From an Upper Floor

My Sanctuary, my Earth. . . .2018

My Sanctuary, My Earth. . .

What I found in the sanctuary of my yard, a church if you will, and still do, is a pull, albeit a magnetic one, to a something that transcends the physical. I function in the physical, but never seeing it in just a single dimension. There is a height, a depth and an all embracing width that I try to gather into my arms. You are in that embrace.

I have written where I see in a glance the essence as well as the result, the consequence. It is admiring the garden and appreciating the gardener, seated at banquet and knowing its intricate preparation and thanking the farmer. It takes away the spontaneity and surprise; both a curse and a blessing. What it gives is a first rate conscience and sense of responsibility. It has you working till you drop but chalking few regrets with gratitude for life and thanking the giver for it.

You might ask, who cares? What difference does it make? One day you will care and to you it will make a big difference. You are its prayer, its question and its answer. 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.

Our Hearts Speak. . .

As we enjoin the universal spirit
to entrust us with another spring,
another resurrection,
awaken within us the desire
to nurture the world
that has nurtured us.

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.
{scribed April 5, 1991}

artwork by Claudia Hallissey

April 20, 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, Sit With Me. . .

The words to each will mean something different. They will root in the heart, in the mind and have a life of their own with you. At some time I hope, they will mean a something that answers what is now a question.

Our Time Is Now. . .

Listen to the peoples, listen
to the peoples.
One learns what the silence
is shouting.
One learns what is not said
when words spilling forth
are not true.

One learns of love
by the strength of the arms about
that do not lie. I know, I know
it to be a sign that cannot be hid.

And by the evenness of the voice
that sings in the air
and the throat
that does not gargle its sounds.
No matter how smooth
is learned the persuasion,
how smooth.

Come, sit with me.
It is our time and it is now.
No matter the wait
for time impends its weight

and our time is now. Now.

{painting was a gift of
my granddaughter Jessica,
who knows her grandmother well }

April 19, 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 Old Country. . .

Home of One’s Soul. . .

The Teachers Speak. . . Every so often, out of one’s domain, there is an isolation that swamps one. It is difficult to shake, and yet there it is, evidence that this is not home. There is a portion or many portions appealing to one, yet basically, the at home feeling begins to leave. This is when one digs in and brings to light all those things that brighten the soul. Dig into your handiwork, give yourself some leeway but stay with the program, stay with the route. You will find that the isolation will fade somewhat and again you will regain your sense of belonging. But do not distress yourself about it. It is a pure longing for the home of one’s soul. It will come about in its own good time and the journey will have been worth the while. And what is gained along the way will add simply more weight to the gems in your pockets. (scribed November of ’94)

Across the Mind’s Eye. . .

Laying like whipped icing
on the wedding cake,
the drifts of snow across the mind’s eye
left a clear path to the heart’s memory
of the other winters when love
closed the doors of the world
and cherished me.

What were the winters like
when the snow stood high
and like lover’s swords sliced a path

and found where I was?

poem written Nov , 2011

Deep within are memories brought forth for a reason indecipherable. Simply as the poem says, across the mind’s eye. Yet sweeping the body, finds the knees weak and my heart laboring. One wonders then from where comes the love, the cherishing. It is deep within but the source cannot be brought to mind. Still the feeling is unmistakable. And the knowledge stays that somewhere that world is intact. And a matter of time only, time as it is known where I am, folds unto itself and puts me back into the ‘old country.’

One then does not argue with this because it is not belief, but knowledge. And it was yesterday though a lifetime has been lived since. Puzzle? No, because we learn that linear time belongs to Earth but confirming that all time is simultaneous. (April, 2018)

photo by Joe Hallissey sr.

April 16, 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 Ruler. . .

The Ruler . . .

Do not chop me up in little pieces.
I hate the sight of what I see
when I see me through your eyes.

I strive to be perfect
and in doing so find me
killing my very self.

By whose yardstick
am I measured that I
should fall so short?

An unguarded moment
can make or break a world.
Today I find mine broken.

Should I expect you to build me a new one?

Recent Journal entry April 2018. . . They have written and they ask why they fall so short when they try so hard. And this failure levels them to the degree that all desire for advancement leaves them in the dirt and in the dirt they are stepped on.

Lost in a world of numbers and competition for place in family, in life, notably already feeling unnoticed, has put many walking out on talents enormously needed.

We come into the world unique and yet this uniqueness is not appreciated but considered undesirable differences. Those who want to be a presence in new life as well as those who wish to find their own centers of substance, are in need and they are neither female nor male specifically but human beings essentially.

And to be different is not appreciated. When striving to do better to please also brings forth intelligence which has an inner glow. And again forces more separation because one appears then better than they who originally found the difference threatening.

We wish a way to avoid curtailing a person’s growth crucial to their evolution, and growth possible to those whose own sense of failure results in stepping on the heads of others, especially children. The mother gods and father gods desire to hold their positions forever it seems lest they go down with the proverbial glub.

Who has the courage to see their progeny outstrip them in intelligence and maturity? Yet the purpose of life is growth and promoting the potential of everyone. To grow and become accountable was held a priority.

The intent has always been that emotional growth would be commensurate with chronological aging. That when behavior was appropriate to the age, the emotions would match. Such has not been the case.

Adults go their graves clutching the child within to their bosoms. Childlike awe and wonder is never out of date; childishness only appropriate under 5 years.

It is time to grow up. Lest the devices deemed to amuse today’s world become weapons of war.

April 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.
The Cost Of War?. .don’t get me started. . . .

The Cost Of War. . .Knotted Family Ties. . .

She was little more than a toddler. She was plain, even mousy by standards of beauty deemed for the very few. Stringy hair, hazel eyes with poor sight even and not the porcelain English complexion esteemed by her heritage. Left with her brother in Scotland while her mother set out for Canada to set up housekeeping for a husband wounded in the first world war and sent to a Toronto hospital for care. Left too long for the toddler, for when she and her brother were sent to travel the ocean with hired friends, she arrived to find herself no longer the center of interest.

Arriving to find a new sister, with blue eyes, curly blond locks and a porcelain skin already called ‘doll’ because of her exquisite English heritage. Welcomed the first sister was with acknowledgment that she was a big sister to look out for the ‘doll’. Her cry was ‘I’m little, too!’ and would be for almost a hundred years.

Heartbreaking, but pathetic also, to the generations listening powerless to untie the knots that were tied by circumstances only those who tied them could untie. To hear an octogenarian begin every explanation of her life with those words, ‘I’m little, too!’ and need to be parented by everyone regardless of age was an uncomfortable position for everyone. Requiring always to be center, even when birthing an only child and stealing from the father’s child the parental love and caring necessary for his growth.

The girl toddler grown aged never made peace even with her own progeny. Always displaced she was, shunted aside for every newly minted child coming into the family. Hers was a life of pampering the aging psyche forever the child by a husband who could care for only one. He learned too late for him with no time left, the unhealthy conditions for everyone. And how what was not done left the shouldering of burdens on the unsuspecting coming into the family.

We learn ‘suffer the little children’ with the words taking root and no one thinking that the conditions of the beatitude would take forever to unearth. No one thought we would perpetrate upon our progeny burdens that would make leaden their feet and prevent growth. We would fertilize beliefs that we must assuage the anguish of the ancestors and give them what was owed. Hence we prepare the ground for more bloodshed.

Do circumstances of our lives provide the fodder for weapons of war and peace and goodwill are the two weeks of grace given as reward at the end of the year? I don’t think that was the intent when the prophecy was fulfilled. We have to grow up sometime. Else the stagnation persists and evolution is halted. Think on it. This small instance of one little girl is multiplied forever anon. The cost of war? Don’t get me started.. . .

Excerpt from the
Knotted Family Ties. . .

I close the shutters and pull up the steps.
I learn to live in my own house.
I stay my time and do what is mine.

Jesus, it hurts to watch and be able to do nothing.

April 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.
Cost Commensurate. . .

What can be born and be borne? Knowledge is that all reality is a preferential viewpoint. That the dream is born and in it will be the
lesson plans inherent. That with the lesson plans will be what we
need to learn and they will be borne within the dream’s boundaries
and the lessons will be carried. We will be equal to their weight and
profit from them. And we will grow and mature and do good and
the dream will be a success for this time and place. We will do what
we can do.

