Blog Posts - reflections from the interior

birthday project remembering continued

3/23/2015

cross purposes

at cross purposes still
I want the easy way
I am the good thief
wrongly accused
suffering
but my heart of darkness
knows
I am the bad thief
blaming god
who has forsaken me

at the Center
where the broken arms meet
my heart opens
the paradox to surrender
and I declare
not my will but thine
be done

-pab ©march 2015-

the birthday project

2/23/2015

the birthday project

the day of birth
the moments of death

in between

single flower floats
upon endless sea

- pab © feb 2015 -

valentines and love

2/12/2015

emergence

seed conceived in time before memory
knowing but one heartbeat
waits expectantly

sunlight, heat stroke,
in time-full-ness
barriers breaking, roots trembling
green shoot does emerge
grows potent, life-full

thorns pierce tender flesh
wounds of doubt bleed and weep
complacency exposed

death or life? the looming question
branching now or forward rally cry?

bruised stem bends
wound becomes scar
caressed gently
grows smooth, strong
and thirsting

flowering
long awaited
such that youthful fantasy
could not contain

timeless now
fade it must
colors thin and crumbling
thorns dissolving
fragrance dispersing
formless
seed becomes eternal
gift

-pab © feb 2015-

broken hope

1/25/2015

prayer for the day

fill my eyes with invitation
open my ears to hear an unspeaking heart
allow me to bring spaciousness and grace to the room that I offer

may my sitting down give welcome to the weary
my rising up be with purpose

cause wisdom to temper all my speaking
let generosity flow through my outstretched hands
make my feet eager to approach in kindness

let me smooth the worn pathway
and clear away the mist
to reveal the hidden flower

permit me to carry into the day
the fragrance of blessing

-pb © 2 may 2014

Epiphany's Thread

12/28/2014

Above all Love

faith, hope and love abide
and the greatest of these is Love
- 1 Corinthians 13:13

May you be blessed this holy season
and in the new year to come

- Phyllis

© pab 2014

************

Behold the Light

11/30/2014

faith

ultimate and vast
the water running running
running inside the wind
compelled by a wisp of fragrance
from a single rose

from her center in brown dry fields
that lie thirsty beside her flowering
and far away to the crest of distant horizons
she is demanding haste

certain she is that salvation will come
fields will rise up in song again
and children and children
and more children will dance
and a single rose
will no longer weep

pab © 30 november 2014

O O O O O O O O O

return to all saints and sinners

11/16/2014

making allowance

and so it is in time
where all is Sacred Gift
we receive in due time
amplitude
space to let the past
complete itself
with the all of it that seemed
unforgettable
at rest

that in the splendor
of heaven's luminescence
our companions
in their fragile Lovingness
may shed Light upon our path

from "untying the web"
2011- pab

All Saints and Sinners

10/31/2014

IV.

with great pride
he strode about
on marble floors
in his robes of velvet

You hastened to his window
at midnight

now he cries and laughs
and weeps
in his rags
in the desert

it is all the same

-from praise and lamentation and praise

© 2011 pab

Autumn Return

10/13/2014

Autumnal Equinox

Turning, She turns, into her past, six months gone,
seeing once again her vibrant generosity spilled across the lands and heavens,
seeing once again herself, arrayed
in gossamer robes of peach, yellow and lavender,
her fragrant breath, her song, that decreed it all to be, drifting, floating;
She, the music, symphonic perfection
She, loving into sunlight, the darkened sky
She, the dance emergent, impetuous, wild.

She crafts her naked soul before our hungry eyes,
gives herself away in extravagant and unrestrained pleasure,
She orchestrates the heated days and nights,
that we must run laughing into her open arms,
drunk on her voluptuous bounty,
swooning on her potent fragrance;
we surrender to her moments, helpless with joy,
heedless of passing time.

Turning, She turns, full forward,
She pulls her velvet robes close upon her breast,
her upturned eyes shoot golden streams of light out unto her furthest stars,
She ignites all lands and heavens with her fiery countenance.
Reaching down, she touches the hem of her garment,
her blood red heat explodes across the landscape, her power
above her, below her, around her, within her,
She causes all of life to break into prisms
of rust, amber and scarlet veined in vibrant green, edged in burnt umber.

Her dance halts, flawlessly
She commands the breath between the measures,
turning, from staccato racing of her summer tango, slowly
She descends into haunting whispers of her requiem,
with grace.

breathless, inside her tipping point,
we pause.

- © 9-22-14 pb -

Roots!

5/11/2014

we are so close

we are so close
fire igniting naked bones
sheer exposure of transience
as a thin veil caught by the wind
passing before the face
of the sun

the splendor of each of us
ablaze in the Eye of God

- from "untying the web"
pb © 2011