The Ocean of Forgiveness

The clouds cling
to the muscular back of the wind
til hooked on the peaks
of the Santa Rosas they
lie wedged in trembling refuge.
A wild gourd vine,
like a casket spray on the dry wash,
extravagantly blooms and bears
in nonchalance
at the passing of its season.

Why ride like clouds when
I can push the wind away
with pinyon posture, and hear it
gallop down the wash to meet
the moaning of its burying place
and the wild gourd blooming?

Text Authorship:

• by Joanne Regenhardt (flourished c2000), appears in Soundings, Trafford Publishing, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Mark Abel

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.

The poetry of her life 
hung suspended like
a broken mobile
on the bridge 
of her abandoned boat.    

She had entered there from time
to time to sort the fragments
of her former self
and came away
with some sweet witticism,
a smile of remembrance
from the past.

But hope had left her,
and expectation. Existence
like a sea anemone had
become a fastened thing
and ended one day
from the desultory feeding
and the weight of water
upon the gentle movement
of its tentacles.

Text Authorship:

• by Joanne Regenhardt (flourished c2000), appears in Soundings, Trafford Publishing, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Go to the general single-text view

Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Mark Abel

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.

“Look at her. The pink is all gone,”
says Alice at sunset.
“Isn’t she marvelous. How did
she do that so fast?”

“This morning she took the sun
and used it to turn herself into
a flamingo. She is so clever.”

She gives of herself in such quantity.
She wraps me to her, holding me
closely and strongly like a mother,
she protects with her cupped hands
all the living
and conducts the symphony of storms
from her high podium.

I am subject to her many moods
and yearn for the capriciousness of them –
to accept them.

Alice and I
are in love with the sky.

Text Authorship:

• by Joanne Regenhardt (flourished c2000), appears in Soundings, Trafford Publishing, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Go to the general single-text view

Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Mark Abel

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.

There would be such a rushing
of outstretched arms
if the way were clear
between.
A breeze, chill edged,
would be created by the speed
of spread hands
on taut limbs before
bodies, adrenalin driven,
would find, on impact,
such a peace,
such a reign of rightness
in that union.

Text Authorship:

• by Joanne Regenhardt (flourished c2000), appears in Soundings, Trafford Publishing, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Go to the general single-text view

Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Mark Abel

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.

We wait until the leaves are gone
and every shell washed clean
by the ocean of forgiveness

until our star becomes a day sun
and no state of mind
nor person’s pain
can separate us 
anymore

until together,
we will love the world.

Text Authorship:

• by Joanne Regenhardt (flourished c2000), appears in Soundings, Trafford Publishing, copyright ©, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Go to the general single-text view

Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Mark Abel

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.