It Comes With Cost. . .

It comes with a cost.
Learning can rip the heart.
Let the words be carried
to the Ethers and
wrung dry of your tears.

You shout a language foreign
to the ears of him. You live
nowhere but in your heart and
nowhere but in your mind.
It is time to go to that
small place and bless who you are.

Tears of anguish ask for
acknowledgement. The words are
lost on the south wind which carry
them north and lost on the north wind
as it brings them south again.

Your heart is tapped deeply
revealing the Source of who man is.
It is time. It is time.

It is time he knows this.

art by Claudia Hallissey

April 10, 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.
We Can Always Say. . . not ready. . . .

On What We Build Our Lives. . .

The construction is still in process, but we are nesting! I am not sure it is Maudie, but surely a younger. No doubt word was given that if babies are on the agenda, ‘this place is one we know and trust. And they talk to you with real words, all of them do. They keep tabs on you and watch the watch as all of us wish.’

I was surprised to see the doves begin building their nest. Certainly with the construction going on in the back of the house, there were splinters and broken by the wind leaves and branches. The two birds carried the pieces, one splint at a time, up to the nest. I watched for some time and wondered if they would soon figure an easier way to do it. It seemed to take at least two days, but then sitting on the nest was mama. We didn’t think there were eggs yet, but she sat and is still sitting. I will note the calendar.

When sleep eludes, the backyard offers privacy to hold the Newfie along with Maudie again and of course the (invisible) Sages In Conference. I am at home with all this and know how fortunate I am. In February I journaled that as I was sitting resting my arms on bent knees, I felt what I thought a hand on my back. It was a loving touch and I thought son John had come through the patio door.

I lifted my head and a bird flew over from my back. I thought oh my, he walked up my back and I felt his weight. What trust! The connection I feel with Nature assures me my presence is welcome and my words to life are understood. When we lose that connection to Nature, we soon lose it with persons and it becomes non existent with the cosmic world.

We count on devices to tell us we are liked and ignore the human next to us. Who will catch us as we draw our last breath and watch the world calmly folding itself unto itself as the illusion it is? On what have we built our lives? What has been our focus?. . . .

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 now neat!
No evidence, no residue of debris
to litter the surroundings.

I murmured his name as I watched
the scene disappear and he said, don’t move.
And time collapsed for 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.

(poem written March, 2017)

photo today April 8, 2018
by John Stanley Hallissey)

April 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.
Emma E. . . A song of joy. . . and Magic. . .

Song of Joy. . .

My joy is great in presenting this heartfelt bundle in her run for the roses. She does nicely with wonderful parents and grandparents ready with arms open. And uncles and aunts by relation and a hundred cousins and others by adoption.

She has reason to smile broadly and wink in secret. She knows, of course, she knows what the secret is and who holds the keys. We all wish we had arrived with such welcome and so much love. We think what wonders could have been wrought, but we know now what we can give to each other.

And with open arms greet each other to assure a welcome when we meet. Emma E. has already taught us all much. She knows who holds the sparklers and knows also, in her heart, that she is one of the ones who holds that bit of magic out to us.

April 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.
Dreamed Into Being. . .

Physical and mental boundaries are not finite. We often speak of primitive religions disparagingly. It does not take a genius mentality to see that in this tech world we have lost the spiritual connection to the cosmic populace.

We speak of life everlasting yet are afraid to die. We speak of resurrection and buy cemetery plots to make it easy to put us back together? Come again?

We are creators of the worlds we inhabit as I write so many times. Individually and en masse we create the climate for what happens. The book by Robert Nozick called The Examined Life (written while on sabbatical from Harvard) announces that perhaps we are in the creation business as apprentices. Perhaps we will be in charge of something else anon?

Mental boundaries no longer exist. There is a spirit afoot (always was) to those whose ears and hearts are open to hear and will have courage to speak of this. There are those whose brains are open albeit a tiny percentage more than the average and are given ideas that will find grounding in this world. And to those whose eyes are open will see and be able to interpret the writing on the wall.

