To the Archaeologist

I am your fossil
shaped by and for love,
a green leaf pressed into rock
long ago by
great heat and pressure
that fell with the stars
from heaven to earth.

I wait to be lifted and touched,
handled and smoothed,
softened by the grain and grooves
of tool prone hands.

I long to be studied
through eyes that are
rightly fascinated
by that which is both
ancient and ever new.

Turn me and sift me
with fingers trailing.
Measure me.
Lay me down...
pick me up.

Write me into your leather book.
Press me deeply into your memory
of permanent records,
a marking of your
latest excavation.

(c) Anne Bryant-Hamon

Tears of Sleeping Beauty

I've been revising this poem for 3 years now. Can't tell if it is getting better or worse. But the revision made sense to me for now - for the things I've been going through. So in that sense, it works. The first line is from a Science magazine article I read back in '07. I knew when I read that line, there must be a poem (probably many poems by many poets) spun from it.

Tears of Sleeping Beauty

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. - Gen 2:21

Moths drink the tears from eyes of sleeping birds.*
The same is true of certain butterflies.
Sometimes the facts sound just like pretty lies
that poets chose for loveliness of words.

It may be that the strangest facts in life
exist to help us weave a melody
as if God knew that every flower and tree
would comfort us, as does a man, his wife.

There’s beauty even in the realm of death.
Without such splendor we might not endure
this earthly plane. With suffering there is grace.
For every teardrop – may there widen the breadth
of love. And in the end there lies the cure
when grace and peace are etched on every face.


original © 2007
(Revised for the umpteenth time March 2010)

Postcard from Jennifer came today...

She writes... "I'm so excited that I am going to live in California. Choosing between Cal Tech and Stanford University is a difficult decision." I think she'll choose Stanford. But I am not a betting person since our kids have left us nearly broke!


STANFORD UNIVERSITY - The Road In

Perhaps Love - by John Denver

Couldn't find sleep, so I have been awake listening to old songs by John Denver. They are timeless - ever new. He was an angel among us. His spirit lives on through his music.

Where the Sidewalk Ends - by Shel Silverstein

A contemplative poem by the late Shel Silverstein (God rest his soul). I'd not read this one before but it is lovely.
-~-..-~--~-..-~--~-..-~---..-~--~-..-~--~-..-~---..-~--~-

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

-~-..-~--~-..-~--~-..-~---..-~--~-..-~--~-..-~---..-~--~-

Why I Sit Beside the Door

I wait
and think of what I’ll say
in quartered years –a slice of day
with fifteen minutes of his ear
to talk about my joy and fear.
I wait
I wait for him – I try
to gather thoughts of what or why
I’ve come – and yet my thoughts are thin,
yet here I am – I wait for him.

I wait, I wait , I wait
for him –
I sit beside the entrance door
and place my purse down on the floor,
glance at the mantle to my right –
stocked full with pamphlets - gleaming white.

And in a ‘half-moon’ little while
he lights the room up with his smile
and clean, pressed shirt – I love that style!
A hint of ocean blues, his eyes
are full of mystery and surprise.

With seeming care he calls my name,
then I remember why I came.
I came, I came to talk to him
about the issues – bright or grim
and yes, about the medicine
I need. At least he knows my name
and never makes me feel insane.

My eyes meet his – it’s my turn now
to sit, to talk, to cry, to smile,
to do whatever I must do –
before my time with him is through.

Anne – February 23, 2010

To my Mother - Margaret

Dear Mom,
Today marks the one year anniversary of the day you died. I hope to die as peacefully as you did. You were a blessed woman, even though you had many disappointments in life. You never had a seriously sick child or lost a child. You were never homeless. I know you felt lonely and rejected by the men in your life - which is the fate of so many women. But you were strong in so many ways. And you did the best you could with what you had. I miss you. I hope that if you are conscious that it is in the paradise you hoped for. I love you, mom.

Hummingbirds

It matters how the stirring waters
fall into our thoughts,
the weight of liquid, heavy like a dark, spring cloud,
muddies the heart's wanderings,
turning sunny yellow pondering
into ruddy, mud-slick floors,
changing a land-locked sense of certainty
into an island, damp with questions.

It's best when the rain falls softly
to break the shell of silence
that seals us into quietude
rather than being deluged,
flooded by the worried self,
that watcher, called Ego who
imposes layer after layer
of false god images over us.

Wanting to escape being alone
is not the same as the desire to 'not be'.
Yet a universal veil
covers each of us with an illusion,
a blind-spot given to all our earthly eyes
that causes us to believe
that spirit touching spirit
is a mirage, something unattainable -
always just out of reach.


Surly God knew first that 'to feel alone',
was, in itself, the main cause for grief.
So today I will cover your head
with halos of love,
longing to convey somehow
that I see your true beauty.

Yet if I speak my love
and my longing to share
a common joy in linear time,
I fear you may soon recede
like the evening tide.

There is an unwritten law
that we all follow:
the desire for embracing
fenced off by a compulsion for autonomy.

Like hummingbirds, we tread air –
are constantly moving,
always beyond any resting place,
drinking deeply,
while looking back at what was,
tasting what is
and dreaming of what shall be
when we fly away.

© Anne Bryant-Hamon
“Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth"

Chasing Sunsets

A dwindling summer lingers on
as zinnias hold out stubbornly.
The buds set on chrysanthemums -
by mid-October they shall bring
us autumn sunbursts. Drink with me
a toast to Browning and to Frost,
and one for dear Ms. Emily,
for summer's green must soon be lost
to ghostly winds and leafy streams
and graves that were not tilled in spring.

A I R <---> M A I L

For my mother (Oct 17,1932 - Feb 28, 2009)

The stamps you left inside your roll-top desk
are lady liberties worth thirty-nine
cents each. And in this chair I'm like a guest
in a closed Bed and Breakfast as I sign
this poem/letter that I'll never send
to you because the place is much too far
where you have flown. I cannot cause the wind
to carry my fond wishes to your star.

We last spoke on a Saturday by phone;
the final time was February-gray.
I told you I would call you back at home
that afternoon. I never got to say
the words I would have said if I had known
how quickly death would swallow flesh and bone.

Anne Bryant-Hamon (c) Oct. 1, 2009