When words have been shouted and have struck hearts forever changed, we gather our resources from within and count on Grace Given by thoughtful minds that harbor goodwill. We pray to what we hold highest and best that we meet challenges that bring the changes needed. And we do not discount nor dismiss our part in those changes that count on us to be the example. We begin now to pull our actions and words through our hearts so there will be no doubt to our intentions for good.
A Time For Making Peace. . .
It is time for making peace;
for actions that struck
the core of the heart. . .
for words that sucked life
out of a body still intent on breathing.
Those were actions and words
that should have been vented
when anguish and outrage
stole the child’s innocence.
And now with the ends
of the circle tightly knotting
we quietly say our thanks.
For the Grace given
by understanding hearts
in the heat of the fire.
Of love ventured into arms
needing the close embrace
of a forgiving Other.
It all comes full circle.
And we step out and
the merry go round stops
for a time. Until again
our zest for life is renewed.
photo by John Holmes
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 lock up the room
and pocket the last remnants
of words laying about
unattended.
Fearful that pieces
of my heart may be found
scattered among them.
And why not?
Times such as these
leave us with little salve
to heal the open wounds
which once were hearts.
For whom do we weep?
The children whose siblings
will no longer come to the table
to convey with no doubt
the events which took their innocence?
Or the parents whose hearts
were transplanted when word came
that these unspent stars
were already breathing the rarified air
as heaven’s most blessed?
Look at us here.
pleading that our children
will be safe as they try to understand
what we in our dotage
have not learned.
To resort to arms
means death in any country.
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.
After having been told a zillion times that no one would want my head, I have decided that I truly would not want anyone else’s head either. Because then I would not see the world that I love the way I do. I would not see the pine trickle of a branch pulling itself courageously out of the trunk of the tree amidst a half dozen other twigs and marvel at the beauty of it. Or hear the young grandmother puzzle at the toddler wondering why is this child so angry? And another placid? And see the connections in all bornings from their source already bent. Chance, you think? My head tells me of no coincidences.
Understandably there are some who prefer to think everything is newly chaste. But each of us has a history and life is a gift given. It is with hope that we uncover its gems. And profit from its lessons.
If You Can Bear The Truth. . .
If they should ever ask you
from where comes this knowledge
and you can bear the truth, tell them.
It was written in the stars that I saw
with inner vision, shining exuberantly
with a vitality that bears description.
It was hung and dried by a sun that had
dried my ancestor’s tears
for a million centuries.
The lyrics have pressed my ears
in moans that I find unbearable.
Does not everyone hear the cries?
If they should ask you,
tell them this.
It is the music of celebration,
when one, even one is freed from
a lifetime of servitude to anguish
clogging the throat.
This music is heard down long lines
of generations and will be mated
in their genes. They will glory in
their freedom and they will live forever.
So if they ask you and you can
bear the truth, tell them.
It was taught by my Spirit
spilling into my heart with no reprieve
and into my mind with no relief.
It is a lifetime of no alibis and
a coping system diffused.
My teacher has no name,
still the imprint is within my genes,
implanted within my ancestor’s memories,
resting within me.
They do not rest while I cannot.
My songs continue, if only for me.
Enough it is for me to break the waves.
Photo by John Stanley Hallissey
(click on photo to fill screen)
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.
All of humankind is in need of professional counseling, but who is going to counsel the counselors?
*****
If man is the result of the whim of the Potter, how dependable is the Potter?
*****
Or is the lump of clay thrown out willy nilly and at the whim of the elements, molded?
*****
Can any constructive change be considered not worthwhile and worth the effort? When does ‘at what cost’ enter into the argument?
*****
The attempt to discern writing of the ancients is an attempt filled with trepidation. As man and his language evolved , to trace early meaning accurately is to find a man with mind and an ancient frame of reference.
*****
When we fall down, we will get up only as fast as we are embarrassed. Or hurt.
*****
It is never too late to do a good thing.
*****
An accident is only an accident when we do not feel responsible.
*****
Heaven is kind to allow us so much time as children, otherwise we would never be forgiven.
*****
As long as we have the ability to emote, we have the passion to breathe
*****
The dismay which follows truth should not defeat us because in a quiet moment longer, the courage will be given for constructive action.
*****
Love life sufficiently and make it all sacred, for it is.
*****
Kin have to become family before acquaintances can become friends.
photo by John Holmes
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.
Fortunate are those who walk with their cameras at the precise moment a sunset images the evening sky. And we are fortunate to have those photos in our libraries. Most fortunate are we who have the intent of the photographer rising at dawn to catch the morning sky in colors unmatched. Few are the photographers and fewer still the mornings to be counted on to arise in the eastern sky with brilliant precision. It is almost a game with the gods of how much do you care? And with joy we are fortunate to have in our yearning a photo like this, a treasure of Jon Katz’ discipline that brings him out at dawn to capture the emerging dawn’s chameleon concepts. And with his generosity I add it to my growing library.
With A Promise. . .
There will be a tomorrow
somewhere. . .
waiting in the sunrise.
Perhaps in the shadow
of the footprint
on which you stand
this moment. . .
Or perhaps in
the light of a morning
in a world not thought
yet into Being. . .
But you will have it,
earned by the tenor
of your days,
practiced diligently.
It will be met
with an of course,
having visited every night
and well met. . .
with a promise once again to reclaim Paradise.
photo by Jon Katz
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
It is on bended knee that I approach my blog with what nearly a century of living has taught. With what I have learned of our holographic universe, acknowledging talents given at birth or contracted for I must speak my experience.
It is a linear world we live in to help us learn. It can be counted on being. It is also a prime example that all time is simultaneous. The past is still happening, the future has already happened and we in the present race to catch up with it. The following was one of the first posts I wrote 6 years ago when I first blogged. My life has stood me in good stead. It has been all of a piece and I would be foolish to deny it.
September, 2011. . . . It is a trying thing we do. We want to understand what we remember of a specific time when all we have are bits of memories and what historians say went on at the time. But we cannot take as fact all that we read or hear. Everything written cannot be taken as gospel. Everything heard cannot be taken without question. What we have in our memory bank we get in snatches and try to make as much sense out of them as we can.
For when we try to do more than this, we are playing a guessing game. It is also a guess when we are not certain whose memories we are jousting with. Are they our memories of this life or perhaps other lives of ours as more of the world believes or perhaps even of distant or ancient ancestors written into our DNA? Are we responsible for unfulfilled talents or love not returned? Can we or should we put to rest our ancestors’ anguish?
And what about all the historians’ views of history? How much of it is conjecture? How much of it is piecing what bits can be garnered to fill in the spaces when the times themselves have left no record? There is much that can be retrieved through concerted research. But retrieved also must be the long lost habit of conversation with aging persons. There is much that oral history will reveal that written history has neglected to mention.
It is a hard work we do to find a putting place for memories. But it is one way to find out who holds the candle for each of us.
Peace-d. . .
The numbers are few
who can share in this journey
that takes a lifetime
to get to the heart of oneself.
One learns to walk through
the warm woods of one’s empty house
to find the communion
with invisible friends
when a soul across the table is not.
The immediate pressure of voices
long gone have ears aching
but there is a conversation of saints
and the company of good minds
commingling; kindred spirits housed in thought.
Confrontation of points hidden within centuries
of genetic history has one acutely conscious
of love freely given and healing accomplished.
As we are given the capacity to love,
Spirit within gives that capacity also to the Other.
And pieces of The All That Is will be peace-d.
(poem written March, 2016)
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 argument came up about my impracticality. Others have difficulty following me. Yet I was seeing to home maintenance over the years with no help, 20 white shirts a week ironed, suits pressed, meals on time, lawns manicured, and best of all, children reared and raised in love. And office work for those many years. How impractical?
Our teacher son said that had he seen the growth in his students that he saw in his grandmother after she arrived to be in my care, he would never have left the classroom. I see as I always have so why must I explain connections to make a problem understood? Mine is not an engineering mind and am not credentialed. How do these people get degrees who don’t see the commonplace? The teachers asked me to explain my day of choice. The following I lifted from a journal entry of October, 2010.
(Wonderful day raking the leaves. I felt as if I were a violin and the heavens were playing me. The heavens were the bow that played on my heart and I sung with a high vibration through almost two or more hours. It was wonderful.
This day was a gift. This is how I connected in our yard with the All that was in me and in everything. I was the god and the god was everything about me. In my arms and the swing of the rake and the beauty of the day and the breath I took with my body.
I was the song and the instrument on which the All played. I was the melody and I was the song. And the day was the symphony behind me. It was how it was for me when I was twelve and we moved to The Farm. I connected with my earth and my earth was me and I was the god and the god was everything.)
The Teachers responded with . . . only another like you would relate. The connection you have with your earth and you said, in love with it, is what we wanted for everyone. How would you go about teaching this connection? Or explain it to your beloveds? You tell about virtue in labor and beauty in the doing, and they resent you. Not everyone sees the connections. To them physical labor is grunt work. But you sing with it and though your body pains, you praise the day. Who understands this kind of thinking today?
People text while they walk, while they motor and while they make love. What world could we give to you to teach virtue in labor, beauty in the doing? Come, Veronica, there is a bridge or perhaps a world to sell to you?
Listen To Me, dear Earth. . .
This space where my sounds
break out into form and
I see, I see, and I knew it
all the time.
So listen to me, dear Earth,
and sea and sky,
for I speak your language and
hear your sound and hear your music.
And it is all for me, for me.
The tension in my body
is the lyre upon which your music
is played.
My mind is my opening to worlds
that I know exist and can feel
through the thoughts winging
sometimes painfully against my ears.
Listen to me they say, and hear, hear.
(poem written in August, 1982)
photo by John Holmes
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.
‘How did you know to do it?’ he asked.
I loved and raised babies and painted roses
on their cheeks and planted evergreens in their hearts.
Now you should put the sabers
at the foot of the evergreens.
The dove sings high, gargles her song at times,
but you know my friend, you know.
The PoemMaker
In every time and place there is a one who will dip pen
in the heart and write.
The Philosopher-King
The rose will bloom in December, I promise.
And I do not make promises lightly.
My Mentor, the Nazarene
(I knew that eventually I would have to define my god or what it is I have held as my truth. Having been brought up in a traditional orthodox religious home, from the beginning I was watched. And heard the apologies to the priest about what I was saying. Somehow it is important I put into words that are understood what is my knowledge or what I came into the world remembering. I overheard a new reader say he gave up on me because he had to resort to the dictionary for every second word. My favorite English Lit teacher says my language is often archaic. But considering the ancient world I volunteered from, to me it’s understandable.
I am not credentialed so my education has been for well over a half century a daily independent study program. When my world slept, I went to the books. Thought given and integrated and practiced. I cannot quote theories and postulates, I write what I know and after much struggle, am lightly editing my last journal entry of July 23, 2017 that tells how it is with me.)
We are given to speaking in a lofty language too so bear with us. What you are searching for is not without peril for you delve into territories best left to those whose ambitions list with the arch angels. You form a doctrine also best left to the farmers of the soul whose intent is to feed the people. You love your humans and do not leave them adrift. But we educate. Your dreams also are lofty at times but we lift when we can and surprised are we at times.
What we can do is give you a premise. A premise with teeth but not without bite. You wish to give what people will find comforting and yet something to grow on. And think. Work is something people avoid when they can but we give it a go.
Ineffable. That which is too lofty, too sacred and must not be spoken of. Must not be spoken of. Yet if we are to see growth and a planet not in peril, we have to work. Ineffable. The rolling thunder of which you speak, the implicate and explicate is what the scientists call it. We call it the core and outer limits of the dream as you say. You wish to enhance or enclose with an embrace the awesome splendor of the love you find permeating. You live in your god since he is All That is. The outside of you is the inside of his outside and this you knew from the beginning. The awesome splendor of the embrace is what your god is for you. Awesome. It is a word that people use and can relate to. Yet it does not answer the question why the killing of 6 million humans was not sufficient reason to stop one human.
You will not find a reason within human intelligence to explain that symptom of depravity exhibited by a human toward other members of his species. How could your ten year old heart at that time be ravaged by its knowledge and not the god to whom you were given for safekeeping? Though your parents held to the Grandfather God concept, you did not even then. What you ask the human mind cannot grasp. But maybe we begin to explain how goodness can operate without emotion and still be considered above evil.
It seems the word ineffable stems from being not spoken in terms of outside the sphere of sacred. Sacred is common with you. Beyond sacred is ineffable. Not spoken of. You find this difficult; hard to live with a concept beyond the realm of speaking. You think and therefore have the right to speak providing you intend no harm to the house of another nor to break the rice bowl from which he eats. So we adhere to these concepts. But there is a realm of existence so far beyond where we are and you are that it cannot be spoken of because there are no concepts beyond the immediate conceptual. Simply Is. All else Is. Or are, steps toward getting nearer to that place where awesomeness will begin to conceive a form holding yet further realms of thought not possible. Realms of thought not possible for the human brain.
It seems nonsense and yet, yet, ineffable is the word to use. Too lofty, too sacred and not spoken of because there are no words in the human lexicon, dictionary able to describe. When people speak of the god they believe in who has a hand on their shoulder it is a leaf that they feel and lean on. A leaf. The tree itself is a mighty redwood of understanding with roots going down levels of life that consume Every Living Thing and whose height is above sight. When man says there is no god he does not feel the weight of the leaf yet. He still has many lives to go to get to that point. Ineffable.
You see the word in conjunction with the mighty redwood. Man is a lightweight against the leaf but when he feels it, it is progress. For there now is the presence of Conscience. You see the sacredness of life and the child hurting. Many have not reached there yet, thinking still that all is a match of chemicals, hormones mostly that propel humans. Humans you say are divine and place them in Genesis where the beginning was. They cannot assimilate that information and cannot relate. Knowledge rises from within and is a Given.
Ineffable. Beyond the scope of humanity because there is no form, no concept of the word becoming. God is a thunderous roll of Becoming Yet To Be and that is why minds say that life is everlasting and everlasting. The residual of that thunderous roll to becoming is left within Mankind and is the god within. The leaf maybe they feel. That they humanize that weight and say their grandfather god will open his arms to them may be all they can handle at the moment. That there is a stronger someone than they is what they need. Someone to justify them. And what they do. And even if what they do is not good it may be what their human father commanded, wished, or taught so they are obedient to their human father god. You see the evolution and why it stagnates. Education is required for growth of the human spirit. We begin again.
