Roll the Tide

—Roll the tide,

o roll the tide over,
roll the tide over me,
and so hide my tears
in folds of your timelessly flowing,
salty blanket of turbulence
and music.

—Roll the tide
and rock me to a watery sleep,
rock and roll me
until my cares
have worn to sand,
and lay me bare and free
in the bosom of your shore.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This piece was written in 2009. It has been set to music by composer Michael Kaulkin, and has its debut tonight at the 43rd Kodály Institute Choral Concert, 7:30PM Friday, July 29th, McClean Chapel, Holy Names University, Oakland, CA.   Here is the sound file of the premier performance.

Culminations

that dream of long ago
has proved prescient, and
now lies manifest, in a being
of sorts and sundries

for, into the eye of the storm,
into the ring of fire,
as into a vivarium,
my soul has wandered
from the places of desolation

voices, as song and wind,
make their vital way center,
make their offerings heard,
and depart on wings of flame

i gather their many threads,
some of silver, some of gold,
some bronze, all bold,
and weave them by stead
on the canny loom
of my ruminations,
where they bloom
by culminations
into soft embraces
of shimmering folds

likely no final destination, this,
in our soul’s journey,
and how i arrived here,
i know not, but how
surely purposed it was,
this centering:
to tune me now,
to test me,
to gather and
to weave me
to ravel and
to give me
as my thoughts
to God

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Morning Glories

The story

of the morning glory:
a wrangling of life entwined,
raveled, traveled, envined,
all for the majesty of purple blossoms,
reaching through sun-sums
and pollen-laden pie-skies
toward a heaven sky’s dome belies--
all hailed better in the songs of birds
than in my tangle of human words.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

I woke up from a dream where I was starting to recite this, but had to finish writing it in the awakened state... Funny how that is...

Sea Swings

           -a note to myself

Liberation!
Seats chained
to a top,
whirling dervish-like
over the horizon--
what a feeling:
nothing but
<<Liberation!>>
from gravity &
the sea air
rushing gaily
through my hair &
over my skin.

Life can be that way,
if we open the mind
to wind,
to turning,
to the impermanence
of the short ride
over the long haul.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The Difference

Our beginnings and endings are but one motion:
an inter-weaving and an intra-weaving of possibility,
in time, out of time,
in thought, out of thought,
in being, out of being,
inspiration, expiration,
warp and weft,
with point or by vagaries,
one divine liberation from stasis,
a stream of consciousness
drawing on and form all that is,
conscious and unconscious,
wandering outward,
from eternal internal
to eternal external,
exploring nuance,
creating order
where order is not,
by a simple attraction of opposites.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Stillness Sings

This flower opens to the silence within.
The silence within opens
to the supreme stillness without.
Stillness sings;
the flower knows this
because it is alive:
the song is what draws
the bud to bloom.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Singing

Breath upon breath,
a weaving of breath
into an air.

Words on words,
enfolding, flowing,
take wing.

Sound and silence,
earth, wind, fire and water,
given voice,

Entitles
all that sounds imply,
on all that dreams may rely.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen