The Nearness of God 

See how the breeze moves through 

Every blossom and leaf. 

See how the sounds of each bird 

And insect wing sings 

In our very heart’s core. 

Under a dome of rock in a sea cave. 

Listen to the ocean roar  

Hear the whales sing through green 

Halls shot with sunlight. 

God’s majesty in all. 

--Barbara Spring 

Am I on the Right Path?

Am I On The Right Path?

White pines twist east

Is this the right road?

Light breaks through ancient

Cathedral glass

The grass on the roadside glows

The soft gold of oak in

old libraries.

Pieces of dreams bend

Around my head—

Could this be the place?

My shoes slide on

The hollowed steps in

Medieval towns—

My fingers touch the soft edges

Of well loved books.

Logs honeycombed with age

Crumble like old silk.

So now I have come the edge of the sea

Where shells and small stones roll

Tumble in breakers

Tumble in salty foam

So where to now?

            --Barbara Spring

Ruby Throat

Ruby Throat

The hummingbird darts

Like a watch fob swings

Bejeweled plumb bob

On a golden string

His wings a blur

His clock work parts

Cut backward forward

Pendulum arcs.

He shivers blue silk

Splinters the light

The shards sing and shine

In his courtship flight.

                                                                         
                                                                         --Barbara Spring

A Sphere of Years

A Sphere of Years

I am a sphere of years

Rolling on space/time’s

Warp and weft.

In Chartres Cathedral

Infant Jesus holds

A golden ball in the palm of his hand

On the black Madonna’s lap.

From darkness we come

And the Divine Child is born within

And every year is born again.

Fox Gloves

Fox Gloves

Go to the meadow in the morning

And see fox gloves dancing

 on a hot breezy day in August.

Fox gloves will

Cling to your memory it seems

 And live forever in your dreams

Of red foxes wearing

White fox gloves.

--Barbara Spring

Fox Gloves

Fox Gloves

Go to the meadow in the morning

And see fox gloves dancing

 on a hot breezy day in August.

Fox gloves will

Cling to your memory it seems

 And live forever in your dreams

Of red foxes playing and

Their white fox gloves.

At the Aquarium: Moon Fish

Moon Fish

Quicksilver moon fish

Deep in the dreaming sea

Shining schools

Of silver moon

Fish flash

Turn, stop on a dime

Turn again and splash

Turn again when they see me

round black eyes—small craters stare at me.

Lake Effect Snow

Lake Effect Snow

The lamp post wears a tall chef's hat

juniper branches bow low under deep

white weighty snow.

Wind pirouettes, now west, now north

northwest, southeast

in treetops, shakes down waterfalls of snow--

drapes sinuous shapes on eaves

where icy daggers grow.

With still more snow in its maw

the wind moans low.

Frost flowers sparkle my window panes

and still more snow.

Harvest

Geese filled fields and apple fragrant orchards

Fruit stands bursting bins—

Bees tumble in velvet blooms

Gather sweetness, fly through honeyed air.

Grapes hang heavy on vines, purple, red and green.

Such sweetness asks you to breathe out blessings there.

Salmon streak streams with silver

And hunters lie in twilight darkening

Waiting for swift white tail deer.

.

--Barbara Spring

Another Poem of Mine

Dark Memories

Locusts buzz Missouri Missouri Missouri

In the trees above.

Their empty shells cling to thin bark

Like cast off suits of armor—

Hinged with sightless moon eyes.

All night crickets chirp like stars

And we lay on the grass—

Too hot to go to bed upstairs.

In the moonlight fat bodied moths

With huge wings:

luna clear as moonlight

 polyphemous, with owlish blue eyes,

cecropia mottled with gold

Sip from flowers that scent the humid air.

We hear blinking of lightening bugs

And the secret sound of earthworms

Tunneling mazes below our blankets.

And we listen to ears of corn growing

In the Victory garden.

Their silken threads gossip of

Mayans and Pottawatomis.

We can hear

The trumpet vine’s brassy blare

And fox hounds baying near Hinkson Creek

Far far away.

Ancient Lyres

Ancient Lyres

Solar winds tuned ancient lyres—

Bright fires burned in the eyes of wolves

As their tremolos entered hidden waters

Where little brown bats dipped over secret lakes.

Lunar mists in a minor key hid them all from sight.

I thought I heard those ancient lyres

As I wandered the woods last night.

--Barbara Spring

Celestial Mirror

Celestial Mirror

The water is a Celestial mirror today—

Reflects sun and later moon and stars.

Drops of dew on blades of grass

Mirror my house of blue with roof of gray.

A white tail deer tip toes toward me

Like a gift then startles—

 leaps away.

Blood red berries hang from the bough

By my front door.

I don’t want to leave this world I adore

Yet I know other worlds are in store.

I see their reflections in the water

All around me.

                                 --Barbara Spring

Sophia Found by Barbara Spring

She is in galaxies and billions of worlds.

Sophia is in photons and the darkness of caves

in stately waves and gentle winds, in living water

air streams and seeps, deep jungles

and grassy meadows.

