BEGINNINGS IN FOOTSTEPS

Beginnings sounding of arid days with days too many
of sweltering sun, searching for shade, waiting for night
and the coolness setting in softly touching skin in relief

where stepping lightly on asphalt cushioned the burn
until calloused feet screamed less wanting ever only
to walk the sands of beaches and to soak in a saltwater
ocean and close eyes to the brilliance and drift away

to step in life’s millions and millions of footprints
each made with tenuous and anxious anticipation
hands always reaching out trying to touch the future
new beginnings are filled with Nature’s pine and fir

each day more precious than the day before the one
woke up to where quiet is profound in whisperings
and the boughs of trees tremble as the wind touches
each leaf to the tiniest pine needle shouting a presence

that only ever rivals the ocean waves distantly breaking
upon the ocean shores you once trod in the beginning
but never truly the beginning of where those footprints
would lead to another place and new shores not distant

where dreaming in another star filled night only shines
a light on memories old and new that are your life
woven together upon land and sea beginnings

© Reneé Espriu

Photo is My Own Digitized As Art

***Dreaming of Children***

A landscape of memory littered
with pieces of dreams
children that once lived
once laughed
oft times schemed

she sees a house abandoned now
ought times with love filled
each & every birth an
auspicious moment still
& each year

she knows she has been gifted
that any tears shed
were merely a bridge
between yesterdays
& tomorrows albeit

as other mothers cry oceans
of salt filled tears
for children that lived once
without fear in loving arms
with kisses, soft still

their auspicious moment shattered
a broken memory like
shards of glass
now buried descending deep
earth’s grief surpassed

whose sorrow cannot rebuild
houses in ashes smoldering
whose dreams
hold ghostly remnants
pale & fading

where a timeless epitaph remains
of young lives interrupted
photos tinged yellow
touched by death
a noxious poison

thinking of this she turns pages
a book of photographs old
& knows dreams
will still be her comfort
will still unfold

that some mother’s dreaming will
become a vile nightmare
an interloper in sun rays
unwanted slumber
empty days

© April 2017 Renee Espriu

I am a little late to post this on my site. It was first posted in the Bezine last month. You can read more of some wonderfully written poems and other posts at https://thebezine.com/project-type/the-bezine-april-2017-vol-3-issue-7. The photo below was taken from the Morgue File & Digitized by myself.

Dreaming Children

***Visualize The Raindrops Pausing***

i visualize in the warmth of the sun
or in the darkest hours of night

healing is held in the gift of seeing

i see between the wind blown leaves
pause each raindrop as it is falling

everything stops but my breathing

i listen to the silence all around
even in the midst of all the chaos

molecules of life touching gently

i close my eyes for a moment in between
for dreamers will always be dreaming

music notes orchestrate birth and death

i feel the strings of instruments hold me
soft as satin and stronger then webs of silk

healing is found in a moment of peace

i visualize oceans and mountains colliding
creating new life as gentle flowering buds

death can never be the ultimate ending

i see myself walking an ocean shoreline
by the still spray of a wave before it crashes

peace is standing between raindrops as they pause

i see there briefly a place my mind rests
devoid of wars, disease, famine and otherness

healing is held in the gift of seeing

what could be if only for a moment in time

© October 2016 Renee Espriu

Image Taken From Morgue File & Digitized by Myself

pausing-raindrops

This was first published at the Bezine where you can read more posts on their current topic of Rituals For Peace, Healing and Unity at https://intothebardo.wordpress.com.