From an Upper Floor

The Cut Of The Cloth. . . .

Several years ago I wrote that an elderly once said to me people only know what you tell them. My reaction was a gasp! because she believed that.   There was no exposure to people more knowledgeable or more observant than she. Although she would adamantly vow her God knew everything and nothing was forever hidden.

Such was her focus. And many can relate to this thinking. Huddled with their own preferred prejudices and religious dogmas which forbid dabbling with so called devilish dervishes, much was undisclosed.

With many who think that minds are private and secrets can be bought with hush money, there are still those who cannot fathom the innocent bystander upon whose head thoughts settle unannounced.

These are the souls who take to the woods and live out lives in solitude, or with the natural world. Or simply close the shutters. People cause fatigue to these innocents who carry information that has no putting place in their lives. Besides, they spook people out.   Oh yes, they do.

They become vaults of knowledge with nowhere to dispense it. People will say about them, ‘never knew them other than just in passing. Kept pretty much solitary.’

I have written poetry about subjects like the above and am surprised when I come across the poetry years apart. But interesting are the perspectives and sometimes I find they change little. Many Truths was written in 1986. . . .and Overheard was in an involved work of last week.

Many Truths. . .

I tell you true,
if my eye caught it,
a picture has already
been taken of it.

If I know something
I can tell you true,
the neighbor down the street
or the unknown one
around the corner,
knows of it also.

If my ear has caught your cry,
or the deception in your words,
the heavens have heard the cry
and the deception, however layered,
in time is betrayed by you.

If my song is sung,
the heavens and my god
have heard the melody
and whipped the wind
and carried the joy or sorrow
to its Source.

It has always been so
and this I tell you true.
The difference?

I, now, know it.

November, 1986

Overheard. . .

I hear them say. . .
I cannot follow
what she says all the time. . .

And you say. . .
I don’t either all the time,
so don’t blame yourself. . .

But then I hear. . .
But she says things I know are true
and I think I only
could know them. . .

And you say. . .
that is why she can say
what only you know to be true,
because she has been
to all these places
we don’t understand.

And you say. . .
I can only wonder how long
it took all those doors

to open for her. . . .

June, 2018

June 13, 2018

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 To The Table. . . you are invited. . . .

Come To The Table To Share. . . .

Several years ago a loved one said to me you take such giant steps and expect others to follow you and we just cannot! This was a surprise to me because everyone seemed yards beyond me and I was trying desperately to catch up.

It was with excitement I started to blog. I would ask the questions I wondered when my hands were elbow deep in suds and mounds of laundry. A reader wrote and said I had no difficulty asking who they would take on a journey as Dante took Virgil but she like others never gave thought to these kinds of questions.

Nor roamed the ethers with such equanimity as I seemed to do. I had and still have difficulty with this concept because I thought that my head is like everyone else’s. We are taught in school that all men are created equal. And children do not want to be different. My head wanted to know things. I had a need to know.

In my writing I see where people are not born all in the same kindnesses. For some the ability to love has not been born in them yet. The ability to see also has not been born which is different than looking. The ability to discuss things, to feel, to conceptualize, the ability to grasp the essence or a nuance, or the ability to relate by bonding, by trust, by hope, by word or handshake, and simply by humanity is outside their frame of reference.

When our rituals and icons seem narrow for the questions burgeoning, it is time to broaden the premise. Not to toss out the premise, but broaden our understanding. When our God seems too small for the questions forming in us, it is time to broaden our concepts with larger understanding.

When a favorite sister came out of open heart surgery her first words were man’s god is too small! He is huge! No church can hold Him!!!

Will it surprise us that the god of our childhood has a soaring scope that our finite brains will have difficulty envisioning? Ahhh! that is a journey that is exciting to begin.

And when we reach an understanding that goes nowhere and we bang our head on the wall with the maxim it is all a mystery, it is only a way station we reach and another door will open up. And again we are given light to brighten the way. Seems like work? It is.

But be assured that you will be invited to the table to share your journey.

June 11, 2018

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.
In Good Hands. . .

In Good Hands. . . .

I will invite you
to sit beside me
on my couch. . .

To lean into my arms
to wrest the fatigue
from a body
grown weary with age. . .

It will come to nothing,
this fatigue with aging
because the heart of you
is alive and well . . .

Alive for the world
you have prepared yourself
diligently with work, with love,
with patience. . .

How do I know this?

