From an Upper Floor

An Affair Of The Heart. . .

An Affair Of The Heart. . .

If you are a front line worker, a miracle worker appearing first to cries of crises, and you are driving home at the end of the day, you begin to talk in the silence of your car. You vent and cry with fatigue, with sadness, with curses and finally end your discourse as you turn down the street where you stay either with others or by your Self somewhere.

But here you are walking home in the rain and loudly talking. You cry and the words are not elegant nor precise, just a wrench from a heart pressed for various reasons. None of which speak to the fairness of anything. No one notices your tears because in the rain everyone you pass seems to be crying.

But to whom are we talking? I sit here and have held conversations in mind that were company for who I am. And for only slightly more than 13 years have seen my words of mind printed by determination on the monitors. When did I become conscious of the arguments of an Other and the comfort of a companion mind in conference?

It is what I call the greatest love affair ever we engage in.

For when we reach the highest and best that we know, that bar set for the highest mountain we can climb mentally still in our human skin, when we succumb to the intensity that has us roaring and venting, cursing and in great fatigue exposing our hearts in bas relief, that we are answered in like intensity by the Divine Within.

No respecter of social classes, but great respecter of our approach to work and our work ethics, of belief that the Each is of supreme value regardless what is held to be the currency value of the day. The intensity of purpose will reveal the Who of who we are and we are assured to be more than the disheveled one we appear.

It is then we have knowledge born to be ours. That we are companioned and never abandoned though this was lost to us. The night embraces us but in the morning we take our posts to be accountable. We never have the language to describe this affair of heart which only is alive in mind.

But we know now it is another pearl of great price.

Concordance. . .true harmony. . .

The heart reaches out
in mute acceptance to that which is given.

It answers only that which
it perceives at its Source.

Its depth is mirrored by the very essence
of the soul’s reflections.

It wanders not among possibilities
but perceives also

the very essence of the mind’s abstractions. . . .

art by Claudia Hallissey

July 4, 2024

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 Invisible Challenge . . . .

The Invisible Challenge . . .

           I post today a subject close to my heart and mind that boundaries in thought subject our young people in ways detrimental to their growth and honesty. It comforts the adults to be sure but the relationship goes nowhere.

         With Sunday’s go to church approaching, we are in a place where we can remedy our focus in the ‘twig is bent’ and add direction forward but being already bent, means we come with a history and if not completely sealed, we have memory. We should be asking memory from where.

         The where being life everlasting, world without end. Not given to understanding or curiosity, why work so hard?   Since we consider the mind a gift, we appreciate also the responsibility. Leaders in religion too often teach by rote with no hope of revelation. As a recent pope opined as to his lack of accomplishments, caught as he entered his vehicle, he said ‘Jesus sleeps.’

         When we limit by our lack of study, we limit by fear what the young could offer in lieu of being mental. How to know they were happier being Other? Memory?

          If everlasting life and world without end were understood and not illusion, memory would then be authentic for knowing when Other they were happier. And who goes noted in this day as dealing with the invisible world? Except yours truly arriving with a foot still in her last world.

         It is not fun and games. Isolation is more the status. If invisible life were acknowledged, and there is more than sufficient knowledge, it would be easier to say I remember being happier ‘Other’, keeping our young authentic.

         With proper counseling and time doing its healing, the conclusion reached would be less traumatic. Susan Howatch, in returning to Oxford, wrote in a work, that some philosophers believe that human nature cannot grasp the concept of reality at all. There are some people whose brains have matured with areas open to the invisible challenge.

        It is not an easy journey at best. But the young are closer to being born than those of us chasing the century at closing. They should not carry what we chose not to work through.

       More’s the pity.

June 8, 2024

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 Lesson In Strawberries. . . .

5/31/24. . . There is always a someone in mind when I wish to repeat a post. A reason because I want to shout to the world that here is a person of worth and high calibre that the rest of the world does not know as we who know and love her. And she says to me how she loves the lesson in strawberries that I wrote. So for my in law daughter Lori this is for you. These are your strawberries give them to whom you wish. You are generous with your harvest.    And we are grateful you came into our lives.

I was a young girl of 12 and it was our first summer on The Farm and it was a hard one.   But it also was filled with good food straight from the warm earth. My mother had a talent for growing things in the city despite its polluted air even 70 years ago; people knew it then to be unhealthy.   But in the clear air of the country, in the soil of her loam filled garden, her talents blossomed as did her crops.

We were getting produce ready for the stand near the road.   As we were preparing the fruits and vegetables, selling them as fast as we put them out, friends from the city were arriving. They were diverse characters. Some were people in her circumstances with many children and little money. A few were wealthy but the outstanding characteristic of all these relationships was mutual respect.

Toward the late afternoon, I was tired and whiny.   The source of my irritation was the fact that my mother was giving to her friends, without charge, the best and finest of what we were putting out.   A bushel of potatoes here, quarts of strawberries there, a basket of fresh vegetables here.

But the strawberries were my argument. I loved them and the ones she grew were the reddest, juiciest and largest I had ever seen.   They were sweet clear through and the dream stuff of that first June on The Farm. With the heavy cream separated from the rich milk the excellent cows gave, these were mine she was giving away. The strawberries summed up my resentment.

‘You can’t keep giving away our profits!’ I said. ‘You have given away half of all our produce!’

She turned to me and in a voice I have not forgotten with the lesson that has stayed with me.

‘These are mine’, she said. ‘I will do with them what I please. These are for me to give away if I want to. No one can tell me who to give to. My friends may never do anything for me but if one of them does some thing for my children or my grandchildren, then that will be payment for me.’

I have thought often of that lesson in gift giving, in giving what is yours. In the course of my days, when someone did something for me I did not expect, there was the lesson in strawberries. When so much has been done for our children by their friends and ours, the lesson in strawberries comes up.

When time, whole weekends of time, have been given to sit with a sick child, to listen to an impoverished spirit, to make dinner when the task seems insurmountable and appetite non-existent, to do any of these when time has become our most precious commodity, it is a gift of Spirit. When a check arrived unexpectedly from someone whose only reason was ‘I remember how I would have felt to have received this’ or the someones who oftentimes helped our children through school because ‘it was done for me.’

I thought of the lesson in strawberries.

As I review a life where so much has been done for me and mine, from sources unexpected, I am grateful for the lesson in strawberries.   My mother gave what was hers to give, what she worked for and gave freely. She was paying it forward long before the idea became novel. I do not forget.

When we are asked to pay forward for gifts given and received, we must remember the lesson this lady of ten thousand lions strong leveled me. As the world works and fights to uphold democracies all over, we must remember from where most of us come.

I see my grandmother in the wrinkled old faces that I find mirrored every day. With tears pleading simply to go home. Will I forever see Richard Engel embrace that lined face younger than I am with a history I will never match? And a devastated country fractured beyond recall surrounding?

Let us pay it forward so the children’s children not have to assuage our anguish forever. Pray let it be so.

May 31, 2024

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 Teacher. . . . (The Socratic Departure). . . .

The Teacher (The Socratic Departure)

I will drink this cup of gall,
swallowing the bitterness
setting fire to earth’s waste.

But first I caress this chalice.
Its depth mirrors my heart,
shaking the foundations
of my very own selves.

Now splendid trepidation
challenge the ultimatums
by which the earth rocks.

Challenge me, o gods,
not to see the outside
that has no bounds,
nor the inside that does not
set feel to the outside,
nor the depth
which encapsulates other worlds.

Winds that know me by my name,|
sunlight that weeps with my tears
and the night sky which covers
my brittle bones with the white moon
will continue to call me . . .and remember.

I will drink of this cup and
set loose the forces
that muddle the minds of men.

In chaos they will seek order. . .and there is none.
In the written word
they will seek understanding. . .and there is none.
In the marriage bed they will seek delight. . .
and there is none.

Cross the stars. Challenge the arch angels.
Banish the gods. And quickly I will drink of this cup.
But tell me. . . .

Who will teach the children?

May 23, 2024

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 Monk In Brown Burlap . . . 1790. . .

How Not To Attach The Fabric Of The Global House. . .

They say. .

You have to keep it singular. . .
You have to keep it nuclear. . .
You have to keep it private. . . and
remembering different in any way is not good.

