This has been a hard year for all with unavoidable obstacles. We have wondered together if there would be Light beckoning to grant some reprieve during these holy days and holiday season. There was and is but we do not let up on our vigil until given word it is so.
The journey has taken us through some dark places but we have found Light as we are bent to do. We have come thus far and now keep our guard up until our commitments walk with us.
We miss the little rewards we needed to break from the work of dailyness that bowed us down even in normal times. During the health crises and political turmoil without them, our dispositions have been tested. But we are a dependable people and wish to prove we are equal to the task. Our progeny will one day question us and ask what did we do? . . .
Our answer will be. . . our very best.. . .
The Learning Place. . . .
Do you not think
that where you go
at night is the place
where you are healed?
And awaken
to a morning full
of exuberance, to face
another day to fight clean?
For those things you see
at night, every time
you close your eyes and trust
you will find your way. . .
to the place you know best
that heals the wounds
tearing you apart . . .the who you are,
in still this best of all learning places. . .
to find you do not run away. . . .
and with courage stay the course.
(Suzanne sent me this photo of another quilt. Another memory. . .)
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.
I was nicely surprised by my niece Linda to receive a photo of this wall quilt displayed in her home; from an exhibit in Oak Park, IL in 2012. Linda graciously nudged my memory to help remind me. As in all memories, coming forward, tightly wrapped, deep within time’s measure. . .familiar territories. . . .to find we are the music. .
Following should be why the time and why the difference. Some of the why’s in our lives deserve our thought and some will require great courage. To even get to a why in thought requires footwork but we know that and avoid the work while we can. Rules change even while we breathe and I have learned to anticipate. Rule one, start now. And good luck.
Lullaby Last
The moon assists the drama, heralding the arrival of the event, locked within memory.
A place, deep within time’s measure nudges from familiar territories the clockwise turn of events.
The eye follows the moon rays to find the final beam lodged in our heart. The ear strains to hear the lullaby last
to find we are the music. . . . . .
(if you have one of my quilts, I would appreciate a photo to nudge my memory. It is a gift when I look upon something hand done and see what was accomplished. I guess I took seriously not to let the left hand know what the right hand was doing or something like that. This was a real pleasure to see. )
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.
I looked for the journal entry until I had to stop last night because of a heart willing itself to stop if I did not. My eldest son as well as a beloved friend once called my persevering tendency unnerving. Both vowed they could not live my way. I learned much later to call it the jenny genes. I make myself sick with them.
This morning in picking up clutter I looked askance at a first hand written journal to open on July 23, ’73. With Hello!! I read the following in firm 42 year old handwriting in ink. . . .Our pianist sons were playing a new LP of the Canon when I first heard it. Later in Munich, at a travel conference we stood at Christmastime alight with old decorations in a nightime fairyland. I realized it was not a first time for me.
I wrote. . . .
I hear Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and I yearn for a time I can see in my head. I am there in my hooped dress with cinched waist and I can see a swarthy looking, paunchy violinist (forgive me) bending close to the dancers. There is an ensemble but the violinist I can see expressly. Where is this taking place that it can move me to tears?
It’s not so much memory but participation, complete with all the emotion. Why does this move me so and why does it have power as if I am in it now? Who was I and where was I and where am I traveling now when I hear it? No past or future, just eternal now?. . . .
The rest of the entry deals with various elements of time and intensity and psychic talents. Rich stuffs in explanation but having been clueless to this aspect with no one in my immediate circle versed in these subjects . If family has no knowledge or the subject taboo, where does the child go who only knows to be called weird or different? Ahhh you wondered why I obsess on this subject?
I still look for the date on which the following poem was written. The Europe business trips were in the ‘70’s. I posted this once in 2015 and a reader was overwhelmed with did it happen this way? Exactly.
I hope when one does not fit the outlines for normality, one will be given space for being unique with a welcome to this world. We all might learn something. Parents and siblings especially.
December Confirms The June Woman
It is June and I stand poised on the landing of the half circular staircase.
I am hearing the strains of the Canon not heard in this, my lifetime. Shocked still, caught in the shadows of half remembering and yet reluctant to confront the shaded memories, I wait.
She is visible, the young woman gliding with joy to the music which carried her down the long hall. She curtsies to the throngs lining the great walls.
I stand, not moving. Her joy is mine, translating to an emptiness in my heart. The tears scald my cheeks and the rest solidify in a mass in my throat. I cannot swallow. I am in danger from within and without.
