For the Love of a Fisherman

My Bathroom

Smells

Like the ocean

Deep, salty,

Briny air

Even clean

His wet clothes

Smell of fish

And sea

My kitchen sink

Is full of shells

With critters

Still intact

The fisherman

Has brought them home

For his sweetheart

Who loves them both

The salty seaman

And the wild ocean

And i am witness

To their love and hate

Their comings

And their goings

Their separations

And togetherness

As turbulent

And peaceful

As the ever changing

Ocean

Alchemy

 

i am red

fire engine red

flame red

full of desire

a plump passionate

purple red pomegranate

i am rock hard red lava clay

older than dirt

porous from heat

and aloneness

blood red

devoid of blue

water sky river sea

a phoenix without the ashes

without the heat

without the fiery sun

frozen corpuscles

red

blue

purple

none of the above

a colored paradox

i am red

i am blue

i am undecided

ambivalent

my own knight

in shining armor

my garment dyed

with the berries

of the forest

red

green

black

all of the above

below the red

smolders

the still unbidden

flames of desire

i must breathe

life into the embers

fire into my soul

longing into reality

red to gold

Pattra Burnetto Monroe Sept 2000

Whetstone

Adversity can hone us

Water on rock

Sharpening a knife

Water on stone

Shaping a blade

Cuts to the quick

Ice on fire

Fire on ice

Constant adversity

Can pierce the heart

Carving a valley

Deepening the abyss

Breaking the heart

Open

~PBM 2004 (revised December 2021)

Particles of Light (composed on Brigid's Day, February 2020)

This poem is for you, Dear Maggie. Thank you for being our sister, our songbird, and our friend. You are loved and remembered. Thank you for your legacy of music and laughter. 

January 20,1952 - January 20, 2020

Particles of  Light

Shattered

I pick up the pieces

Jagged edges

speak to me

of our history

Here

we played hide and seek and

Once 

when we were still

very young

we touched tongues

intrigued

by the thought

of french kissing

Years later

watching how fire burns

we huddled together

on the beach

as the night sky

suddenly revealed 

the constellations

You could name all 

but one

Scattered

like the stars

I picked up your ashes

knowing the dust and the sand

aren't you

but holding them

just the same

Pattra Burnetto Monroe 2020

Brigid's Day Poem

Particles of  Light

Shattered

I pick up the pieces

Jagged edges

speak to me

of our history

Here

we played hide and seek

Once 

when we were still

very young

we touched tongues

intrigued

by the thought

of french kissing

Years later

watching how fire burns

we huddled together

on the beach

as the night sky

suddenly revealed 

the constellations

You could name all 

but one

Scattered

like the stars

I picked up your ashes

knowing the dust and the sand

aren't you

but holding them

just the same

pbm january 2020

Let There Be Grace

Trees in open trunks

Going to peoples homes

To become brightly trimmed

In celebration

Of Christ's birth

People without homes

Don't wish for trees

Or turkeys with trimming

Anymore than you or I

In tribulation

They wish for shelter

from the cold

A moment's warmth

A minute's peace

An hour of hope

A home of their own

Pattra Burnetto Monroe 

December 1995

The Visitors

The joy
you brought to me
still lingers
I'm dancing
in the
afterglow
Laughter illuminates me
Look
I've become
a wood nymph
a sea sprite
a dandelion
in a child's
breath

Pattra Burnetto Monroe 

Light Years

Light Years

The stars have been singing to me lately 
Yet they have not been singing 
The blues or a sad lament
Or even a sappy romantic ballad 
From the past
Instead, the stars have been 
Singing me the truth
That was once mine in childhood

The stars have been singing a song of hope

Humbled in their presence, I am awed
By their radiance and their glorious abundance
I hear their song and I feel
Small and insignificant
Lost for a moment in the vastness of this wonder
Then, as I inhale deeply, I find myself expanding


I find that I am a part of all that is

This swirling mass of light and dark
A part of this magnificent starry night
And as separate as each star appears
They are all held together by the night sky

And even when dawn comes and for a moment
The stars seem gone
I remember the milky way
The breast of infinite possibilities 
And I am nourished
By the thought that I am not alone
But just one piece of the puzzle
The mystery unfolding
One atom
One nucleus
In a vast and wondrous universe