The Vault of God
And the inside is the outside
of the inside of God and I am he, or it or she.
Just as my children were part of me, the
outside of me, while inside, yet separate.
I am they, that part of me that flows
through them, yet are they separate and
they are part of me, an expression of
who I am, yet separate.
With my memory bank, just as I am the
holder of my mother’s memories, I am
the vault of her who had me as her
expression. I am the vault of God who
expressed himself through me and I am
the holder of memories.
(I told a long time friend that for me God is a verb and Jesus is my Mentor A verb cannot cuddle nor is a comfortable pillow. But I was not then at the place of rolling thunder yet nor where all time is simultaneous that quantum physics espouses. So there was a lot of growing to do and much living yet to thread through. My mentor became my friend as I was held accountable and as I sought his divinity, I found mankind’s, and my own. In the Dead Sea Scrolls (The Nag Hammadi Library) Jesus said ‘I shall give you what no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.’ Even with no credentials and whatever our persuasion, we all have a highest and best we hold onto. It is a good beginning.)
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.
They were just children with a love offering. It glinted in the ground and when picked up it glittered as a star in the sky. Of course it would be given to the one loved most! And with grimy hand and full heart it was. With words accompanying the gift, they spilled as starbeams through fingers.
It was met with laughter at the piece of broken bottle swept in by the now polluted waters, with the love words washed with even more laughter. And the child ran and hid and forever found words choked in throat too tight to speak. And chatter found its way into conversation during lifetimes of too many words, none spoken ever with truth.
Devices soon replaced the human voice in pillow talk and words were shouted in derision, in hostility, in raucous laughter but seldom in measured voice which would take counsel with the sages. Humans soon counted on one syllable words, incomplete thoughts and reverted to gestures when language which had taken thousands of centuries to master came to a halt. Even though in the beginning we were told that the word is god. . . . we took away the child’s most important tool for growth and smashed it with our jealousy at his innocence as ours had been smashed. And evolution stagnates.
THE WORD IS GOD
In the beginning was the word
destined to touch the mind of man.
But the prevailing Spirit in its wisdom saw fit
to encumber each with the power to discern.
Meanings floated into space,
shaping themselves to fit the receiving mind.
Reaching their destination,
their shape changed to fit the owner.
Such turbulence! Such uneasiness!
Albeit because the word had taken life and risen
to meet the heart’s need.
The speaker’s heart had taken its intent
and placed upon the ethers the heart’s desire.
It gathered cadence as it rode
to meet the receiver’s prejudices.
The sender’s intent lay silent, lost.
The heavens only acknowledged
its primordial meaning.
Can it be said in truth
that the word be god?
It is.
For within its power to create
it moves with desperation to voice feelings,
to give breath to visions and to heal.
The word created creatures and dynasties,
wars and rebellions, held peace in abeyance
and brought us to life.
So speak softly when speaking.
Words carry the weight of the heart
with intent to topple empires
and worlds and men.
In the catalytic movement
of the word, the world’s heart beats,
years are gifted
and man’s future secured.
It is all we have.
painting by
Claudia Hallissey
Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Ramona, CA.
Last week when I posted Again Maudie??? and asked if doves or birds blinked intentionally, on Saturday’s 15 July entry I knew. As I bid good morning to Maudie she blinked several times. Her eye was pinned on me and a veil dropped, a light grey, greenish color and covered the eye. She did it several times and drove me to tears. She knew I questioned and she answered me. She was turned the opposite from the way son John took her photo. She is a dear and a good mother.
Since them I have watched her peck the eggs and the babies hatched. I have watched her feed the babes and groom them and I have watched the babes grow overnight and inch their mother to the brink of falling out of their nest. I have encouraged her to push them out so they could learn their wings will hold them up. I have stood and sat at the sink and when I turned away of course the biggest babe flew off. And hours later the little one found his wings fluttered and gave them a try and took off. The nest is empty. Every species has memory and we are connected. Maudie is a wonder and I suppose together we are both a wonder. My loss is again a physical loss. But my experience has taught me much.
And if I deny my experience, I may as well deny my existence. And I am. If nothing else, I am. Nothing teaches as well as experience. I am sure someone else said that sometime.
Journal entry
April 5, ‘84
‘the sun still shines,
the snow will come
and so will the night.
But your way home is well lighted.’
Journal entry
January 23,’86
The son asks, ‘should I drop Philosophy?’ ‘And I say. . . .there is no other class worth the taking. Except History and Literature. And Humanities. And some others like Ethics and the Religions of Man.’
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.
