resort to arms

means death in any country.

February 15, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
In My Heart Pocket. . . .

Word reaches often that there are issues with some of my posts that are unreal; that perhaps I don’t know how the real world works. I write what I know, not hope or pretend. As Lawrence O’Donnell commented on President Biden’s Inaugural, experience is something you cannot teach.

We always knew it, I think, just never applied it to ourselves. Seldom are we lauded for our experience, mostly they say that we learned things and are old for sure.

When I say we go to an earned place when we die, I know it. It has taken a long time to be upfront with memories and some of them are painful. I wrestle the painful anyway to squeeze the good out of them.

If life were not everlasting, I would follow the daffodil or if hard pressed, even the mushroom because they come up year after year forever. It has taken many lifetimes to learn what I know.

One of the catalogues of this past holiday had a printed shirt that took my interest. I paraphrased the words to say ‘I read, I research everyday and I learn. Therefore I know some things.’ (not a lot, but some things)

I understand that heaven’s remedial classes are now instituted to get a head start on Dr. Jonas Salk’s Conscious Evolution. This is evolution not to survive because we have spent lifetimes learning how, but to evolve to a higher form of human potential, with the spiritual aspects of more compassion, empathy and the heart elements like love and the more stingy, sharing.

I came dragging a foot from a world where learning was held sacred and have lived a functioning life for almost a hundred years. Not easy . . but doable. But thinking I should wear a hazmat suit for protection from cynicism which may yet do me in.

THE POET’S MEMORIES. . .

Torn from an event
with memories still alive
and placed in an incubator to breathe,
are poets expected to live.

Leaving a world incomplete,
they wander in vegetation
totally unfamiliar
and yet expected to survive.

And give rise to credence
in a world with no root,
where trees are shades
of others more vivid,

whose flowers whisper their names
in a forgotten language,
whose people are ghosts of livelier images,
all crowding the nimbus.

Where horizons are vast
and what eyes behold are stark lines
dividing two dimensional realities
pretending a depth that fools not a one.

Where snow sheds its stars
on a crystal night and the night becomes
a holy night eliciting unexpected
extravagances, bestowing grace.

All grasped in a moment’s vision
to linger through worlds creating ulcers
by gnawing the viscera
with dreams not completed.

The poet’s pen
translates worlds of mean existence,
from memories held
long in the heart’s pocket.

Translates the colors of those other places
where winds caressed and sun bathed
a skin unlike his own.

In another place and time he walks
and because he does

his memories give rise to an Other’s dream.

Poem Jan 11, 1988

art work by Claudia Hallissey

February 5, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Is However Long We’ll Talk . . . . .

However long. . . .the night is. . . .

Coming into a chosen family will be what someone calls a misfit. And the label will stick. This often is a child with a need to know everything and talk. There will not be anyone to listen. Because there will be other children, work to do, buses to catch, and excuses given on the spur of the moment.

I don’t have time to listen will be the mantra. And the child grows to be adult with the need still unfulfilled. Because in the course of life, there will be work and school, meetings and planes to catch and television. Now of course we add hand held devices and no time to listen to one sitting next to us.

The need continues in those born with the desire to learn and talk but there is no matching soul with a similar need where we are. The sweet hours of the night are filled with the best conversations, though silent they be. No matter the fatigue of the soul, the mind conversations are filled with wonder and appreciation as we prepare for conference.

I awoke with the words, however long the night is, and wondered perhaps I read them someplace. Years of research never found them anywhere. It proved to me again, that we are not abandoned.   It is included in Psalms of Love. . . on Amazon. Get it for the one you love. . . .

However long. . . .

However long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.
A tongue dismembered from its throat
is punishment too severe
to be humane.

It has taken a life of silence
to filter through its members;
lessons enough for the toughest skin to break.

I have marched with your words
through endless tasks,
through nights not filled with magic.
And heard the harangue from compressed lips
tearing even the plea of forgiveness from Me.

Now I promise.
In the stillness of the life you know
I will come for you. In the light of the night
I will make my way
and no walls will bar my entry.

I will sit the night and across the table
a hand will clasp the one you call your own.
And in the magic of words spoken
I will listen to the story built to house
lives of wonder.

It has taken too long.

And we, the each, will speak and listen
and as the words flow like rivers
toward their delta, in ribbons of courage,
we will stay the night.

And however long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.                                                                                Nightwatch
by Claudia Hallissey

We will sit and talk
by John Holmes

January 21, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Virtue In The Doing. . . .