Sophia infuses granite, gold, diamonds, emeralds,

rubies, carnelian and lapis lazuli

and all precious matter.

She penetrates sandstone, bogs and deserts

all places high and low; wastelands and cities.

She creates the tensile strength of spider webs

and gives intricate designs

to butterfly wings, spotted cats,

colorful snakes and frogs

and our finger prints.

She is on hilltops and at your crossroads.

She is under the oceans and permeates

mountain ranges and Earth’s core.

She is in the glaciers, mists and snows.

Sophia shows migrations the way

and is found in all seasons.

She is love that flows like milk

from mother to baby

the love between a man and a woman

the love toward people

of all colors and conditions.

Sophia is the Love that was present

from the beginning.

excerpted from Sophia's Lost and Found: Poems of Above and Below

On Puget Sound

Air Earth Fire Water

A misty drizzle falls over Puget Sound—

enters every living thing

thimble berries I pick from the roadside—

berries red, soft, tender

stain my fingers red

flood my tongue with tang.

Water seeps into leaves, grass, me.

I’m as damp as the black crenelated slug

crossing the forest path with deliberate gravity.

Under a lush green cedar bough I lean

against its stout rough trunk—

I feel the qi in flowing through every living thing

And in water, minerals, earth and from

the sun cupped yellow marsh marigolds.

A sweetness breathes from pink rose hedges,

chicory stands sentinel for my blue longing

 Ferns breathe green ideas 
 into the fallen leaves

Mist falls on an unseen singer haunting

the forest canopy with  unearthly scales of notes.

Imbued, baptized the networks of roots under

my boots know I am here—the news

travels all the way to the salty Sound.

Octopus, seals, sea otters hear the news.

They know my love of them and the gray whale

I greeted in the Baja last winter breaches

its great body as it looks shore ward.

We are all joined in this joy.

                                      --Barbara Spring

Galapagos Lad

Galapagos Lad

Rafael whistles a vermilion flycatcher to us

bright scarlet male

ascending green branch by green branch.

Rafael grew up on these strange islands

learned the language of its birds

and of undersea creatures.

He speaks to sea lions

imitates their comical walk

swims in their wake.

He knows the caves of sharks—

the Galapagos lad inhabits

these wild volcanic wastes.

                                 --Barbara Spring

Sacred Dancers

Sacred Dancers

           for Pam

Dance an expression of your soul
Dance and it shall make you whole
Dance until your body’s spent
Dance and set your spirit free.

Dance down the days
In steps of praise
Feel it in your heartbeat
Feel it in your toes
Dance and the angels dance with you.

Angels lean out their windows to see
The children of God
Dancing in glee.

                                                                                     
                                                                                     --Barbara Spring

 

In the Cool Dunes

In the Cool Dunes

 Gifts of the west wind and the glaciers

cool dunes rise above the windy beach.

For thousands of years the dunes

grew tall and then the sand began to sing.

The sand sang of quartz from Wisconsin

and of ice mountains grinding

through, of Lake Michigan currents

and November winds that blew. 

Quartz and hematite granules sang

as young girls wove garlands of wildflowers

from the wooded dunes:

bloodroot, Dutchman’s breeches, hepatica,

trillium, violets and Pitcher’s thistle.

They played in dappled shadows under

sassafras, witch hazel and choke cherry trees.

Bewitched, the young boys carved their names

beside names of the girls they loved

in the smooth gray bark of beech trees

while silent deer  and wood ducks watched

in the cool dunes. 

--Barbara Spring

The Wilderness Within

Bog

Bog

No inlet or outlet in a bog

The acid water is a desert

Strange watery desert

Hostile still.

The edges quake underfoot

Green sphagnum sponge sated sucks

At my shoes. 

Tastes are tart in a bog:

Labrador tea with leathery leaves

Bog thyme, bog cranberries and

The Venus flytrap with red veins

Phallic and vaginal at the same time

A belle fleur sans merci

Delicate sundew arranged to entrap

In gem like globules that glitter.

Tamaracks are slow to grow in the bog.

When burned their wood is hot

Enough to boil maple syrup

And cool enough not to burn birch bark.

                                                --Barbara Spring

Harbor Island The lLow Country

Harbor Island South Carolina                          

On a low country barrier island

where sea tides sweep

         in each day on the sandy beach

through salt marshes

             where long billed willets

and snowy stilt legged egrets fly

where alligators and turtles bask in the mud

grow long and fat

no pity there.

The beach alive with mud snails

And worms that hide

Pelicans ride the wind

sandpipers skitter, sea biscuits wash in

yellow corals torn from sea bed

wave in the wind.

I wonder where they have been

these empty scallop shells, oyster shells

cockle shells, mussel shells—

bits of mystery to me.

The live oaks and long leaf pines

grow tall on what the sea blows in

Spanish moss trails from their limbs

thrive on salty sea winds.

                              --Barbara Spring

November Day

November Day

Golden leaves fall before my eyes

tree tops swirl in

north westerly winds—a white

unicorn melts into deep conifer green

burnt sienna and scarlet leaves of many trees.

I cherish days like these.

 

--Barbara Spring