II
It is now December. I am before an ancient building in a city bearing her years gracefully. The snow is circling my feet and the wind is freezing my eyes. I am rooted to this spot. The air is ringing with the sounds of holiday; lights flicker their ritualistic colors in harmony. Yet I stand immobile.
On the second floor of the ancient building, caught in the winter of my memories, I see the long hall stretching before me. The strain and refrains of the Canon carry the young one still, waltzing yet. The violins smooth the way for her memories to be built The red vests of the rotund violinists complement in contrast their black , slicked hair. They bend and bow in homage. Their music locks her destiny forever.
My eyes are again in danger, this time of freezing in their sockets with the salted tears that cannot stop. The memory does not move, not to one side nor the other. My will forces my eyes to play again what can only be seen in my throbbing head. Courted through centuries with great care to remain hidden. I unwittingly jarred the box housing those memories.
In retrospect, I was ready. It was my time. I turned away shaken and knowing,
the past is still happening.
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.
If I could wave my magic wand and grant a loving wish to all children born into whatever worlds are chosen, I would choose to garnish all wishes with the best wish of all. . . to grant a curious mind. And the curious mind announces its arrival by the first simple ‘why?’
To accompany that mind I would grant loving grandparents down the street to whose arms I would have the child run when life would threaten to overwhelm.
And the child would learn that when the appropriate lessons for community living become a bit much to live with, the grandparents would grant surcease. That pause to refresh that only they could know would do. And bring out the paints and the music and the ideas that flow profusely from them to the child.
For Biology 101 teaches that there is more of the grandparents in the grandchild than either parents, whether we talk of the fruitfly or the human being. Children and grandparents are on the same wavelength.
And therein lies the salvation of the future of our species. For in the embrace of the grandparents lies a wealth of experience that promises the child that this too shall pass. That herein lies what we hold sacred forever. What we learn to do because it is fun to learn, exciting because it is new to us and we can do it! Or because we feel good about ourselves. It makes us feel stretched bigger than we are when we make ourselves better.
And to learn to feel good about ourselves, we will want others to feel good about themselves. So we will do the good thing whenever we have the chance. Until it is always a part of who we are. And it brings to mind, doesn’t it, that this is what being human is all about ?
When we know to do the good thing is what we are born to do, we wear the right thoughts for the mind of the world we are in. And find also when we do it right, we grow into a universal mind. The universal mind being the one that qualifies us for what will be demanded of us.
Amazing that we get parents to teach us what we need to learn and grandparents what we want, to ease what we have to learn. And it all begins with a ‘why?’ . . . . .
photos by Tresy Hallissey. . (grandfather) they paint and make leaves for the window
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.
August 30, 1990–I scribed Teacher observation. . . .
When we speak of values we talk of those things making a difference in the single understanding. We do not talk en masse but of individuals and when one does that, one’s footwork begins at home with oneself.
It takes a war of words to begin a lifelong analytical study of oneself. It is not for the timid of heart. It takes a Solomon not to divide but to make whole.
Identify the problem and reveal yourself. . .
When you have identified a problem because you have revealed yours in duplicate, you wonder whether your effort in helping an other’s problem has been worth it. From where we are in all honesty, it cannot.
When you have given of what you value, your thought and energy and time, what you have done is encouraged, prodded and shamed into growth. You have shown a caring that did not yield to pity or sympathy. Both would have deleted the growth.
Your caretaking did not stop at the fears of the one but by high expectations more was done than thought possible. Too often when we identify a problem we think we can fix it. Too often the one to do that has already departed the scene. We can only ameliorate the problem and instill the ability for the individual to find inner strength to overcome the poor self concept feeding the fear. It is no small work that is done on both parts.
What the caring one has done is teach and though the teacher is forgotten the lesson will sustain lifetimes in the making. They will know that a someone sometime loved them enough to press them forward into acquiring something of substance for themselves.
There was a someone in our lives who taught us the value of love, of honor, of commitment and the holy meaning of the weight of words. My memory dims as to who and where but the lessons have been my legacy.
It is an astounding venture of the correctness of things, the meaning of life and the total commitment of the value of the soul and person. No one is irredeemable. No matter what.
With Gratitude. . .
As in all things, let there be light. As in all tides let there be depth, and in all wind, let there be motion that sways us in thy direction.
