Music

My poor soul
and her love
for wild things
while always held back
by my human fear
and caution, by
my aging frame and
ever milder disposition.
Music is the thing; it
draws my soul out with
its harmonious tones.
A song I love
enters my ears,
spiraling down
to my heart chamber,
reaching my soul there
where she lives.
The chorus comes in
and she hears the
round, pearly notes;
she strings them together
as a necklace
around her throat.
She grabs my hands
and we move in time
to the beat, we
sway to the rhythm
of her wildness.
And she smiles
and I smile,
or I cry
and she cries.
And her voice
and my voice
both sing along.

Music and souls.
Both are wild,
both are tender,
neither can be seen
in the mirror.
Neither can be touched
with the span
of a human hand;
both transcend
place and race,
age and gender.

© Sherri Brannon


Music has always been one of the joys of my life, from the time I was a little girl (thank you, Dad). With it, I can endure so many things. It empowers me to keep going. It helps me dig down deep and find the roots of things. With music in my ears, birds flying across the blue sky seem ten times more beautiful.

Sometimes I search for a song that will sing in time with my pain, like putting on rain and then listening. Other times, a song will make my heart burst and unfold with gladness. With music, I can dance my way out of the dark, close my eyes and dream, smile through grateful tears...it helps me through so many things.

Many thanks to the music of BTS. Their deep, meaningful lyrics have inspired me in recent months - I’m writing more poetry than I’ve written in a very long time. Great music always does that.

Drape

At the end of a day,
I take off my memories
of the bright noon clouds
and drape them
across the chair
beside my bed.
I hope the joy of them
will hang in the air around me
while I sleep.
I unbutton my thoughts
of the creek rambling by
with its shadows and shine,
how it carried the perfume
it found upstream last week
from that wild gypsy rose
on the mountainside.
I remember
how the scent of it
reached my nose
with a lovely blend
of crushed petals
and tender rain tears.

I slip off that moment
when I couldn't look up
and stare directly
at the sun, but the sun
was so kind; it gazed up at me,
instead, from its mirror
in the pond.
With sleepy eyes, I realize
the vivid memory
of that brilliant sky
has left finger prints,
like wet paint, on
everything I've touched.
Maybe I shouldn't
have undressed these thoughts,
tossed them so carelessly
from my mind?
Perhaps I'll find myself
waking from sleep,
reaching in the dark,
putting them back on.
I'll cradle the fabric of them
against my chest, my
sky-stained fingers folded,
blue and vibrant,
into my palms.


© Sherri Brannon

Bells

I dreamt last night
that every blooming flower
had a bell sound,
and I walked with wonder
across the ringing ground,
ankle deep in chiming blossoms,
with blades of grass swaying
and cricket beats battling
in time with the song.

And deep-heart colors
leaked from every
singing bird's throat,
scarlet flung
from a cardinal's beak,
indigo from a bluebird's notes,
the juice of it dripping,
staining their wings
while they sang.

And sunshine on our human skin
felt like a million kisses,
to help all the lonely people.
It dappled the oaks
with green tints and tones,
and both the trees
and the people
leaned into the wind
to clutch the sunshine's gold.

© Sherri Brannon

[iPhone photo edited with Glaze and iColorama apps.]

Blue My Mind

These days I’m all about
the softness of my soul
her quiet voice
at the bottom of my lungs
her tender voweling
the taste in my mouth
that her poetry brings
and I let her flow
because pooling her words
in my throat
not letting them flow
makes me choke
Words are only breath
floating out of the mouth
on the waves of the soul
I write thoughts like this down
but I don't believe
these words are my own
it's my soul who is speaking
her eyes that are seeing
her words are my breath
this is my strength.

A touch of ancient sorrow
came with me out of the womb
but it hasn’t taken me
it hasn’t won
my brain loves to brood
it loves to blue my mind
but I've realized some things
how, when a linear mind
fills up with the roundness
of soulful things
sharp fears lose their edges
how, even prayers can be
self-delusions
when spoken with the dread
of a human
I lament the fact
that my soul's deepest thoughts
can't be expressed
in earth's language
the pureness of her intentions
gets lost in crude translations
and I know by now
that happiness is rationed
along with pain and passion.

Can I find God
with the burden
of a mind, I wonder,
when fear steps in
with hope and love
and they all
intertwine together?
Three's a crowd,
my soul says with a whisper,
You're not here to learn,
you're here to remember.


"Don't let your mind see through your eyes." ~Mooji

The soul always knows.

One Lung

My soul truly knows me
for who I am
I love her so much
I'd remove one lung
to make a room for her
and there she'd live
up against my ribs
she'd make sure
there was a window
she'd breathe on the glass
till it fogged
and then draw a heart
with her finger
lingering there
till it cleared
to make sure I saw it
from the other side
so I'd know for sure
she was there

If I could guess
what she looks like
I'd bet her pupils
are huge with wonder
and her eyes
must look like questions
I could not foresee to ask
her hands would gently unspin
the cruel things
I've told myself
those lifelong
wasp-gold thoughts
I've stung myself with
the pockets of her flowy dress
would be my safe place to store
those words inside my heart
too raw for me to speak
the ones with that bone-taste
that blood-smell
from cutting too deep
so I don't tell.

She safe-keeps those for me well.


© Sherri Brannon



[Note: I created the art piece on my iPad, using various apps, but mostly the wonderful Procreate app.]

