From an Upper Floor

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 dusty 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.

March 29, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
Like Minds

My thoughts rove the ethers

like a magnet pulling

like thoughts to themselves.

The excitement rumbles

through my belly

while heart accelerates its beat

forcing my blood

to course through my body,

drunkenly.

Heady stuffs

to know that mine is thought

matched by invisible minds.

I swim in conscious waters

resembling earthstone.

Pulsating, yearning,

I find it humbling to think

that heaven's thought

has searched out mine.

March 25, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
Midnight Excursion

I saw them,

leaning against the rail

with grey curls circling their faces.

They were in animated conversation.

Their eyes were glued

to the waters, I think.

The wind blew their housedresses

about their knees.

Frowns and furrows

made ridges on their foreheads.

They giggled with laughter.

Not out of the ordinary, you say.

Certainly a commonplace happening.

The hazy sun was evident,

but most of the surroundings, blurred.

I could have stepped

into their conversation.

They would have welcomed me.

But I did not.

It was with a start

that I realized I was the visitor.

The midnight excursion

placed me in their time.

I had broken stride

and found me another world.

March 13, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
King To Pauper

Rendering itself useless now,

the elements of Nature

first borned by Man

to work for him have gone rabid.

But in wisdom still,

the moon continues

to pull the oceans by great force

and gently lays the rolling waves

on windswept sand, clearing man’s debris.

The wind if amortized,

would harness its power

to push the plow.

And sun, first born of woman

would gladly warm

the earth’s chilled bones

and never cast a shadow.

The earth would form the nested nettle

where foot transgressed,

with pleasure support

the frame of man forever.

Air in bunches note

the going in and coming out of men

and upholds their stance, untiringly;

gladly yielding itself to noble ends.

Relegating himself to the beggar’s position

of that which man himself created,

the Art is lost and in its stead

small triumphs rise.

Birth and death are Nature’s saviors

preventing man

from raping her in anger.

February 29, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
A Perspective

To forgive and forget has become a shopworn edict. It can work just so long but when you realize that the god of the other person weighs your interest against his best interest, you might come in second.   You can forgive until your face turns whatever color it is not, it still is heavy on the heart.

Forgiveness can only work when we give up hope that the past can be rewritten. Generally the insult or injury is not viewed as such by the other if they are still in our lives. Even when pointed out, there is no ‘I am sorry’ because the other does not see a reason to be sorry. It does not mean that the injuries are not valid.   It means that the other has a different frame of reference and heads are different. It means that what is, Is. It does not mean that all things are forgotten, but that from this point on there will be notable changes.   How different will depend on what we value.   And that is where the hard work of sifting and sorting and building a philosophy begins to accommodate life’s challenges.

Education of people varies so one wonders about credibility. Women stand by erring husbands and often feel guilty. People stand by their governments no matter how rancid, employees stand by employer’s outrageous malfeasance, and children work to cover their parents’ stupidities.    Now everyone is to be held accountable.    This is how it should be.   But it is a challenge.

The question then is how to forgive the daily irritant in our lives, related or not. In this day of DNA , we are more than a little surprised just who our relatives are. The commandment still is to love one another.   When we look upon Others as separate from us, we deal with me, my and mine instead of we, us and ours. Open warfare is the agenda and we become Separatists, whether we speak of a person, families or countries.

Forgiveness may be difficult when we cannot accept the effort of Others who behave in a manner that is within their frame of reference or their culture. That path may not be what we can share but we must remember within them also is the earnestness to find a way toward their truth. When we acknowledge our different perspectives and that the past is accepted as past, we can begin to write the script for the future by our actions today, the present.

Let us gift ourselves and make today our present to us.

February 26, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
Shared Silence

It is a time

past the time of talk,

past the time of argues.

There is a time of silence,

a shared silence;

a time to accept,

a time to simply

slip into old slippers

and Be.

No matter the world,

this time is ours.

Maybe not to fill

all the empty spaces

but given time,

blends them

into a communion

of shared silences.

February 15, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
When David Died

I say that David took the hands off my clocks.

It was the greatest gift he could give me.

I tire of running my life with a large hand and a small hand.

No time for this, hurry for that. Do this now, do that before.

I hate it. With a passion.

