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Illustration of a bird flying.
  • Great Songs Will Be Sung

    Should you find the need
    to tell your story in words,
    think mightily on them
    and they will be caught up
    in the air’s currents
    and carried on the birds’ wings.
    They will reach the ears
    they were designed for.

    You will find
    you are not alone
    and in this infinite universe
    you will be heard.

    And when the thoughts
    reach the places in
    the heart of  an Other

    great songs will be sung again.
    November 30, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • Thanksgiving

    Work_on_number_one-resize

    THANK YOU

    My days are filled
    with murmuring thanks
    for gifts unbidden. . . .

    for the stray thought
    giving answers
    to questions I did not ask. . . .

    for the beating heart
    too tired even to stop
    and glad that it does not. . . .

    for the quivering morning
    poised to take flight
    through a day hard pressed . . . .

    to a night bidden
    with unfaltering love
    as a thank you . . . .

    for a day loved through. . . .
    November 25, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • The Invited Guest

                            I once knew a good carpenter
                            who, with hammer and saw
                            and wood and file
                            showed me how to build a chair.

                            I did and sat on it
                            and then decided  I needed a table.
                            With hammer and saw
                            and wood and file,
                            I built a table and sat at it.

                            I knew I needed another chair
                            for an Other to sit on.
                            So with hammer and saw
                            and wood and file,
                            I built it.

                            I then invited the carpenter
                            to join me at the table.
                            We lit a candle and talked
                            and a new world was born.

                            How did I know
                            I first needed to learn
                            how to build?
    November 10, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • the first snow

    11-2-2011_10-46-12_am

    November 2, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • We Are Asked

    In each of us is our dream, our desire.   The striving, the process is the only thing worth the struggle.  This is why we work at it.   All else are diversions.   They are but a tangent of the premise.  Either the striving or the process finds the dream for us or we do not find it.  The goal is unimportant.  Goals can change.  In the search, the striving, we will find our  Self.   And we may find nothing but compromise with the Earth, the Heavens and our Self.  But because of the striving we then put all of us a step closer to brotherhood in the making.  And the next generation will find a depth, a richness and a spirituality just where they are and will build on what was a dream.  They will find no reason to tear down but every reason to enlarge the dream and depth of it.

    It is not only the way of the world.   It is the way of the Universes for life everlasting.  To learn the rudiments, to learn the process puts the mystery back where it belongs.   Within the godhead and in the being who is part of the godhead.  The Divine spark resides in man.  Not only are we human but divine.  We are in God.   It is no longer appropriate to qualify ourselves as only human.   We are more.  We must bring the god premises down to where we are or lift ourselves up to where we think they are.  And our lives must reflect the highest and best in us.

    Some are given greater glimpses, more in depth visions of greater scope.  But they are still only glimpses.   We all are given those moments when we know we are more than what we appear.   What it means is that from where we are, we are  to pursue in depth what it is we require to bring the greater vision to us and give greater meaning to who and what we are.  We then are able to reflect it in who we are and what we do.   It is no small thing we are asked to do.  

    It is not only our world we must concern ourselves about but all worlds.  Those yet to see the light of day but also the mysteries of night.
    October 21, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • Forever Stilled

    Forever Stilled

    Hear the bird sing.
    Singing with
    the guttural sound
    because the ethers
    are not light enough
    to carry her notes.
    She swallows her song

    and it is forever stilled.
    October 7, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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 The Morning

                            In The Morning

                            Today is the day
                                        I will preen my feathers,
                                        open my wings and fly.

                            Today is the day
                                        I will breathe the elixir
                                        of rarefied air

                            and bring to me
                                        All That Is
                                        into a heart grown weary.

                            And then I will find
                                        the power to change
                                        the course of mighty rivers

                            and give impetus
                                        to dreaming children
                                        who are content to sleepwalk.

                            In all this,
                                        I will find the
                                        crystalline gestures exquisite.

                            And dawn will break the crystals
                                        and the children
                                        will pick them up

                            astonished.
    October 7, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • Bless The Experience

                I learned something.  I learned to ’bless the experience’.
                For if the experience has been a negative one,
                has left me with a hurt so deep, has filled me with anger,
                then I must bless it.  For in the blessing I remove
                its power to hurt me again.  I leave it impotent, unable.
                I’ve taken the wind out of its sails and
                there it sits, blessed for the teaching,
                but unable to wield power over me again.

                If the experience is a positive one, I bless it.
                In like manner, it will remain powerful and upon recall,
                able to confer its goodness time and again.
                In my thinking happily on it,
                I will automatically bless it again.

                Life is a blessed experience, all of it. 
                Bless it generously and gratefully. 
                It teaches us magnificently and impartially.
                These are the magic words.  For in the unhappy experience
                we are taught swiftly and surely and must bless the lesson.
                In the happier one our pleasurable memory is our
                reward.  In blessing all of it, we make our truce with life

                and secure our place in it forever.
    September 25, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • Observations

    If you do not intend to look back,
    it’s best to remember to lift the plow.

    Wishes are as potent a force
    as fishes swimming in live water.

    Under adverse conditions,  we become
    more of what we are.

    To think is a holy obligation.

    Nothing gets done in this world unless a somebody’s
    back breaks, a somebody’s legs ache and at least a
    somebody’s mind  splinters and a heart rips apart.

    The world no longer tolerates the thinkers.  They have
    become recluses in ribbons of concrete.

    The thoughtful ones cannot find a place to be asked a question
    requiring the time to raise their eyes unto the hills and back for
    a reflective answer. 

    The visionary has the look of one used to focusing on
    the horizon.   I would place my life in the hands of a visionary.
    He /she will be around for the long haul as a participant in the vision.
    September 11, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
  • NOBLE VIGILS

                            In its lucent light,
                            riding high in orbit,
                            the moon casts spears
                            arching toward the groves
                            of evergreens,
                            trading their veracity
                            for a moment of magic.

                            The night dissolves
                            the shaded parts into blackness.
                            My eyes linger
                            on the luminescence,
                            on the silent sterling
                            of those branches
                            lifted to catch the light.

                            And remind me
                            of the noble vigil
                            of the humble dusty miller

                            on a hot August night.

    August 30, 2011
    Veronica Hallissey
    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.
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