You say the door closes
behind me and you cannot follow.
I take my place beside the one
who holds my ceded heart in his hands.
All I know is here is the place I belong.
No other place feels right.
Though as I walk in other places,
they seem to be the places needing work.
I miss the belonging that once I had
in the arms tightly holding heart to heart.
It is now an isolation that accompanies my every day
with an emptiness that does not leave.
Nighttime brings my companion
and I to his side. And I am at home again.
We walk my fields and I do not rush away.
It does not last, for morning
brings to light the day’s increment
of work and commitment. Time was
when we wound our arms tightly but Conscience
awakened me to finish a work once begun.
Those arms no longer fit the who I am
so it is my loss and isolation.
Yet that will be remembered always
as the time our arms fit and wound tightly.
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 one has knowledge, one also has the obligation.
*****
God is a word most people stop at because the mind balks
at its meagre knowledge to proceed.
*****
To not remember to lock the vault leaves it to be burglarized.
Or easily opened at best to remember without those whose presence
would have made the memories bearable, either in joy or sorrow.
*****
To put memories into a vault and tightly lid them is
to crowd the emotions into a body with only death as a release.
*****
It is a work when to sit down to rest in front of the fire
one has to build it first. But no fire made by another’s hands
warms as completely as one’s own effort in building and fanning one’s own flame.
*****
All labor is divine for it is the creative principle at work. And
it is the creative principle one should cherish.
*****
There never was an all right in anything.
The all right is always conditional.
*****
How great a problem is,
is already decided by the forgetting.
*****
Conscience is installed to monitor one’s life for one’s survival.
*****
Conscience is memory of acts done to one
with the memory of pain.
*****
Two by two was for the Ark.
But two by two can only be because someone has moved over
to allow space for an Other.
*****
We are better than what we think but never as good
as what we know.
*****
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.
Tish, Marylouise, and Dorothy, Jan, and Joy, heart friends gone but always upfront; now some cyber friends distanced including (few) males attesting publicly to science, but attending silently to problems not to be tested by science gods in their pristine laboratories.
All friends of caliber, all honorable characters with huge depth, with problems in the confines of earth habitats; the streets of cities and living rooms in homes. My gender confronted mostly in the kitchens, midst getting dinner on the table or cleaning up afterward.
These are the laboratories where reality lives, while the one buying food for the table with the currency of the day sails out the door with a you take care of it dictum, (with an I have bigger fish to fry, like maybe world peace?)
But in today’s world drama, the difference is the one left also needs to get to a paying job because two salaries are required to maintain the premises or a trained talent wants their fair share of today’s kudos or currency. For particular reasons, that is the drama.
Since questions loom in many corners, what bears leverage on the troubled soul? Is it visible to be handled or invisible with an I could not help it attitude? The latter must be dealt with kid gloves or at best a saintly demeanor else we have worlds collapsing in quarters unable to be rebuilt.
Do we need religious or professional help or can we work it out with agencies designed just for this kind of thing? A conundrum, to be sure.
If invisible, is it genetic, inherited, meaning other members of the family have had this problem? Or a new one that deals with unmentionables, or drugs, from alcohol all the way to end of the alphabet, or something best left to experts?
Known is that no one ‘s upbringing prepares them for parenting in today’s world. This is what is known as OJT. On the Job Training. This is how recruits are assigned jobs in the Military, no matter one’s background.
Good friends of caliber are required in life, someone or a handful to inspire or calm when crises loom. Someone in Congress? Today, hard to believe. Or a lawyer? (I called for a friend) Or an ear to listen to heart hurts? (too many times to count).
Or a nurse/friend like Cati who held our fractured family together when David was leaving us, or young neighbor Cherl, who became like a daughter, or friend John, magically appearing in crises.
These are godfriends (correct word) who hold the leaky boat afloat when water rises and family cannot or is unable. I wrote that heaven does not play favorites. They don’t. Everyone is cherished. I was not spared the mountains to climb but had godfriends to journey with. They gave the supreme gift of heart needed.
What can I say whenlanguage has no adequate thank you? I call them godfriends.
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.
It has been said with anger
that I set the bar
too high
for mere mortals to scale.
It was not for them
the bar was set
but for me,
to rise as high
as the immanent god
had deemed for me.
I could not know
that they would try
to jump for me.