I tell you. . .

You have to keep out the likes
of the stable boy
who was my grandfather.
And keep out the likes of my grandmother
who could speak seven languages and
and the likes of me from being born.

For, I, in a sometime life
blazoned with the year of 1790
walked up a hill in a country called France.
As a monk in a robe of brown burlap
with a heavy cross across my shoulders
led a group of people past boarded windows
with dust flying to save human rights.
The time was the French Revolution.

We would be immigrants
vying for freedom from
a world of oppression;
seeking liberation for a chance
to breathe fresh air.
Rich with history,
making a small difference to be sure,
infected only with Earth’s virus called learning.
Our need to know life’s passions
helped to escalate human evolution.

Was this to be called a criminal act and we the criminals?

a small difference?

(photo of the healed bird of my brother Stanley taken by Diane)

(photo taken of birds by son John with camera in hand)

May 18, 2024

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 Sorrow Hushed . . . . . .

A Sorrow Hushed. . .

My ears cleaved to the door frame
of the dining room. Her whisper was hoarse,
were there many?

Lots, he said, lots, as he held the letter
that told him what they saw.
They pushed for space, women and children
and their men for best viewing.
They wanted to see. My people saw he said.

Their words burned my brain
as I strained to listen, afraid I wouldn’t
catch a sorrow hushed. It didn’t last long
he said, because they fell into the pits.
Matko Bosko she said. They killed our God
he said, remember that.

And I knew the god they called
upon to save us from whatever they feared
their kids would do. They killed him,
he whispered again, somehow
making this horrid time an all right matter.
My people saw them, he kept saying.

And I loved those two
who were our parents who made things
seem right when my heart knew was evil
and my head fought them
and argued till I would vomit.

We would go into holy week and pray
just as my cousins who saw what was done
went back to their tables and had lunch
and dinner as if nothing had happened.

These were friends and relatives
whose prayers were different and
that made them different than us.

And the us that I was born into made me
sick to my stomach and I kneeled in
front of the hopper and emptied my shame
washed with the tears of I am so sorry
and threw up all of my ten years

and so went my trust.

January 18, 2018

May 16, 2024

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.
Freedom Is Never Free. . . .

May 13,2024. . . (I remember watching this particular morning show with concern because I take things personally. A dear friend said to me that was a hard way to live. If one does not take life personally, one then is a ‘walk through’. Where then is the meaning in life? And whose meaning would I accept? And isn’t that a thought worth the work?)

With pen and tablet I watched Morning Joe and felt I was auditing a class with Joe Scarborough and Jon Meacham, both knowledgeable speaking about the fragility of our democracy. And the lasting words of Professor Meacham were the thunderous grievances of our previous leaders that cannot thought to be ended.

But in fullness and strength it is but an ebbing and flowing throughout our democracy that will require constant vigilance to contain. It is not ever over though we like to think so.

I understand more fully this day because this is a classroom deemed to be so, we cannot be fooled that we are done with class. There is more to learn and we must assume student postures to learn what we must.

Lawyer Scarborough mentioned we must acknowledge the strength of our Federal Judges and Courts to not allow the denigration of our laws because of grievances held by anyone. Professor Meacham pointed out the sublime respect and strength of the court system of our trinity government to the Constitution of these United States.

Though part of Congress was enjoined politically with the Administration, it was our courts of law with federal judges who were the stalwart support of our Democracy.

We will know by name the ones who attempted to overthrow the very fragile structure of the faultless idea of democracy that all men are created equal in their humanity. Not in their gifts and talents, but in their humanity. This therefore being the democratic basis of universal living with potential in good governance, universal living means all worlds.

Hard as life is in the various aspects of living, as in the simultaneous essence of time and the reflections of worlds in conflict that we also reflect, we are the promising experiment of diverse cultural living on our planet. We began our birthing as the land of diversity with the world’s demeaned and our birthing as the land of diversity with the world’s demeaned and dismissed seeking life in this new land.

We are still learning to see how our humanity binds us and what physical differences might blend to unite us in peaceful coexistence and progress. The enhancing of all life forms and goodness innate even in newborns, begins the teaching in this best of all classrooms.