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.
Some readers have difficulty with my saying I scribe yet writers have forever said they write in the flow or with their muses or simply nodding wisely and saying nothing. I say I know when the writing is mine and saying I scribed means I hear in silence and from where it comes is where I reach.
I have long thought that when asking a question the answer already is known by the time the question is asked. Somewhere lodged in our cranium is the answer to have puzzled the pieces of the question to be asked. That said, my mentor, the Nazarene, said to us all, hearing you will not hear and seeing you will not see. Meaning we see and hear only what we focus on.
But if you knock the door will open. The Comforter will tell you things you did not know and bring to mind what you have forgotten. (except in this day of loud noises, one must kick the door because a knock will not be heard)
Possibly it presents questions unthinkable in two parts. Do people ever think of themselves as the only intelligence in this universe considering its miseries and what of its future or if not the only intelligence and superior somebodies are at the ready to enter in surprise? Both immobilizing.
And if we are more than what we appear because of many lives and lifetimes and the answers are within us and beget wisdom, do we then entertain angels unaware for sure as my Mentor said? Or do we take on face value the childish utterances that bring on gasps and wonder from where do they come with such nonsense? Did we not learn in kindergarten to say please and thank you and be kind ?
I bend at the knees easily. I scribed the following . . .
How Much Better It Would Be. .
for this noble planet if we cherished her like a lover?
Or loved her as a mother who adored her child and wiped the tears away with a soft linen? Or as a father whose arms surround the child are as steel beams supporting the frame of the tallest building?
Who would not want these for himself if he could articulate what would heal the dichotomy within?
Too few of us around who love our home so fiercely, we would protect her vital organs. The sun sometimes is hidden from man and the moon embarrassed to see its light dimmed with shame.
When patches of earth split from the shock of no rain and dust rises and rolls across the open land, we wish then not to shake dust from our boots but to greet a sunrise in splendor.
Offer me this, the Earth Mother says, that you will raise your arms only to surround an Other in love. Promise me this, again she says, that the swords will be laid at the foot of the evergreens now and a boot will never crush an Other’s right to live.
And I will forever cherish your children.
I scribed this poem August 6, 2013
art block quilted by veronica
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.
Perspective depends on how open one’s head is. Or how tightly closed it is.
***** We yearn with the client for a vacation in an Eden which feeds and does not accuse.
***** The Universe may be of a benign nature but it cares, because it too, must survive.
***** That mankind can grow into a benign caring nature is the dream!
***** Deep waters do not necessarily mean one cannot float, even though one does not swim.
***** Man clings to many things in this world that no longer have a place. It is his security blanket but full of philosophical holes.
***** Standing alone is better than leaning against a house which is in itself, sinking.
***** There can be no victory unless there is a victor.
**** Marthas do not compromise.
***** But the Marys would not know to be pressed if they were between waxed sheets under a hot iron.
***** Regardless of the mental and emotional garbage one carries, there is always that something one does that has a redeeming value.
***** A good friend will give of his abundance and hug nothing back.
***** Everyone is in the advertising business. We keep plugging our immortality and live lives in such a way as to make good on our promises.
***** When the world bleeds, from where will come the bandage large enough and where will we start to wrap the wound?
. . amen . .
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.
Life Everlasting. . . we are already in Eternity. . . .
I scribed you cannot list the world’s disorders without revealing yours in duplicate. If one cannot relate to the ills surrounding, can we expect something to be done with what is not seen? Is life to be lived for others or for self gratification? Is one’s pursuit for happiness the meaning of it all?
When your mind travels to strange places and then you’re dumped unceremoniously amidst daily deposits of crud, how to make peace with it all? I found my experiences unsettling in kind words, but requiring years of shoe leather to gain a semblance of calm.
I truly had miles to walk before I sleep as my winter’s poet said. I made many oceans.
I scribed February 19, 1989. . . .edited for space only. . .
When you have tramped the world and know other worlds deserve consideration, you have already opened yourself to what a universe of good can bring about.
We are an experiment in time with our fledgling democracy when other countries have prided themselves on their longstanding existence and smugly reminding us of it. Noting our now struggle to re-establish prior goals and regain footing, we take pride in our immigrant status as preparation for universal life.
When one assumes a good, an attainment one recognizes just beyond reach, is where the challenge is, where the purpose is. To make manifest that good in whatever existence one is, then that purpose is one’s own purpose to continue to the betterment of universal life. Everyone prospers, everyone benefits. We hold onto the bigger picture.