I want to immerse myself in time and swim in it.

Feel it around me yielding

and yet holding me up.

I want to feel the eternity of it

and I want to see my house and yard

at different times under the sun.

To be able to say that in the morning

this is precisely how they look.

I want the information stored in my Memory Bank

for those times when I feel bereft.

I want to see the moon rise and give way to the sun.

I want to see the rainbow

around the moon and say again

we are in for a big snow.

I want to find the joy in the mundane task

of shaking out the kitchen rugs

on the back porch and feel the cold boards

beneath my slippers and the cold air

stealing beneath my clothes.

I want to keep looking at the moon with a glance

because no farmer stares at the moon too long

and say hello David.

And when I feel very homesick, I will again

as I have in the past, take my coffee

out on the porch and sit beneath the midnight sky

with the stars daring me to look up

and identify them and again

revel in this multifaceted existence called Life.

February 8, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
The Dance

There is a dance that our feet learn to do when first we stand up. That dance

is learned well, for even when our feet no longer dance, our phantom feet

remember the dance. They itch to dance. And under penalty of death we

think, we stay with it. If we decide to learn new steps, the old steps often need

to be altered. And if they are, we think we are not needed for our dance or we

feel our steps are not noticed anymore and are taken for granted. Either way

we may feel sorry for ourselves or worse, give up. Very few give in and learn

new steps, perhaps slower ones. The new dance feels alien to our self image

and we are certain we will be laughed at. Fortunately others do not remember

our old steps as we who danced them. In the fashion of our admired dance

stars, we skimmed the floor and swept others along with us.

And that is the kicker. When one is aware that a new step is needed, one is

aware also that the dance is soon ending. How to do it gracefully, with a

sweeping dip that barely touches the floor, takes a nimble body and mind.

Most of us do it with the tentative steps we learned when first we learned

to dance. For the vision might still be sweeping, but the body falters. And

before we know it, the audience's attention is riveted on younger feet still

learning new and beguiling steps. We shuffle off the floor. Our dance is over.

And we are never the wiser that the young feet doing the new dance could

not dance at all had we not learned the old dance first.

January 25, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
A Resolution

Let us resolve to fall in love with our Earth. Since many resolutions have

already died let us fall in love with our Earth and keep her alive. Yet

how does one fall in love with Earth?   It is easy.   It is a different kind of

feeling, a oneness, a union that nothing dissolves nor divides. It is the

steadiness, the compliance of all things in Nature that yield to a bidding

when it is done with love.   She is not secretive. She is an open book.

This love is a desire to return to a place where the heart knows its

completeness, in its wholeness with the laws of Nature. We become one

and the same.   We are what the seeker chooses to establish when all else fails

to come to fruition. When there is nothing that satisfies, there is always

the hope and response in the garden, in the fields and in the forests. In its

beaches and in its waters. It is a communion with the holiness in us and a

love which puts all else to shame unless it measures up.

It is a comfortable place to be. It is what we choose in place of

relationships that wither with disillusion.   Nature does not.   She gives

from an unending Source, reaching into her carpetbag to bring forth bits

of revelation to entice, to give one reason to keep trying.   Yet when she

falters, for every grievance she dispenses, there is redress. In time there

is an adjustment, a correction for every injury.   She is easy to love.   And

no matter the number of other worlds, this one is worth taking care of.   No

illusions are necessary because she is sufficient unto herself.

In retrospect, this planet has suffered with our lack of stewardship. So

let us fall in love with her. Let us resolve to make her an object of our affection

and take care of her.   It is time now to assume guardianship of this place

we call home.

For this time it is all we have.

January 13, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.
Gift of Time

I am in a January

which thinks it is an April.

I fully expect to see

the rose in bloom and perhaps it is.

In my mind I have transplanted

the marigolds and set the annuals

in their proper places.

In my part of the world I awake.

It is dawn and I prepare for the new day.

The dogs are put out and

the papers brought in.

And in the dailyness there is virtue.

I marvel at the continuity of it all.

In the beauty of the day

I now see all days and

in the quiet of the night,

I note the world's silence.

In recognition of who I am

in connection with All That Is,

I am grateful.

I have taken this gift of time

and richly wear it like a money belt.

January 7, 2012

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 Ramona, CA.