The Keys Of The Kingdom. . . . (In the conversation I mention about the satisfaction in the doing of what most consider work with my brother Stanley, and he said I hold the keys of the kingdom, in my terminus I see the wisdom of this.

I was told to ‘do and you will be shown how’ and a lifetime of telling myself that ‘with a little bit of practice it will be perfect.’ Much was never perfect, but I became addicted to learning and a lifetime was lived learning, giving me a joy in the doing of it all.

And giving rise to the comment from my mother in law that I did so many things so well that the rest of us would be happy with just one of them. My addiction was a curse as well as a blessing for various reasons. And being taken for granted was one because it was all fun for me so they thought.

Learning still involves work and sweat and many did not see this. But regardless, I was the winner for sure. And my corner of the world blossomed with the passion of my love for this earth I still think is the best classroom ever. Please be better stewards than my generation. Nature’s wounds will forever be scars on our memories.)

( from a previous post of 2018 I edit). . . My good friend appeared at the door and said you have to learn to play and we start now. Alas, another argument begun about our differences , proving again opposites can be friends.

It is my good fortune and sometimes a curse to have the ability to view and discern behavior. Because I see clearly what is one man’s meat is an other’s poison.

People approach work and play differently. I watched our sons grow and in process changed attitudes. Mowing lawns, chore, but cleaning the garage, therapeutic with a ‘look what I found!’ Planting flowers with their Latin names an art and school homework eagerly approached as to subject.

With the youngest I looked forward to making a hockey rink every week after Christmas. I happily stood in below freezing weather and spraying but 2 a.m. was my last spraying I shouted! I somehow related to my elderly neighbor who sprayed with hose and nozzle in the summer for hours. There is something spiritual about watering whether ice rink or garden.

One inlaw daughter with her artistic talent makes brussel sprouts look awesome. Another can make tired furniture look new even with ongoing construction. Coupling these details with their professional talents make these an extension of their work.

Where is learned the virtue of labor and beauty in the doing? The magic of it all is in the heart. It is approaching the place in mind that says all is play because the body is actualizing the mind’s intent and therein lies the beauty.

Fortunate you are if someone loved you that you with love are remembering and teaching. The memory comes alive at sometime and we pay it forward. Some have not known it but we can be the memory for their future.

A brother and I discussed this and he said sis, you have found the keys of the kingdom, haven’t you? There is no more than this in its deepest. It is all art in the making. My Mentor said that the fields are ready and the call is out for the vineyards. There is virtue in the labor and beauty in the doing.

A Belief System. . . (an excerpt). . .

The answers will be forever hidden
in a place no one chooses to look;
the hearts and minds of those
who love this earth with passion.
Surprised they will be
to see in the palm of their hand

the keys of the kingdom . . .

January 14, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Sometimes. . . words are not helpful. . .

Even unto this day, I am surprised when memory pops up to be dealt with though never a hint as to its depth. Where has it been keeping itself? No doubt in the catacombs along with my ancient self.

It is somewhere in the journals I am sure. I just spent too much energy looking for something that memory will serve just as well. It was a Sunday evening and we had just left an open house affair. It was a holiday affair with decorations still up. It was getting dark and foggy and nothing seemed familiar.

I really don’t know where I am, my mate said. David was in the hospital and soon they would be closing to visitors. Things remained unfamiliar and we were getting anxious. Out of nowhere appeared a vintage vehicle slowing beside us. I remember clearly was that the car was squarely cut like my drawing.

This spare looking man with a spare sounding voice asked need help? My husband answered that we were going to Ford Hospital but we were lost. He seemed to know that and said loudly, follow me. And we did. The vehicle remained in front of us, and in a short time the streets became familiar, lights and all, and we waved to the man with a salute and he saluted back and waved us on.

And with a swerve to heaven knows where, he was gone. Square vehicle and spare man.

In the course of living and learning, one knows when to keep still. There are some things that have no explanation and trying just further complicates relationships. To attempt to explain would need more explanation of what makes you think that and how do you know?

Unless life has been one of sharing thought, some things are better left for self revelation. And in time, all things are revealed.

My Father’s House. . .

I lumber about the edges of my father’s house.
The corridors stretch empty before me.
Doors stand ajar, impatient for my knock.

Yet I hesitate, for I live in a familiar room,
knowing its nooks and my constructed partitions
yield only to my touch. I know too,
where the edges are not tightly sealed,
where winds sneak through
disturbing my zeitgeist.
I know at what time of day to avoid those edges.