Pattra Burnetto Monroe

Two Minds 

I have been of two minds lately

In this month of May or December 

And even while distracted

I have felt the sun and moons influence 

The sway of the tides
Pulling and pushing
Carrying me away
I have been of two minds lately
One to laugh and one to cry

The seasons they keep changing
Revolving round the sun
An oversimplication of how 
my heart has grown

I've watched the river lately
Ships and tides flowing in and out

Breathing Tonglen for us all

Breathing in the sorrow
Breathing out compassion

The seasons they keep changing
Revolving round the sun
Duality brings both confusion and a bit of clarity



And I've listened to the Angels lately

Trying to avoid the news
Which isn't always easy
considering the times we're in

I have been of two minds lately
One to laugh and one to cry

I have been of two minds lately

One to give and one to receive
Relearning ways of being
I have been before

I have been unpacking lately

Finding evidence of life and love

Believing that
The Universe has a heart
Unsure if it beats for me
I have been of two minds lately

One of hope and one of dread

Life contains so much lately 
That death can take away 

In looking for the blessings
This becomes a way to pray

I have been of two minds lately

One to laugh and one to cry

Then a friend told me

There is no right way to grieve
Grieving knows its way
I have been of two minds lately
One to laugh and one to cry
And one to pray

written June 7, 2007  revised 9/9/11 revised again May 12, 2019 another additional word in December 2025
By Pattra Burnetto Monroe

The Storm

I am the eye

I am the seed

Riding the current

Tossed

Held

Led 

By wind & rain

Mother Earth 

Opens her arms

Her womb

I am rooted

In love
I am the storm

Pattra Burnetto Monroe

11:11 

November 11, 2016

In No Time

Oh, I wish I could share
The wisdom of my heart
The knowing I have finally found
But in no time it can vanish

Leaving me bereft.

My thoughts are loosening
Loosing their importance and
I am loosing mind
And matter 

which once was so important 

no longer is

Oh, both time and words
Have meaning still
And it is still the thought
That counts

It's just that to my surprise 

My priorities have shifted 

once again
Here in the land of
No Time
Where my thoughts
Silently drift away

Here where I cannot remember 
Where only Now 
Resides

There is a freedom

In forgetting 

A warmth in letting go

Funny, how at one time
Time and words
And meanings
Once ruled my life

Now, time and words
And meaning
Drift quietly
Through my mind

Silent, heartfelt words
Felt
Then flee
What need of them to stay

What need of me to say them

I have tried to leave nothing 

left unsaid 

My "I love yous" pour from me 

like water from a fountain

in the center of the village courtyard 

where we gather to greet 

and meet and leave again

I have grown here

I have become old here 

I have laughed and wept and loved here

And my heart is filled with Joy when I watch the children play

Once I thought I would become

a shaman or a wrinkled crone 

full of wit & wisdom

 

Instead I find 

I am but a babe 

In a new woods
Where time has flown and my stories seem to have a life of their own

Here inside this ever changing world, I wait, mostly patiently, 

In my new home, the present 

And although I still travel 

back and forth in time

I have made a discovery here 

Here on the page and in this present moment and found 

some measure of contentment in my minutes And my hours 

And my days

And some humor or a bit of irony 

I smile and laugh often

I talk to myself and inanimate objects, an occasional apology for bumping into something 

I did not see

"Time waits for no one" 

Sometimes I have no idea 

what that means

But

What I do know is I can cry and laugh at the same time and even allow myself to weep 

and writing is a way to pray and that divine timing does exist and today I will be okay


Pattra Burnetto Monroe
June 2016 (revised March 2023)

In a Shell

There is an ocean
In my left ear
It swishes round
Like the heartbeat
In an ultrasound

I won't write the
Sound here
It is enough that
It is my constant
Companion

You do not want
It stuck in your
head like a song
You cannot forget
But wish you could

It is enough
That sometimes
It drives me crazy
And occasionally
Like now
I can love it

Pattra Burnetto Monroe April 2016

Just A Moment Away

Like me, She was out on her own

Like me, She was glad to have "caught" the streetcar

Like me, She was an older, an elder on the outside

A wise little innocent child crone on the inside

Like me, She was wounded and smiling and open

Like me, She was missing some teeth

Like me, near-death had visited

Leaving a vague but impressive package

And then departed

Like me, Her heart had been broken

So deeply

so profoundly

so vividly

so purposefully

Like me, Her heart had cracked and cracked and cracked

Like me, She thought it could not crack any further

Without killing her

Only to discover

When she awoke

She was not dead

Only done with the small things
that could deaden
And kill her
like being afraid.