You invited me in to
have a time of repair of Spirit
when I needed. . .

to sup at your table
full of good talk with laughter,
at the fire with corn
in the one bowl I shared
with your sons. . .
to have sat to converse with topics
scraping the souls
of their transparency. . .

These were the times I knew
my choices were good ones
and the futures of my worlds

in good hands. . . .

June 8, 2018

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’ve Taken Flight. . . .

A Conversation . . .

You say. . .
I’ve taken flight. . . . .

and I say. . . .
where can you go
that I could not find you?

And you say. . . .
farther than you think.
I’ve found me a world
so far away
that never would you
think to look.

And I say. . . .
I step between worlds
all the time and find
I simply need to
adjust my perspective.

You say . . . . .
You have said that
before and I don’t know
how to do that.

I say. . . .
it takes many lifetimes to learn.
But each time a new direction
is taken. . .you make adjustments.

Ahhh, you say. . . . .
Smart way to do it.
Each time a new direction,
a new adjustment.

I say. . . .
There is much space for travels
and many chances. We live
in a gracious Universe. . . .

spread out beneath the overwhelming premise that All Is God.

June 8, 2018

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.
Words From A Borning World. . . .

(from a recent journal entry edited only for space)

So there was no one to talk to. No one who understood the worlds I trespassed nor was welcomed in. I stayed. And took cover in what I had to do which left me open mouthed every time I heard something that belly whopped me with I cannot believe they said that! Cannot believe!

And I never learned to talk on my feet even to this day. I listen and give the speaker their time and think about what I coulda, shoulda said. But could not, did not because I do not talk on my feet. I need to think. And I can only do one thing at a time.

So I have listened. There have been a handful of good friends. Heart friends who said I was a deep thinker. I did not know what a deep thinker was. What is a deep thinker? One who listens to the silent voice within, the Comforter within, the still small voice within, the thoughts which come from a somewhere else destined for you? Because no person wants to talk to you?

And when my thoughts because I think them, originate with me I take to the wall and bang my head there, I find matched by thoughts from an elsewhere world, I know I have come home to another some place.

I was thinking this morning, sitting in the dining room and looking out in the yard, that what if I wrote with my computer what I did in the 2012 journal that there is an overriding power that undergirds this universe, or universes with the symbol >:____—–:> except there would be curving lines which I cannot do or cannot do with this keyboard but another world took them to be a primitive understanding of a physical world because this is a borning world.

With a small physical brain and said she had something there with this and then put this symbol to work with a higher element of learning, I would not the teachers said, recognize the experience as mine but within the higher learning I could take comfort that my gleanings would have meaning.

They could take this symbol and say she understood that there was a rumbling thunder that was the beginning that left in its wake what we now know as the heart’s assuagement of a yearning that is the key to understanding somewhat a birth in process of a movement.

What was thought of as a big bang theory was in reality an assuage of genetic anguish that has kept the earth in turmoil for forever it seemed with no termination. Giving it a name will eventually terminate it and chasten the ancients’ ancestors’ anguish and continue therefore a birthing process in movement. And perhaps the babe in the manger will be allowed to grow to be the adult Christ in our Heart (Emmanuel. Emmanuel god within ) and evolution will jumpstart itself.

And they will ask again, give me some of that pipe she is smoking. I like that mixture.

June 6, 2018

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.
Loved You Long Before The World Ever Was. . . .

This is the latest photo of Emma E. that I have and I love it. I think she has a big surprise that she keeps hidden but I am sure she will let me know soon. That half smile she has lurking around her eyes gives her away each time. It is a big secret I think she keeps, but there is no prying out of her.

I know all about prying locks open before their time. It is like letting loose a down pillow with all the feathers flying about. Like Pandora’s box letting loose its secrets before their time. No use then trying to get the secrets back into the box!

Emma E. holds herself upright much of the time. She tries standing with support and one of these days she will as her grandfather’s youngest brother did, climbed out of his crib at barely nine months. And when I plumped him down after a hundred times shouted at him, why did you choose me as your mother?

Will Emma E.’s mother shout at her after a hundred times the same thing? And will she be as surprised as I was with the words coming out of me because I never gave thought to my sons choosing me? And realized of course I knew that somewhere deep inside of me?

Because I always told them I loved them long before the world ever was! And I always told my grands that I also loved them long before the world ever was. I, of course, knew that to be true but I had to hear myself saying those words out loud.