Religions have tried through centuries to show that ‘as above, so below.’ We are the reenactment of other world trials and when we succeed, universal and cosmic life succeeds. Life in every dimension is enhanced. When we vet each other by critical standards we adhere to in our most public and private encounters, we then adjudge with compassion. Science finds new planets circling to show life in forms not known yet to common thought.
We then as children are colorblind and compassionate in character, to see the absolute efforts engaged by others to then be ourselves judged. The God Within or our uncommon Spirit employed by us, will demand an honesty not to be compromised.
As a country we strive to see not color nor handicaps, not differences in appearance but a steadfast gaze in eyes striving to connect, to see not mishaps in appendages, in lacks of the common attributes, but in arms and hands reaching out to us.
Everything striving to accommodate the newly portioned lives while trying hard to hold onto what cultures give for stability. We know we are a motley crew of stewards in a new land looking to being a friend in a place once designed to welcome us.
Maturity with empathy and compassion are required to relate instead of how to confront. What greater good is there? We then contribute to the Allness of the Father, the Allness of Life, the life sustaining Spirit giving life, (however we chance to call it) so all may live and grow and prosper.
In the most selfish sense we do the best we can to make it easier on ourselves. Because life is everlasting and we the God participants partake in it over and over and over again. That is what evolution is all about. And one day we find ourselves not on the outside looking in but finally on the inside, home.
One has to learn to walk in all shoes to know how heavy the burden. We are already in Eternity.
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.
Life before Covid had us all Monday morning quarterbacking at the water cooler about the weekend’s highpoints. This time we witnessed the dancing in the streets with the election’s electoral count yesterday. And with Mary Trump, professional Psychologist and niece of the incumbent president, along with the almost hundred year old eyes researching the why’s of life, we have some answers.
And truth being companion, all of us have come from families with mental problems. The one seeking therapy is seldom the one causing problems, as my favorite philosopher Sydney Harris sighted, but the one having difficulty understanding them. One of our David’s last questions to me, his mother, was how did you know to do it? Sheesh. . .he whistled when I did not know what I did.
Because it was not new to my thinking for all my life, it is evidential now. And I read journals with new eyes.
I scribed April 3, 2017 . . edited for space only. . (you crashed our gates and got us off our duffs because your family, your sons were the crux of your heart. We never knew those feelings with our progeny that you had. They were clones of ourselves. They were not our creations. They were yours.
Not everyone looks upon children like you do. Mostly it is a matter of biology. Clones. With you it was your heart. When the hand was outstretched after the birth of your youngest, your question was who will care for the children. They were of your body, your creation and commitment. This is a remarkable difference in thinking. . . . .
Years later when asked (feeling called) will you follow me and you looked upon the face of your 10 year old and knew his world would fall apart if you left. You could not. The Nazarene said what good to save the world when your own house falls apart.
David knew you saw the connection between parents and children. You saw when parents could not parent because the parents could not parent . .ad infinitum. The fathers could not father because the fathers could not father and mothers could not mother because . .the mothers could not mother. . this is the lesson for all. You write that what is learned on one hearth is learned on all hearths. . . learned love by the hand on the brow by the father and at the breast with heart of the mother before the child is ready to go out the front door. We need to grow up to parent. Children cannot be left to have children. We have the results of a world of children. An eternity of children. Time now to grow up.)
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nazarene speaks and tells the disciples that a man cannot be a father until he is at first a son or a brother. Somewhere in his history he has learned the love from a father and be the cherished sibling of a brother. . . to be able to parent. . . .
(Excerpts from) . . Not A Borning. . .
The woman labors
and brings forth a daughter like herself. .
and brings forth a son, dressed in male skin. . .
she knows both well. . .
The man sees a brother like himself
and is dismayed.
The mother sees a sister just like herself
and aches. .
Neither prepared themselves to uncover
what each could not release. .
the begetting was easy to do
But to borne meant unearthing. . . .
artwork by Claudia 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 Ramona, CA.
July 9, 2020 Thursday 4:40 a.m. (excerpt from journal entry)
And the thought again is to write of my coat of many colors, and should title it our coat of many colors. Since I have memories, of who I portrayed over the centuries, and have written of my dreams, seeing who I was through some of them and have had the emotions of them, but no verification as to when I can only assume a knowledge of them. But my poetry depicts them and memory serves me partially. Perhaps only the humanity of them, but it is enough for me. It answers my why of who am I also. A big answer for me to life is everlasting. Only partially but Jesus said my father’s house has many rooms.