None of My Friends are Poets

In search of serenity, I walk.
My spirit moves to the
rhythm of a song, my
poetic thoughts unlock.
Later, I'll get back home
and my pen will overflow.
I'll write too much,
because the ego needs
too many words
to say so little.
But for now, I walk, and
a pelican flies over me.
We'll never touch,
but I send up my love.
I smile as its shadow
merges with mine
on the ground and,
just for a moment,
our souls intertwine.
I walk by the murky
gray-green of a pond,
the same color as my eyes
but, when I look again
the sun hits its surface
and it suddenly shines
like diamonds.
A beautiful song plays in my ears
in a language I don't speak,
but it doesn't matter
because music is a wonder.
Love. I say that out loud
when the song ends.


Walking, poetry, music...three of the joys of my life. Oh, and also the fourth: taking photos, which I did while taking my walk. Thank you, BTS, for the beautiful music!

One Stone

I walk on this earth
one seeker of billions
and I wonder what it is
the ground has witnessed
what must it think
about the mess of us
as we trample
our way across it

Each sharp pebble
each smooth stone
how does its story change
when a human hand
picks it up and skips it
across the river
taking it
from its home

Can it breathe
when it sinks
to the bottom
does it feel
abandoned and alone
or is it a new path
to freedom
from what it has known

Does it become broken
or does it fall unharmed
to the river's floor
do its colors become richer
beneath the water
does it dig itself in
become undercover
avoiding the others

Did it leave
a small piece of itself
behind on solid ground
are other rocks
waiting there
with broken hearts
keeping its place warm
wanting it back home

I walk on this earth
I'm just like those rocks
I trample across
one stone among billions
and Life
is the random pick
the quick flick
of that human hand.

Poetry: Wings

Flocks of avian beings fly
in rows of breathing ribs
that soar across the sky.
Sometimes a feather falls
as an offering,
down, down to the grass
and I, the lucky soul
who walks by to find it.
A starling whirrs by
in a feathery blur
that smells
of earthworms and rivers.
A heron whooshes above me
and I can almost hear
the babbling creek
inside his beak
as a fish flops
in his mouth,
its scales so luminescent
I swear I can hear those, too,
because shimmer
should have a sound.

I wonder why birds flying
can bring me to tears.
I yearn to be
orioled, finched, wrenned
like they are.
The wings are the thing.
They remind me of angels,
those unseen beings I believe in.
I think these thoughts
as I walk without wings.
Sometimes in my dreams
I am one of them,
willing myself to take flight,
if only for a few moments.
But, on this morning
I walk down a sidewalk
across earth's timeline.
I spy
a delicate, blue egg,
fallen and cracked,
its world shattered
on the gravel of a man-made road.

© Sherri Brannon


I wrote this poem on my walk the other day...discovering the cracked egg gave me the perfect way to end it. Thank goodness for the Notes feature on my iPhone - I was stopping constantly to write down my thoughts. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Wrecked

What if we're living
in the belly of a whale
it gulped us all down
with our pills and Unfollows
and we can't help ourselves
we dared it to swallow
and it's been longer than three days
and longer than three nights, and
our world is taking place
inside this whale's mouth
while the angels lay low
with their grandly folded wings
in the safety of the whales in our souls

And there are other whales, too
like the one inside our guts
caught in the belly of a beast
flooded with our lack of trust
rocking and swinging to the dread of it
and then there's the whale
tossed around inside our heads
filled with our fragile, unspoken things
battered and soaked from the sorrow of it
and that one last whale in our hearts
our loneliness seeping into its mouth
as it thrashes back and forth
to the beat of it

A whale within a whale within a whale
all of them needing
a breath at the surface
a bellowing of their windpipes
from the cruel hum of us within
but they're wrecked at the bottom
with our earth dust and rage
the whales are all drowning
and, we, along with them
in the depths of our fears
the whales, they are calling
and our spirits, they're starving
but our eyes, they can't find the tears.


©Sherri Brannon


Our world needs a healing. I feel the weight of it so strongly that every single poem I write lately is about this.

I created my whale digitally in Procreate, on my iPad Pro - I also used a few apps to create more texture (iColorama, Glaze).

Poetry: Dear Moon

DEAR MOON

Dear Moon, come find me here.
You've been hiding and it's been awhile.
I see you've come full circle again.
What is it about you that I can meet you in the dark
and pour out my heart when I'm struggling?
You make it easy, cratered as you are with your flaws.
Like I am.
It seems I feel safest when I'm loving from a distance,
and I can see it on your face
that you'll keep my secrets.

This world has me weary from the gravity of things,
how it's given itself up to the cutthroat keyboards.
I've stopped letting that into my house.
Hearts here have gone half dark, and
it's so hard to talk to the halfhearted.
I wonder, do you feel invisible when the sun comes up?
Do you feel blue when earth turns its back?
Thank you for hearing me, for your tender reflection,
and can I confess? I've stopped searching for myself
on other people's faces. It leaves such an empty feeling.

One thing I know for certain, my heart has been pulling at me,
moving words inside me like you move the seas,
spitting phrases at me when I'm not prepared to hear them.
It's been awhile
since I wrote my heart down.
Tell me, are you the keeper of the stars? Do you grieve
when they burn out or do you surrender and let them fall?
I ask because my soul stays seventeen, yearning for itself,
but sees another in the mirror. And, this earth tries to tell me
dreams must die with age, just like skin and bones do.

Dear Moon, please don't worry, I'll be fine.
My journey here is a frail and finite thing,
with the anguish of a mind, the reality of time.
I'll keep seeking the secret to this duality of life,
its mystic double entry. And, there's such joy,
such sweet attraction to a thousand recollections:
poems blooming like love flowers in my throat,
teardrops falling from the grace of an inner knowing,
that divine spark of always becoming,
even while headed towards dying.

© Sherri Brannon


Art work created on iPad Pro with Procreate, Glaze, and iColorama apps.