Because I have lived long enough to see changes come and see how much we have been given, I conclude still we are here to learn. With moments of light and laughter yes, but as students with concern for greater universal life we all aspire to.

We all get to the place where we tire of games, but the real problem is our Earth running out of resources and may not be able to support the games much longer. Take it straight to heart. It is a truth and we run out of time.

We must beg for help from those still needing to be convinced that we are in real trouble. We are in calamities together, with global warfare, autocratic warlords, and climate problems never before encountered. We have learned calamities are not pretty.

Did we not have someone stand on a rock and say to us all, earth is a reflection of heaven and heaven a reflection of earth? How did we not hear that?

Where can we go?

May 14, 2024

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 Present Not Wanted, But Needed. . . .

As I Watched. . .

Part of a whole, yet wholly here.
Slowly as I watched
the silence was encompassing.

Piece by blessed piece,
each tree, each entity slowly folded
upon itself and laid itself down.

The screen protecting vanished
as it bent itself into nothing,
a wisp of an idea no longer useful.

Trees, one by one, bent over themselves
and laid themselves down
and disappeared onto the forest floor.

And I thought how neat!
No evidence, no residue of debris
to litter the surroundings.

I murmured his name
as I watched the scene disappear
and he said to me, don’t move.

And time collapsed for me
and events catapulted me again
into the frame of reference I know as mine. . . .

And again the journey continued
and I sit and wonder and marvel

at this multifaceted existence I know as life.

In October of 2016, I went into cardiac dysfunction and was on the way out of this life. On multilevels life was playing itself out. I was on the patio and watched as I let loose hold on life and watched as the trees lay down themselves, as did everything else in my view. That we create our reality I read many times and I was seeing this world of mine dismiss itself neatly. Not a crumb left on the table. My son John had already called the ambulance and we waited.

More than a half century ago I had begun an independent study program on a daily basis. One’s passionate choice will reveal in time its path and destiny. Footwork is determined by ones’ cut of cloth. And how deep the passion will yield some light on the length of study.

I throw cold water on the idea of romance or secrets or magic. Heavy boots are the order for the hard work of evolution. It all will become mundane and tiresome with lack of progress to which we all are contributors.

The I am sorries have to be more than perfunctory to gain sympathy. We may find remedial classes awaiting and also surprise to find our names attached to gargantuan faults besides the wayside progeny on whom we have granted no attention as history has shown.

How to convert the human psyche from one expecting entertainment to one pursued by the need to know and learn? Except to show the results that our passion has fashioned us into persons we are happy to meet for the very first time. And want to know better. We wish also for our sons and daughters introductions to these selves they have not met.

5/07/24–Sometimes I need to repeat a post for new readers and sometimes for myself. Sometimes I need to anchor myself unto this dimension before I find my wings not broken and remember I soar. Still tethered by those unsure of their wings, I may need convincing they are their own project. I find too many days of sorrow remembered and my wanting to embrace loves of long standing. . .because of life everlasting. What will we do when our lifetimes include coats of many colors? And memories in our progeny hold their examples high and with honor? My love affair for my earth does not fade. When I was 12 I stood in the dark doorway and new I was the richest girl in the world. At nearing 100 years, I know I have not been abandoned but simply realized that no birds of my feather chose this time. There will be time yet for them. Amen and amen.

May 7, 2024

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.
Explaining The Reason. . . .

If We Had. . . and Truth be Known. . . .

Her grey hair was tied up
in a knot with an elastic band
with wisps circling her face.

Not neat in any way but
ends swinging as if the haircut
was long overdue but
her smile was now and
the joy present.
Her long coat swung,
circling her ankles.
His coat also swirled
close to the ground;
his beret rakishly setting
low on one brow.

His smile matched
the rakish set of his beret
and their hands linked to each other
swung happily between them.

I want to grow old like that,
I said and knew you saw them
as I did. You grinned.
Like that you said and saw
they were happy, joy filled.

We shed our stifling cocoons
for a time that day but
we did not grow old as
what we saw could be.

It could not anymore be yours
than mine. If we had,
and truth be known,

I would have walked on water for you.

