From an Upper Floor

Godfriends of Caliber. . . gifts of heart. . .

This bouquet is for you. . .

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 when language has no adequate thank you? I call them godfriends.

October 6, 2019

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 High Jumper. . .

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.)

October 4, 2019

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 Life Is An Act of Devotion. .love speaks . .

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.

October 3, 2019

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 Are In Need, sorely. . .

We Lift Our Heads. . .

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.

September 30, 2019

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 Teach What We Are. . .

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

September 27, 2019

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 Big Step. . Loving For The Right Reasons. . . .

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.

September 25, 2019

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 Meditation. . . does the world stand still for you?. . . .

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. . . .

September 23, 2019

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 Children Will Lead. . . but You Are The Answer. . . .

The Children Shall Lead Us. . . .

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}

September 20, 2019

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.
Far Beyond Where We Are. . . . .

Recently I was lost in thought and found myself saying out loud that I have to get back to teaching! I surprised myself but to whom was I speaking and what world but more importantly, at what depth? I remember a conversation at dinner where there was argument and I exasperatedly said, the wrong people at this table were educated!

David looked at me with a steel glance and said, only the people who needed the education ! And I looked hard at this lawyer son of ours with a philosophy major in his life struggle and knew what he said because all of them held credentials except me. And I said you are right, David, right.

In that world I held in conference and said I had to get back to teaching, was a real world though I would be laughed at with derision in this one. Yet much of what I find compelling in this world ,in a concerted effort daily of independent study, avidly, tells me it is not new.

For me God is a verb and Jesus, the Nazarene, is my mentor.

I understand that all time is simultaneous, which Albert Einstein verified by saying man will not ever begin to understand his own ‘why’ until he understands this very important element of time.

My mentor became my friend as I was held accountable and as I sought his divinity, I found mankind’s and eventually my own. Then I was able to see the GodWithin which sparks us with conscience. In the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Nag Hammadi Library) Jesus said, ‘I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard’.

Even with no credentials, and whatever our persuasion, we all have a highest and best we hold onto. It is a good beginning knowing all the while there is a realm of existence so far beyond where we are that it cannot be spoken of because there are no concepts beyond our immediate conceptual abilities.

It is still some distance where awesomeness will lead to further realms of thought not possible for the human brain. Fir’ piece to go?. . . .long ways. . . .a very long way. . . .

The Uncovering. . . an excerpt. . .

The idea will find its home
in the minds of all men
and the revolution begins.
The learned ones will marvel
at the evolution in thinking
and peace with brotherhood
will slowly mark its beginning
in the house of one man.

Nestling in the house will be the children.
They will be remembering where

the promise was given.

above photo by John Holmes

September 17, 2019

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.
Not Much Time To Frolic. . . .

Today I thought that many events in my life were practice literally for what was to be revealed. I did not know that of course, but I rehearsed for what I thought right and good. I became involved in being who I thought I could be.

There was a phrase when I was growing up, fake it till you make it were the words. It meant pretend it is so until it is. We think often that is how our government is run but I knew certain things were correct but not of my heritage. Events were blatant contradictions (like parents being hateful about classmates ‘ families when we were taught to be kind in school) to what I hoped or knew could be the ideal. So I pretended a lot. It was not easy but as I said, practice it was and I was rehearsing. Alibi-ing people is what others said I did.

I can see the reasoning of Job and those souls who put themselves in public saying their god was good and life was also. Even though smack in the belly was a whopper. What was Job aware of? What were the do-gooders doing in the face of contradictions likely to choke them? What was escaping me?

I remember lying on the patch of grass when I was just seven or so and moving clouds into forms with thought and wishing to be a wise old woman some day. Not for things like English doll buggies or fashionable clothes but always wished for straight talk. I now see 100 approaching and still look for talk.

I want to explore pretend until it is not pretend, like a stretched sweater comfortable to wear. How to do it. How to love the unlovable with behavior repugnant? How to get past the repulsive sight to see the shining eyes or blazing heart? How to pretend a tight hug and not push away.

There are warts and worms in every world. I think what I pursue at heart is to be a godperson in human skin. I think all life is a route back to what once was and we threw away in pursuit of something to hold in our hands. Manifested. Not a waste to be sure, but lifetimes so hard that it has taken eons to retrieve our heritage.

We are a reflection of that pursuit. I see Job insisting his god is good and welcoming the challenges. Hit me again, he says, I can take it and rise to go on. He already knew that life was everlasting, and he, groomed for his next world. Pretending leads to integration of uncomfortable ideas, foreign and hard to digest, but altogether an enhancement not only this life but all lives.

My Mentor, the Nazarene said this, didn’t he? Do for one and you do for all. Evolution is step by step with a society grown in ways not only science driven, but technological, able to integrate old anguish and ancient beliefs with a sympathy as well as understanding that is balm for us all. Kabbalah was our innate respect for learning, bedding for we who remember from where we come.

I am grateful for a life that has taught much and wondered too much to frolic this time, but in overwhelming gratitude to the All.

simple request. . . .

it won’t cost a sou, or a mint
or a farthing or a dollar.
It won’t cost anything, she says,
except . . . . .

to put away the toys
that spoil the air we breathe,
that take our fun
and spoil that too. . .

all she asks is time
to take care of this Earth
and to take care of the children
we make and be

their example. . .

artwork by Claudia Hallissey. . .

September 15, 2019

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.