And where those rooms are is conjecture at this point but will be knowledge again. Planets are found all the time having suspected life as we know it. But perhaps many support life as we do not know of it. Jesus said seeing we will not see and hearing we will not hear. We see variations of that all the time on this planet. I wonder all the time did I really hear that? Or did I really see that? Does he listen to the words he is saying? And when you see behavior that mystifies or cannot be understood, did I really see that?
Everyone is at different stages of understanding. It all eventually makes sense where we are in growth and maturity. Technically we can be savvy but emotionally or psychologically immature. Different aspects of who we are. We can speak the words but meaning eludes us. We simply do not know what we say. Jesus said, father forgive them. They simply do not know.
I harbor the woman in the cold, the black woman with a basket on my head, the Arab man who is harvest for the flies, and the Polish woman kneading her bread. My gnarled fingers are the hands knitting with smooth sticks in the tent house circled in the firepit drinking some kind of brew to keep warm. I have to keep my focus right here and right now else I walk into that time frame of who I am. It becomes a problem for those like me.
‘Each lifetime lived adds to the cumulative sense of loss.’ the teacher
All Who I Am. . .
I feel the pull of the Polish one bent over her bread board, pounding, kneading, smoothing the egg dough into a satiny mound. Raisins, like eyes, half buried in the fleshy loaf, stare at me, daring me to absorb her rhythm into my blood.
Her aching restlessness I breathe already. Her utter frustration to make new whips me to a working frenzy, a woman possessed. She delivers me to my bed in agony. With memory splintered, glinting off the corners of my eyes, I find me. And awake again to a morning promising me no relief from her visions.
II
My brow furrows, forming ledges to shield my eyes from a sun that beats unmercifully. Sweat pours to drench my body and nausea routes its way flooding an overloaded circuitry.
The wandering tribesman leading the camel favors one foot. Calluses shoot pain into the moon calf of his leg and I limp. The tart taste of yogurt in his mouth washes clean the sand out of mine.
Each step becomes a mile in length and his laborious effort throbs in my temples. I will be harvest for the flies. I cannot bear the heat anymore.
III
The air, sharp as a cut lemon, washes me. The children race in their overlarge sweaters with roses painted on their faces smooth as milk legs. Lace fringe curtains entertain the visitors agape at the starkness, the simplicity, the square picture. I am at home.
The arctic terrain beats my blood to a froth with exuberance. My sturdy body matches my earth. My love shields me, woos me and I am as cherished as a milch cow in a land of sparse grasses. To each other we are the heavy cream poured on a dish of skyr .
IV
How far back do I dare reach to uncover all who I am? Is part of me racing, black skinned and hot, basket overflowing, precariously balanced on my head and heart beating outside my skin? My loose breasts clap-clap in pain against my rib cage as I hurry to make up time spent chatting with my sisters, fearful of the masculine outrage brewing?
I sit at my desk, surrounded by the present essences of today’s people, today’s commitments. The air is spicy with fomenting earth. My brow does not furrow from the heat yet. Summer’s dog days will arrive too soon.
I ‘ve reached backwards and sideways and tasted portions of lives both palatable and unpalatable. But altogether rich. Is my fatigue of genetic empathy, perhaps imagination gone wild or an accumulation of too many lives lived, too many sorrows sorrowed, too many dreams dreamed?
V
The answer will be mine. With my departure I will take the sum of my days, the loves loved, the dreams unfulfilled and all who I am and walk again the cosmos.
And because of my love for me I will create another world. Due to my cumulative sense of loss. . . .
There will be no more loves aborted.
photo by John S. Hallissey
of art by veronica
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.
This has been a hard year for all with unavoidable obstacles. We have wondered together if there would be Light beckoning to grant some reprieve during these holy days and holiday season. There was and is but we do not let up on our vigil until given word it is so. 
I was nicely surprised by my niece Linda to receive a photo of this wall quilt displayed in her home; from an exhibit in Oak Park, IL in 2012. Linda graciously nudged my memory to help remind me. As in all memories, coming forward, tightly wrapped, deep within time’s measure. . .familiar territories. . . .to find we are the music. . 