The science gods tell us that we use just 5 percent of our brains. Why has evolution stagnated? Why are we so narrowly focused and why has our Earth become such a playground for the privileged?

These ideas are not new. I try to make them understandable. All life is simultaneous. Quantum Physics teaches this. When man appeared on Earth, Eden was everywhere. Maverick thinking? I think not. My scope had to broaden to contain my commitments. Whether my lifetime bears me out, I leave to the heavens. They still hold the sparklers.

Dreamed Into Being. . .

I love this Earth Planet she said,
it is a place of verdant lands
and high thoughts. . .

It is a place where images send
these thoughts aloft and tie me
to that place of love.

We walked it many times of course,
she said, but now the choice
is mine again. . .

How to stay and finish a work
the Master said was needed even
by one such as me?

I hold the only authority that counts.
No letters can give me that
which is already mine.

I claimed that on the day I said, I AM
and chose to BE. . . .were her words.
Simple as that and as hard. . .

I finish my work and then go home,
to the ‘old country’ that holds for me
she said, all that I cherish.

It is a dream I dreamed
and called into Being. . .
that is how

new worlds are born. . . . .

June, 2015

art by Claudia Hallissey

April 5, 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.
Prayer In Concert. . .

In Conference. . .

I was a young girl when the priest came to our home and my mother saying. ‘I don’t know who teaches her because I don’t. I don’t know where she gets her ideas.’ Years of criticism for my different ideas but my work habits were praised. I was diligent, thorough and needing praise for a starving heart.

On my road to Damascus experiences when my world crashed in my mid thirties, I could not believe good intentions and love were so easily crushed. With the help of a good doctor and my belief that I was still choice goods, rebuilding began. Not easy to do when one’s only bastion of strength was in thought and thinking. And one’s reason for being were three young sons who needed their mother at home.

Some call it prayer, others call it meditation. I called it duelogues because oh my I argued. I seldom carried it out loud because of setting off unrest in others I learned, hence the duelogues. I crashed the gates of heaven because how could what was taught in church school and on Sundays be so wrong when I worked so hard to do everything right by the church, by the book, by heart and even invented.

If it could not work where I was, then it was a lie and I wanted no part of it. Heaven convinced me that it could work and did and then we began our work. And work it has been. 24/7.

Then over the years dialogues and then In Conference. The poetry was continuing along with the journals when I found myself scribing. I typed hard copy because of my need to see in print what I heard was psychologically sound and philosophically palatable. It had to make sense. And my life had to show it. It has and I continue to work it.

To make my work understandable, the small voice within, god within, comforter, or the smooth pipe that Emerson called it that the angels or the muses speak through, works at one with me. I hope this post makes my work easier to understand. I am unable to explain the thought processes. But it has been a lifetime of mutual trust. (I enclose an excerpt from July 1, 2015 journal and also a poem for that day. Sometimes they coincide and this day is one. It will make the poem easier to understand. Some editing was done as I pick up the words)

From the Teachers . . .much will jar the houseboats of peoples and they will look again at the justice and injustices of partnerships whether in the same house or not. We know the intricacy of such matters. We know your penchant to keep words to a minimum. The aim is to get as many as possible to the table and to think. Eat and think. One and the same. What is being fed will make its way to the minds of men and there will be growth and there will be a road that has been scythed for travel. We will have a striving for peace. People will realize that the difference they make within themselves will be the greatest difference they can possibly make.

Prayer In Concert. . . from the other side. . .

It was prayer you held in concert
with the Great One who marked
your presence on his counter of beads.

Talks, mostly dialogues, it seems,
and held court with sages long asleep
on couches too soft for too long. . .

Rise! You shouted and they, appalled
at the sight of woman,
rose and were rightly chastised.

They had forgotten the bread lines
and the penniless people and
children’s bellies bloated from hunger.

You brought them to shame and now
they remember how the ivory towers
separated their lives from the
grime in the streets below.

Now you tell them in languages understood
how deep the hunger for knowledge
can be as if for bread; to keep alive
a mind from sleep; (like scourge
it contaminates all minds of men).

We wake them up and put to work
the fathers of the children forever seeded

with memory from a place the angels tread.

April 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.