Whole: Poems for the Journey Back to Sacred Wholeness
A collection of poems from the soul for the soul by Dawn Richerson that includes poems for the journey back to wholeness and is a companion to the author’s memoir .
This poetry collection was originally published by Autumn Zephyr Press, a Creative Revolutions imprint publishing passion-powered poetry, in 2011. ISBN 978-0-9827692-3-2 Download cover and manuscript from this page or order the paperback here.
Poems from the Soul for the Soul
Visit Dawn's Poetry Website
CONTENTS
- A Combination to Unlock Myself
- Am I Mistaken?
- Inkblots
- Rotation
- Arbitrary Confessions
- Children Are Crying
- Unlucky Thirteen
- Boxes, Keys
- I Know Terror
- Echoes in the Storm
- Beneath the Japanese Maple
- Dervishes of Loss
- Ever-Present Tears
- Echoes in the Corridor
- Everything Curves
- Veil of Visitation
- After the Shock
- Dawn Breaks
- Yesterday, My Name Was Dawn
- Old and Broken Before My Time
- Dead-End Dream
- Wedding Day
- Reach through Empty
II. HOLY COMFORT
- The Mess Before Me
- If You've Ever
- Angels Everywhere
- Belonging to the North
- Lizard Baby Dreams
- Because It Makes Me Happy
- Woman Reaching
- Woman Transformed
- My Soul Seeks a Clearing
- Angels We Have Heard and Seen
- Life Is Not as It Had Seemed
- Gypsy Girl in Me
- I Am This Tree
- Slow Road to Slaughter
- Speaking in Tongues
- White Lady
- Breaking Open
- Bold Venus
- Through Tunnels Dark and Rivers Deep
- Believing
- Speak, Wind-Dancer; I Would Listen Now
- Life Dance
- Holy Uncertainty
- After the Fall
- Leaving Wildacres
III. HOLY RESTORATION
- Breakfast at Sunset
- Dreams in the Mist
- Sometimes You Walk Along a Beach
- Capacity
- Because You Loved Me Enough
- Redeeming the Moments
- Blue-Sky Field
- Some Star Like You
- Enlightened
- Time That Binds
- Suspended in Place
- I Will Speak
- Waking Vision
- Game On
- Butterfly Reborn
- Thin Air
- Dragon Heart
- What the Sand Dollar Had to Say
SAMPLE POEM
3 - 6 - 9 - 12 - 16 - 22 - 30 - 33 - 39
A Combination to Unlock Myself
I am
terror-stricken
in three fading freeze frames
from the K-Mart photo booth.
Wide-eyed desperation and
fear are carved in deep shadow
creasing three-year-old cheeks.
It's there in stark black and white:
what he did to me and how
my world had gone gray
before New Year's Day.
I am
six on the one hand,
half a dozen on the other,
laughing myself silly in this one,
all bottled rage in that one. Here,
the Floridian bay where stingrays swam
and, there, the neighbor's tree house.
I leapt from that high haven once,
daring God not to take me back.
He didn't want me yet,
and I saw seven.
I am
the Indian princess, hair pulled back
in braids and dressed in fine fabric
of dancing color, woven threads
that sing in unison, harmonic tones
of grace. A rare smile, peace-filled,
lightens a face that has known
but nine young years, yet carries
the storied wisdom passed down
through all the generations.
I am
twelve tribes returning,
recognizing my beginning and
my end lies in the Ever-Living One.
It is the twelfth day of the twelfth month
in my twelfth year of this life.
I go down into cold waters,
rising up in newness of life
and re-membering
what was, what is.
I am
sixteen candles burning out
here without a party. Grandma,
my one sure thing, has gone, and I
might as well be living on the moon or
with little green men she believed in.
This should be the happiest time,
but one shivers looking so far
out into vast desolate desert
I spy through green-meadow eyes,
moist now with troubling truth.
I am
twenty-two reasons screaming
say no and one insistent "I do."
I choose to create a dream remembered,
one that perhaps doesn't yet exist here.
Now I am determined to become a master
of my fate, mistress to none but the one.
I dismiss partner's partial participation
and say I can handle it, I'll do it
all on my own. And soon
I am alone again,
naturally.
I am
thirty, divorced, beginning again
with a child of two and two hearts
so thirsty to believe in miracles and me.
Here we have begun. I shine, emerging,
bathed in soft glow of golden gleam and
promise of things to come. My heart
beats wildly to see me there.
Unaware, I am oblivious to
what danger awaits.
I am
thirty-three and I have lost more
than I lost before. Two days
before Christmas and I have
been summarily dismissed
from the work that was
the fulfillment of a call,
from the lives of people
I have loved, still love,
from everything I know
and have come to trust.
I am
thirty-nine, standing on the edge
of forty, living nobody's dream,
just trying to keep my head above water,
refusing to drown in sorrows that have been,
hating this thorn in the flesh that rips my mind
and spills out in swinging moods. Here I am,
reaching for real joy. Aware already
of my task, I set out on next leg
of bold journey, this
adventure of faith