But woolen socks do not a winter break,
nor spring tempered by autumn winds.
Here in my father’s house are rooms unexplored
with answers to questions man dares not ask.

It was promised once that a room
would be prepared but went unexplained
because the question went unasked.
No one wondered how these rooms differed.

Shadows follow, casting patterns
similar to our habits, dressed in symbols
disguising our thoughts.
Furnishing the rooms will be the shapes of our days,
colored by glass prisms reflecting us.

The heart’s yearning impresses the mind’s eye
and doors swing wide. Worlds spill upon worlds,
breathless, intoxicating in their newness.
Yet in a moment, their familiarity is viewed
with the reaffirming recognition

of our god eyes.

January 7, 2023

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Now Another December. . .

It was another December at the end of 1987. I had brought my in law mother back to her residence and she collapsed in bed. She borrowed courage from everyone to get through the holidays in Chicago. We were in a blizzard and I ached to get home. And unpacking I realized I could not leave her in her apartment and the weather worsened and I had noticed cars were not stopping at lights anywhere. I would walk to get her and somehow we would get back here.

We walked the blizzard streets and in great relief she slept upon getting into bed after a hot bath. I wished to stretch out my hand to gain strength but an other already reached for mine. What do people do when there is no one to help? She asked. The best they can Sarah, the best they can I say.

The journal entry continues that December 30, 1987, and I scribed the following, ‘but we sit here and already your mind moves to the grandchild in the crib with not knowing that the son of your heart had already retired for the night in the room. You watched the child in sickness and he watched his mother with her magic chants as they drew from his son the illness causing such heartbreak. You can do it, he was saying, you can do it.

And he was in awe as he watched this atheist profoundly calling on a benign force that would move the sickness from the body of his son. He watched you move those hands in air that was vibrant with the power pouring through you. And he said that this is my mother and this woman I don’t even know.

And he knew that in all that had transpired, in all that he watched, he would take to his writing and pour out what was observed and you think that if not observed, he would have known anyway.

Let the power move through me and make me an instrument of thy peace, he said. Just like her.’

In the morning a wiped out toddler recovered enough to stand and shout his demands to rattle the crib.

I have learned there is an undergirding of our Universes of an ethical premise that supports life and demands of each of us the highest and best we can be. It may be benign but it is a spiritual power we may call God or Allah or Jehovah or Christ or simply Good. It demands that we aspire to our Best. We welcome obstacles before meeting the greatest of our challenges however different for each of us.

I Hear. . .

Look beyond the Light
into the face of the morning sun
to see that the Light beckons and extends. . . .

It would grant you peace
should you let it.
It will grant you life
should you welcome it.

Amen and amen.

December 29, 2022

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.
Let the children tell us. . .

Do I have more minutes to finish?   There was no time for answers because the little one with a dash was out of sight.   In a few minutes he was back and announced, I finish.   Having learned to wait while private things were finished, I waited again while he proceeded to his room.

I followed him shortly to find him in pajamas and ready to crawl into the high bed.   Well, should it be a story to tell or a story to read I asked.   I am ready for you to choose.   Tell me what it is we should do to get you ready for sleep?   And I waited. Minutes ticked away while the choice was being made.   Patiently, again, what will it be?

His face took on a faraway look as if searching for a memory.   I recognized the look and wondered where he would go for that memory to take shape.   I knew it well.   It was a look that had been on my face many times with voices telling me to stop dreaming.   I needed to pay attention to what was at hand and not waste so much time dreaming. So because of those reprimanding voices,   I knew to wait.

He asked if I would sing the one I singed when I singed with other voices.   He knowed that song!   What song is that?   I wondered. There was no time for me to sing with other voices that he would have heard.

Like this, he said and in his high soprano he sang his Glllooooorrrrrrriiiiiiiiiaaaa and I knew.   Unbelievably I knew.   The music hung on his tongue and in his throat as if he were tasting a delicate sweet.

When did you ever hear me sing that? I asked.   Before I came to you, he said.   Before I came.   I heard you singed and my heart singed with you.   I knowed I could tell you some time if I just ‘membered it.    I promised I would ‘member so I could hear it again and again. I knowed that you would ‘member if I singed it. And you do! he said, you do!

And I believed him because I gave up choir when he was due to be born.   I took this child into my arms and sang the song he so wondrously remembered.   And when I came to the part he remembered his voice faithfully shadowed mine.   And another posit was added to the Memory Bank but who would believe it?   Who?????? Except the many someones who entered their place of belief every time they bent their knees.

Those are the who. . . .

December 21, 2022

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.