This poem is dedicated to Renae, the beautiful lady on the streetcar. 

by Pattra Burnetto Monroe March 2016 This image came from the internet yesterday. I do not know its origin, but the timing was perfect.

I met this elf of a woman on the streetcar the other day, she was huffing and puffing as she plopped into her seat, so relieved to have made it into and onto the streetcar. Our eyes locked as she sat in the seat reserved for the elderly and disabled. We laughed and smiled. We started talking across the aisle from each other. She moved over to sit next to me and we continued to talk and she apologized for her bad breath (which it wasn't) and missing teeth and her lop-sided smile, I nodded in empathy because I'd walked in those toothless-grin shoes and told her that it was perfectly okay with me as, “my teeth are now wooden”. We laughed some more and then she told me her story. 

In five city blocks it is possible to fall totally in love with a stranger. I've done it many times. Here is Renae's story: she lost half her teeth due to an illness. She began, "I had a fever of 109 degrees and survived, while I was in the hospital, in a coma, I had a long conversation with my grandmother. I was surprised she was there, but then, I was even more surprised that my son wasn't, because he had died when he was twenty years old and I expected he would be the one to come see me. The nurses and the doctors all heard me talking away and told me this when I woke up, but I remember the conversation clearly. She told me to "go back!"

Here's what happened prior to the coma: Renae was bitten by a bug last summer. The bug bite became infected. It was summertime in the city. "Hot time, Summer in the city" and she passed out on the sidewalk. Her blood began to boil before help came. She was taken to the hospital by an ambulance and remained in a coma for several days or longer. I'm not sure of the time thing as we literally only talked together for about five minutes or about five to ten city blocks on a streetcar and in appearance we looked very different which is part of the point is that our similarities far outweighed our differences.

Our differences of skin color (me white, she black), or our hair color (hers still black, mine grey or pewter as my Meg sweetly refers to it), or weight (she petite, me obese), plus she also looked so spry... I can barely walk these days. Our differences didn't stop us from talking or smiling or striking up a conversation. Our ability to see pass them allowed us to have this precious moment and experience together.  I hope I never forget her... but then, I forget a lot lately, too. We also had that in common. xooooxp

 

Not-so-Humble Pie

I don't try to be difficult
It just sort of comes
Naturally to me

©pbm 2016

Rhythm and Blues and a few Country Western Haikus: Return to the Garden

Rhythm and Blues and a few Country Western Haikus: Return to the Garden

DEFINITION

I AM NOT

A PERFORMER

A WRITER

A POET

A DANCER

A SINGER

A MUSICIAN

OR AN ARTIST

BUT I DO THESE THINGS

ACT

WRITE

MUSE

DANCE

SING

PLAY

AND CREATE

BECAUSE I AM

A WOMAN

A CHILD

A MOTHER

A LOVER

A FRIEND

ALIVE 

AND BREATHING

AND BECAUSE I CANNOT

NOT 

WRITE

LAUGH

SING

CRY

GROW

AND CHANGE

pbm (1997)

Untitled CWH # 1014

Dreams die sometimes

even when we want them

to remain alive.

~PBM  2014

The Long Sleep

I like the way
the shell
falls away
from the poppy
to reveal 
a flower

Bright orange
they call
to me

I like the way
my breasts
reach out
to you
like sirens


beckoning
you to taste
their tips


Darker rose
calling
your name
I've found a way
to disturb
your sleep


and to awaken you 
from your slumber
with dreams of love

and fragrant flowers
that we shall
call desire

 

by Pattra Burnetto Monroe  April 23, 2008.