Heart art by Veronica

April 24, 2024

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.
Books. . . Our Spiritual Survival. . .

We have put so much faith in the medical profession and they do not deliver us from death which of course is what we want in our final go round.    In fact, the agonies are prolonged for just one more minute of breath before our departure.   And our departure is fraught with negatives. The biggest being our inability to leave with dignity.

For then we are stripped of our freedoms, the largest one being the freedom to leave with a mind intact.   What we see is a person stripped of a mind still functioning.   Is this the purpose of a life? Is death so ominous that a breathing body vacant of spirit is preferable?

Is the memory of a wretched, unthinking cell consciousness preferable to a vibrant picture of a loving personality? Has medical science made it easier for leavetaking when what we as a body are no longer recognizable with a spirit far from the beloved we knew?   Does it truly help when our memories of the beloved are trampled with the last months and sometimes years of pain distorting the image of the one we held dear?   And leaves us with a distaste and a revulsion for the whole process of dying to make us more skeptical of the medicine which we have asked for?

One more day of what?   Of a wretchedness that negates all we tried to do in life? When the body is programmed for long life, it would be best if we also programmed the mind. With so much emphasis on the body, we have left no time to fill the mind with nourishment that would befit a body determined for immortality.   The spirit makes the break.

Little by little in the process of dying, the time spent away from the body is longer and longer. The tenuous thread, the linkage to the body for we are responsible for our creations, is held until the heart in desperation stops.   And by that time, who we were can no longer be recognized. The civilities, the niceties that we encouraged through our lifetimes have departed with the spirit intact.   These are the things that moth and rust do not destroy.

These are what makes us humane, civilized and what is left is Cro-Magnon. A wonder we cannot be recognized but are despised.   And are we not then a wonder of medical science?    The mind that has been fed, that has been nourished, has the right to what medical science offers. But this mind will also call a halt to procedures that no longer give sustenance but instead steals from it its dignity.

The population at large has not availed itself to study man’s place in the universe.   Has not availed itself to what has been offered as guidelines, as nourishment for the spirit.   It has not taken what we all should know from the time of birth.   That death too is part of the living process, the earth process. And if we have accorded dignity to life itself, then death must be included.

To program a body for long life but starve a mind is criminal. Yet we do it all the time.   We are deluged with information as to what to do to keep the body active, to keep it healthy. We are a world of proof that a healthy body, one told that to eat such and such will result in a body that fights diseases, that will be able to withstand everything.

And yet we will meet death, if not in our youth by misfortune, then in our dotage with a body so well taught that it will continue to do what it is we taught it to from day one.   Yet the mind, the spirit has subsisted on kindergarten fare.   On pablum.   And we are left to wonder why mother or papa are not the person we knew and if we loved them so much yesterday, how could they change so fast to being so mean and ugly today?

And where the peace and resolve of the unresolves that are suppose to occur at the bedside? Where the reconciliations when the unable in body are also unable and absent in mind? And where the spirit of the beloved who has nurtured us in ages past, the linkage to what was, as our children are the link to the future of what they were?

The last memories will be the only memories for some and for the others, the last memories will be wiped out as not being part of life.   And both are damaged, for unless we rearrange our priorities, reprogram ourselves, rewrite the lesson plans, the last memories will continue to be part and parcel of life in this twenty first century.

What to do?   Feed the mind as well as the body. As we stretch the body, we must also stretch the mind. New concepts, old ideas made relevant, religions made vital for those with vested interest, philosophers resurrected and visionary poetry made mandatory.

The desire to learn must be fed to the child along with the graham crackers and milk. It must be made exciting and a vital part of life so that it becomes secondary to breathing.

The why question must be followed by research and never dismissed.   There is a lesson in everything and we must be eager to learn.   Literature needs to be taught and understood with today’s technology; in today’s high tech world, literature has application in the dailyness of each of us.

Along with the mind’s ability to compute anything and everything, it should also include the mind’s ability to grasp spiritual concepts to enrich the person. It will prove to be practical in the long run.   And the result will be characters of substance befitting the body programmed for life everlasting.

Our children should grow up seeing us with an open book in our hands.

April 17, 2024

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.