Maybe Emma E. smiles because she already knows that I have loved her long before the world ever was. And she knows that I will love her forever and forever more.

That has to be a nice thing to know for sure.

June 4, 2018

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.
My Earth, I Take It Personally. . . .

My Earth, I take it personally. . .

When I was a homeowner it was said I took it all personally and it was impossible to live like that. To me the world cannot be lived in fully unless it is taken personally. It is the only way to process information for any meaning to be applied. It must be personal. It must be meant for you. If it is not personal, you are a passer through. These are my thoughts on this, my world.

Everything in this world is mine. From the thought in my head to my surroundings. To my actions, to the weather in the course of days, to my thoughts in the length of my nights. I am on stage in a morality play, in a thoughtful participation of all life.

I do everything in conjunction with everything else. I do it because I must, to the best of my ability. The things are visible, to someone in a somewhere. To my neighbors who are nowhere in sight. To the ethers who view and label my actions, to the best of my ability because I can do nothing else.   And what I do will have far reaching effects.

I think what I think because I think it. My earliest thought was ‘think it through’ and I did.   Embarrassing, uncomfortable all the time, but rewarding in retrospect. In carrying a thought to conclusion another aspect opened. And so led me to more thought.

And I learned that all life is thought. Everything is a thought form and every thought creates a something. With the question arising, what is it we wish to create? We are a lesson in process.

Arrogant? I think not. Because if everyone knew this, we would be working our buns off outdoing each other in caring for our Earth. Work would be the mode of action.

I saw a pin on a young woman in a store that said, Ask me to do as little as possible!   Inspire confidence? Shows me she cares or is proud of her work? Shows me she approaches life in a caring way? She will leave the world a better place? Funny pin? To some, perhaps.

Because I take things personally, and because it is my world, made for me, I have to do what I can. I wish to leave it with one more person caring.

Just for those who cross my threshold to feel better about themselves. And given food for thought and to see their eyes light up on the yard and see that love cares for it by who the gardener is.

All birds sing for me. All life grows for me. All thoughts are directed at me and I with love embrace all of it. Because I feel this way, I will work and my eyes will appreciate the greatness of the gift given. And know the ache in my bones and fatigue is indeed a small price for this caretaker.

You realize of myself I can do nothing. To ask to be an instrument of peace means that one will be asked to work. It is my world and it is personal. I have not been a passer through. Everything is a lesson and everyone teaches. I did not know how else to do it.

My world, my commitments, my priorities. Maybe arrogant to think so, but it has been a responsible attitude, done with joy. If nothing else because then there was no one else to do it. Now that circumstances alter cases, because I see, it is still mine to do as long as I am able.

artwork by
Claudia Hallissey

May 30, 2018

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 Keys Of The Kingdom. . . .

The Keys of the Kingdom. . .

My good friend appeared at the door and said you have to learn to play and we start now. Alas, another argument begun about our differences , proving again opposites can be friends.

It is my good fortune and sometimes a curse to have the ability to view and discern behavior. Because I see clearly what is one man’s meat is another’s poison.

People approach work and play differently. I watched our sons grow and in process changed attitudes. Mowing lawns, chore but cleaning the garage, therapeutic with a ‘look what I found!’ Planting flowers with their Latin names an art and school homework eagerly approached as to subject.

With the youngest I looked forward to making a hockey rink every week after Christmas. I happily stood in below freezing weather and spraying but 2 a.m. was my last spraying! I shouted! I somehow related to my elderly neighbor who sprayed with hose and nozzle in the summer for hours. There is something spiritual about watering whether ice rink or garden.

One inlaw daughter with her artistic talent makes brussel sprouts look awesome. Another can make tired furniture look new even with ongoing construction. Coupling these details with their professional talents make these an extension of their work.

Where is learned the virtue of labor and beauty in the doing? The magic of it all is in the heart. It is approaching the place in mind that says all is play because the body is actualizing the mind’s intent and therein lies the beauty.

Fortunate you are if someone loved you that you with love are remembering and teaching. The memory comes alive at sometime and we pay it forward. Some have not known it but we can be the memory for their future.

A brother and I discussed this and he said sis, you have found the keys of the kingdom, haven’t you? There is no more than this in its deepest. It is all art in the making. My Mentor said that the fields are ready and the call is out for the vineyards. There is virtue in the labor and beauty in the doing.

A Belief System. . . (an excerpt). . .