I was not the reason.
It was for them, you see,
for someone told them
they would never do it .
I showed them though
they could .
And they believed.
And they surprised themselves.
(Please understand that even when I learned that I was not abandoned, I was not spared. This was not a known premise for me until I was quite aged. Heaven does not play favorites. The log was always in my eye; hard going.)
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.
Grampa says . . Grandma created first homemade meatballs in eggplant/ tomato sauce over polenta with a salad of romaine, cherry tomatoes and kohlrabi with olive oil and balsamic. . .
and then crafts with grandma Claudia, the talented artist. . . .
And then a story to close the day. . . .
It is a simple story but such a big hurdle for mankind . . . that is
to treat new life with an act of devotion to prepare for the challenges
we face in preparation of our potential.
Where we are now, is the place for us to start. So we can then speak with
truth in our search for brotherhood. Not a pipe dream but a fact.
Not just a wish but a promise if we use what is ours within us to
help make perfect peace on earth in our time.
A lot to ask when life has not been exactly fair with us? Yes, but we
have help if we seek it out. It takes courage to even ask I know.
But that too is within us. To find we are courageous is a welcome
surprise. Sometimes invisible arms hold us up.
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.
We lift our heads as we face
our Source and give thanks to these gifts
beginning our day;
a body without pain and a mind
clear and receptive;
a heart that beats steadily and ears
that hear clearly.
For these gifts we are grateful.
Open us and allow not one bird
to miss our thank you for his song
and allow not the breeze to be
without gratitude for its breath.
Take this day and use us for Thy purpose,
for we will be at a loss
when time in space cannot be breached
by thought and the abyss
cannot be spanned by a leap.
Let our thoughts be more than a footnote
in the story of this day and our lives
lived with compassion, for we are all in need sorely. . . .all. . .
Amen and 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.
The reasons are many for the ways of this world. It is not to see what difference we make in outward matters but what difference we can make within ourselves. Do we see where our soft spots are, places we see needing change and where to begin? What is wrought within are reasons for real changes in the world.
As a nation we struggle this time with behavior fraught with injury to all of us. We wonder what to do as people who love what we have stood for since our country’s beginning. We want to do what is right and guard our heritage well.
Do we contribute to what is going on? How can I change how I think, what to think and what do I wish to make better about me? Conflicts will arise in all of us time after time because of our cultures and the streets on which we live. I may be at peace but it does no good for my neighbors who must work on peace within themselves.
Is this all I can do? Is there not something I wish to become that will enhance my thinking and knowledge? And be a role model for someone who would desire to work on themselves to broaden their thinking.
We are told that what we do for one, we do for all. Meaning that what is done for good will eventually be done for everyone’s good and by everyone. Evolution takes one step at a time and the footwork is mandatory. We must do all the steps in the procedures for the next step to be taken. Otherwise we stumble.
Anything done for our betterment will be lasting, for that good then we spread to others. Anything done with half a heart may be utilitarian but the lasting good will not be as evident. Band-aid measures are like half a tank of gas on a desert road.
This classroom, and all of us in it, are all purposeful for earth life. We all are god participants and changes can be wrought in us and be everlasting. But to improve the quality of thought, the ongoing progress of evolutionary leaps that benefit and nourish the psyche of mankind is the kind of work done on the knees in the solitude of who we are. When those times enrich our souls, they will benefit and enrich all Others in time.
When our cup runs over, the overflow is felt throughout the kingdom. Since we all teach what we know, the question asked is what are we teaching? We must think it through.
photo by John S. 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.
We must love for the right reasons if we are to find peace within ourselves. When we think we must love because children must love their parents or parents their children simply because we borne them or are born to them, then when systems go awry, there is chaos within.
As parents, we injure our children unless we search ourselves as to why our relationship is traumatic. And as children, guilt rises and we distance ourselves because we hurt when our parents fail us, no matter our age.
Until we get to the place where parents consider children a sacred gift and not clones will we even be at the beginning of a relationship that grows in goodness. But we also must recognize our lacks in not having mothers and fathers who knew how to parent and we must learn how to parent. What we have not had we can learn in the classroom, in therapy or in our places of worship.
