hibiscus grows beautiful
reds
oranges
yellows
i see them through your eyes
eyes no longer seeing
& the mockingbird sings
no song of his own
as the sun sets
spilling light
over those things
you left
for us to love
© December 2013
Renee Espriu
Image Taken From Morgue File
feathered cobwebs secreted
in the color of gray mist
thick as yellow turpentine
like filtered rays of sun
days longing to be kissed
light filters through
from a place called Spring
soft moments slipping away
brushing against your cheek
whispers fill the emptiness
playing amongst your dreams
settling in the hallways
hidden from sunlit streams
edges are tinged in sadness
as a funeral wreath displayed
before life was colored green
when the air was scent imbued
before time began falling away
a thief crept silently to you
as you felt a rush of air
as feathered cobwebs gathered
in the color of gray mist
now caught in memories’ lair
© November 2013
Renee Espriu
Photo by Karpati Gabor/Morgue File
A visit with my dad recently brought closer to home, once again, the dilemma of growing old and having memory problems. I find, at the age of 61, that I, myself, cannot remember sometimes the things I need to…that seem just out of reach. Dad was diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia and on good days, he is “spot on” as they say. But other days I can see the fog that settles in as he struggles to grasp those things that came so easily to him only a few months ago. He is in very good health and for that I am thankful but sometimes wish he was just a bit more of his old self. We have all adjusted as with time everything changes.
you were the weaver of moments
the mender of dreams
as you walked your journey
a man without means
you were the Bishop of Salishan
you walked among the poor
sat with the outcast
you talked with gang members
the teacher who was alas
always the Bishop of Salishan
you chose a pain filled reality
a place of spiritual grace
in the midst of hunger & murder
you transcended that space
you were the Bishop of Salishan
you left in the season of changes
leaves burnished red, gold & orange
loved ones waited patiently
your work here now done
never forgotten, the Bishop of Salishan
you are still the weaver of moments
still the mender of dreams
as you now are with the angels
a healer with means
always the Bishop of Salishan
Image Taken From Morgue File
© November 2013
Renee Espriu
The city where I live lost one of its’ most loved advocates for the disenfranchised. He was a Lutheran Pastor who founded a mission on our Eastside and made it his life’s call to spend every day he could among the people who came to call him friend.
Pastor Ron Vignec will never be forgotten and I was most fortunate to be one of many who called him my friend.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/11/11/2885597/rev-ron-vignec-founder-of-salishaneastside.html
walnut trees growing
in Germantown, PA
as I walked beneath
their leafy boughs
another time & space
I knew how it felt
to touch their
rough tree bark &
believed I could climb
upon a branch &
share with singing lark
for she brought them
into her kitchen
to share in baking song
& made them part & parcel
to bring us all along
her memory of growing up
as she walked
beneath their shade
baking smells embracing
in Germantown, PA
© November 2013
Renee Espriu
My grandmother was raised in Germantown, PA and came to live on the West Coast as a teenager. Walnut trees grow in abundance there and so using them in baking became part of her tradition. There was rarely anything that did not have them in it and her coffee table always had a variety of nuts in the shell to wait for someone to crack them open.
Image is My Art/Colored Pencil, Pastel, Digital Enhancement
Altered Google Image
while the crescent moon
is high in the sky
somewhere between
dawn & midnight
I feel an angel
pass by this way
when the dampness of dew
is held softly on grass
looking much like tears
shed in sadness cast
I feel an angel
pass by this way
my mind wraps ’round
old sayings & things
‘when you hear a bell
an angel gets their wings’
I feel an angel
pass by this way
when I smell the scent
of a forgotten perfume
or fragrant flowers
within my room
I feel an angel
pass by this way
though scripted not
in the time after passing
& the harshness
of the hour has gone
never lasting
I feel an angel
pass by this way
now of spiritual grace
they fill the space
so unforgiving
once void of all
that was
theirs’ in living
I feel an angel
pass by this way
© October 2013
Renee Espriu
Google Image
I consider myself to be
a peaceful person
living in a place
not fraught with war
void of detonating bombs
fragments of life gone
I consider myself but
to no avail
for the rumbling of war
has never been far
as off in the distance
on foreign soils
it creeps very close
to my own back door
I considered myself to be
living my life apart
even during Viet Nam years
seen on broadcast news
of death and others tears
of something I was
unable to touch
I considered myself & then
my son joined in the ranks
of men and women called
to fight in a war fueled
by the inner turmoil
of a people distant
and out of sight
I considered myself to be
untouched by the carnage
the destruction of
people unknown to me
whose lives were
never mentioned
I considered myself & then
you came home & you
seemed different
for you brought the
memories with you
that now touch my life
to forever affect it
with war
© September 2013
Renee Espriu
I have known many who became soldiers. My own father and his brothers fought in World War II, my brother was in service during Viet Nam but did not see battle. But when my own son went to the Middle East, even though he was fortunate enough not to have had to be in a battle, he saw enough of the aftermath, that it has affected his life in ways I will never be able to understand. For most soldiers do not speak of what they have seen and heard but these things, I know, cannot be erased from memory.
Please do visit Jamie’s site and her site Into the Bardo. Contributions are welcome.
Please unite with us on Into the Bardo next week for Poets Against War, which is really saying Poets for Peace.Â
We will start with something special on Sunday (it may or may not include a poem, Terri Stewart will surprise us) and then each of the next six days we’ll host poems from six different poets.  Throughout the week, we’d like you to join us – not only as readers – but as writers by putting links to your own anti-war or pro-peace poems in the comment section on Into the Bardo. We’ll gather the links together in one post and put them up as a single special page. Please don’t worry about questions like whether you’ve been published or whether you think the work is good. These questions are irrelevant. It’s your heart in the work that counts. That’s where the power is.   So please…
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Google Image
splintered wood from
a lightning struck tree
catching particles
of afternoon sun
like reflections
of another self
transformed in
Alice’s looking-glass
catching particles
of colored prisms
the waterfall dances
over time’s precipice
& the dragonfly is seen
catching particles
of each ray of sun
season of summer done
© September 2013
Renee Espriu
Goggle Image
fur soft and course
all at once
like brush bristles
left untouched
eyes speaking to me
from deep inside
her voice only heard
in a blink of time
always rescued them
as they came my way
her I chose
an autumn day
© September 2013
Let me begin by saying the above pic is not of the dog I recently adopted but looks enough like her, I decided to use it here. I call the dog I adopted Dulce and she is 7 months old. She will hopefully, like all my pets, have a very long life ahead of her. She traveled here to Washington along with many other dogs that were rescued from what they call ‘kill facilities’ in California. She has spirit and I believe will let nothing get her down.
Google Image
rose petals lie soft
atop the cedar chips
casting no aspersions
on my memory of youth
they belie not their
sharp thorned hostess
as those in our lives
with empty laden promises
but they draw us near
as the insects to nectar
to plant seeds of life
as an unplanned gesture
life is never black & white
nor is my spiritual quest
like a rose in its’ guise
a journey of countless steps
© September 2013
Renee Espriu
reneejustturtleflight.com 