The answers will be forever hidden
in a place no one chooses to look;
the hearts and minds of those
who love this earth with passion.
Surprised they will be
to see in the palm of their hand

the keys of the kingdom . . .

May 28, 2018

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.
Around The Bend. . .

Today I sit in the midst of my birthday of 87 years. It is quiet. In rereading journals where I was told if you want a good book to read, write it, I am finding truth. Rarely do I remember if it was cereal for breakfast and therefore rereading the saga I wonder what comes next .

The Teacher asked in a September 2013 entry . . .you saw an event and caught it in flight and reacted and saw the lesson in the event. Tell us how you do that. . .

Because I felt sorry for myself that day this was the answer. . . .(My spontaneity as a child was shanghaied because I was born seeing the thought and it was then engulfed in the larger picture with its application within life and lives and results following.

The consequences then run through but the spontaneity is gone and the moment lost. The result, the lesson, the appreciation is deeper and the entire action is molded into a lesson and humanity benefits, instead of just the impulse of the person.

You have in me no game player therefore someone they say who spoils the fun and doesn’t know how to play. Not invited to go along because I spoil the fun.)

Within the brackets above was from the entry. I add, I think life is beautiful as is and needs no embellishment; the storyteller really needs the exaggeration. Games are often played to show superiority, king of the mountain syndrome.

Compensation is at play giving me ‘language sparring’ for diversion. Great fun and like the poem following, a surprise and a lark. The response to Around The Bend was great so I run it again. Aww shucks. It seems I’ve run out of cola.

Around The Bend. . .

I was told you have stretched
your boundaries
as far as you can and the rest
will require another world.

You work too hard at this, he said.
Break the pattern because
you do not need more information
to underscore what you already know.

What good to understand worm holes,
and black holes and white holes
and time warps.
You work with them every night
when you flutter in and out
of worlds and know your way around
the bends of light.
You don’t need anything more.

You need a good stiff drink
of more than cola.
Love, take a bender.
You need rye, straight.

I say, around the bend
there will be a hand,
someone to pull me up. . . .

around the bend will be a someone
to pull me up. . . .I know.

May 25, 2018

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 Workman Prays. . .

I had watched The Sound of Music with my inlaw mother and I scribed a journal entry about it enjoying it for the umpteenth time. I edited only for space.

April 12, ’93. . .It is with joy when the heart of the viewer is touched. It is joy when the hearts of man are swayed toward a gentler night; a joy when the master at home would have enjoyed the show. Few abound and too few would stay. It seems only women are audience.

Most things that deal with the heart are things which the female gender are saddled. Too few males know the presence of their own heart or admit to it. We know the effort of listening to the heart. The gentler societies yield to their own hearts splendidly. In the macho male societies we see the testosterone syndrome. The one of man for man’s sake and it is a sadness when seen and we mean for man to see his nurturing side revealed. It is only then that he will mercifully see this side that isolates him from gentleness.

It is this side that yields to heaven’s words that opens him. Does the female gender ever wonder how man prays, if he does?

This question took me by surprise and I said I never thought to ask. I often asked opinions of males but never what mode of prayer, if even they do. The Teacher then asked me to elaborate my method of prayer. I thought through and realized that ongoing conversation with my within god was a lifetime practice. The conversation never stops.

This was a long discourse with another question of how do children pray. I presumed pleading of I need or I want, petitioning of sorts. Asking what others pray about I wrote is like asking them to reveal themselves in broad daylight to the media, isn’t it?

Working this thesis in mind gave thought and word to the following poem. With so many males in my present lifetime, I have learned much about them. Much I have never voiced and led many to think I am not only naïve but gullible. My silence has only emphasized my compassion.

The Workman Prays. . . .silently we talk. . .

In the quiet
I take my tools of trade
and hold talk with whatever
Master Workman I need,
be he plumber and carpenter,
and one of less muscle, wordsmith,
seen or not.

In the silence we will
speak our hearts and take direction
and refuge solely because
there is nothing else to do.

We have done it all.
We have consumed our portions
and what is left is
for us to make peace with,
whatever our truth.

This is our prayer, if prayer it be,
our talk in the midst of our work
and what is left of our day.

The rest is litter, I think
and somewhat sorry and sad
that more of worth is not left
to feed the night and
those of heart’s promise.

It has taken all that I are to get here. Amen and amen.

(poem written and are is correct
May 21, 2018)

May 23, 2018

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.