I do not view life through rose colored lenses. It is work and in our country where education is mandatory even the youngest knows differences in the most basic premises, knows when something is different in homes of love as well as material gifts. I realize also that recognizing love’s absence is not always articulated, but I refuse to relegate to the heap what can be the only way to lift ourselves from the mire and rescue our children.
It takes courage to look at our parent gods and see how impoverished they are or were. Yet it also takes courage to look at ourselves and see where nature has dipped to lavish us with what others see as our gifts, and from where those come. And why this child we borned finds us pushing away because what we see is an affront to us. Possibly those things in us criticized? Education starts with stripping ourselves and removing the log which blinds our sight and granting courage necessary.
This is what evolution is about. Confronting ourselves and from where we have come is hard while wearing human skin. We will find our history embracing worlds no longer in evidence, perhaps revealing Nomads and Neanderthals and like Joseph’s coat of many colors, revealing our skin of many colors. Think it through.
I have great faith in who we are, to have come to this time. Times call us and our strengths to be the highest and best we can. We begin now,
to love one another for the right reasons, because we see the highest and best in all of us.
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.
Come with me to this place
I visit often, hidden behind an eyelash;
where it is Easter all the time and
rebirth is not a sometime thing; where
gods cavort in joyous abandon.
Come, we dance. . . .
Today the world stood still. In the
bright afternoon sun I saw a butterfly
dart into a spider’s web woven between
the power lines and lift it up and carry
it with him.
In the silence I heard the question.
How heavy is a spider’s web on a butterfly’s wing?
Since everything is balanced,
the question is proportional.
A friend said to me, ‘only you had eyes to see it.’
Does the world stand still for you? Ever?
It sometimes has seemed as if my life has been lived under a premise of ‘hurry, we are late already’. And I’ve wanted to say like the phrase I learned. . . I am dancing as fast as I can. . . I am taking time to reread things I have written and learning to thank who I was for finding the time when my half of the world slept, to leave a memo of hundreds of thousands of feelings. Veronica, I hardly got to know you. . . . this was the first post 8 years ago on fromanupperfloor.com . . . a gift from me to my new readers. . . .
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.
Young people, some only in grammar schools, around THE WORLD have taken leave of their classrooms today to strike their concerns about the coming death of their best and only classroom. It is this planet Earth. Our only home as far as most of us know, this lifetime.
Many of the young have memory and they know that nothing is given but what something is taken away. For many lifetimes our planet has given us lush greens and vibrant blues and sundry good to avaricious hearts. They know who these are among us. Yet we know we all plunder our Earth Mother, in the substance thrown away and her largess of native goods taken and trashed. We all participate in greedy behavior.
We either sit on arid land pleading for water or wading in hip boots in the living rooms of our once homes. Or picking up the matchsticks of our beloved countries in the residues of tornadoes and hurricanes. A doomsday on this planet of great numbers? In many areas, it already is. Who cares?
And what difference does it make? Well I care and one day you will care a lot and it will make a big difference. You are its prayer, its question and its answer. Only you. In you are the answers to what your life means. There are no other answers. You are the answer. You are the unsuspecting shoulders upon whom the answer rests. You will be the answer to who cares and you will care a lot.
Your God you pray to is not always merciful. He respects what you would call my stand alone responsibilities. I respect without argument an angry Cosmos that has the power to strike at the core of us and hit home. This is my beautiful planet and I in pain realize we are a reflection of that pain elsewhere. I work to relieve it.
Primary kindnesses must be granted to all facets of nature, from the glass of water to the earthworms that fragrant the soil. Every aspect of life, every aspect of guarding this planet from dawn to the whispered good night in love to our Earth Mother. I tell you true.
You will care and you will care. A lot.
(a pleading to us all. . . )
Let our hearts lead us
to that place where
we intuitively cherish the mother
who feeds and clothes us and
gives us sustenance.
Let us not forsake our responsibilities
to those yet unborn but whose futures
we have already mortgaged.
Blessed Spirit, enliven our curiousity
about our daily world, remind us
that the bird’s song needs our
acknowledgement and praise,
that the sun needs our greeting
and the night wishes it bid good.
As we nourish those of our commitment,
speak to us of our commitment
to the home we know, our planet Earth.
Let our love guide us to make beautiful,
to make secure and to guard diligently
what has so faithfully harbored us.
In love we pray, Amen, amen.
{the pleading scribed April 5, 1991}
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.
