Under every stone

Though she’s been loved and cherished,

It appears that time makes them vanish,

Away in the distance, she still sees their shadow

Growing in the silence of the absence of tomorrow.

She’s been noticed and she’s been held,

Yet it feels that she keeps needing to be fed,

To be certain that she’s worthy of attention,

That she won’t be the lonely exception.

Some will say it’s insecurities and being alone

Doesn’t have to be lonely.

But us, mere humans, can pretend that we

Needn’t anyone, still we long to be known.

Go ahead and yearn for love,

Look under every stone,

Give it out, bless them with your affection,

Let them see your truest reflection.

And remember that love isn’t about sight

Outer beauty, romance in black and white.

Love is a poem to be written with another,

With silences and even spelling errors.

It is a song you might sing until he responds,

With notes deeper than yours, humming along.

It is the knowledge of a future given and received,

Of an unexpected opportunity mutually seized.

So by all means, seek and find the love you dream of,

Go ahead, embrace the yearning from above,

But never settle, for something plain or tinted

By fear of not finding what you’ve always wanted.

You’ve been loved and cherished,

Though It appears time makes them vanish

Away in the distance, look out for who might come along

He could be humming the very melody of your song.

Always

Every year, 

One adds on. 

Getting old, maturing, growing up, 

A priviledge denied to crowds, 

Which I welcome with open arms, 

Calling life to fill me.

May mine be useful, 

Lightening the burden of many

Dressing the wounds of others. 

May my home be made of 

A table, 

A pot

And many chairs around, 

Welcoming to all.

May they come in to find

Grace, Forgiveness

Love and humour. 

May they recover their desire to live, 

When they will know themselves to be loveable

And loved. 

I have a whole life ahead of me, 

Or so it seems. 

It isn't mine to hold. 

It embraces my dreams, 

But it shall embrace, forever more, 

The broken hearts, the closed off ones, 

Who do not dare to live any longer. 

May my eyes brush the dry skin, 

Meet the lowered glance, 

The tainted eye, 

The troubled mind.

I wish to give who I am

To those who have nothing, 

Who were never told

They were worth something.

May the love rooted in my heart, 

The unconditionnal affection I was given, 

Be the fuel I run on, 

To find the outcast and the lost. 

My life is ahead of me, 

Lord let me say, 

On the day it withers, 

I gave, plenty, 

I received, plenty more, 

I lived under the heavens, 

Today I journey home, 

With a spirit filled with memories, 

Of hopes regained, 

That I could bless,

The ones we had forgotten. 

Low.

I am in a garden, 

I stand, underserving, broken even.

Rotten by greed, whithering hope.

I have questions burning my mind, 

Doubts and fears piercing my heart.

I stand in a garden, 

Pondering on my loweliness. 

In this garden, 

He stands.

Pierced hands, 

Wounded feet and side.

He stands.

Taller than me, 

Purely holy.

He has known grief and seperation, 

Violence and betrayal.

Still He stands, 

With love blazing in his eyes.

Love for whom? Based on what? I ask. 

He extends his hands, pierced as I said.

He gives me his name and clothes me in his robe.

When the fabric touches my shoulders 

And his skin mine, 

My heart rips in two. 

It spills out the wonder of this outrageous Grace and love, 

Pouring over me freely.

There is nothing I can do to pay Him back, 

To make myself worthy of this Mercy.

It makes my soul uncomfortable, I wrestle.

I want to deserve it.

Worse.

I need to deserve it.

To save my pride and my flesh.

He says I'll lose it if I try to pay it.

That a loan it is not, 

A prize it can't be.

It is a gift, given for free, 

That shall be received or lost.

So I give in, I bow down.

I earned it not, I deserve nothing.

Yet He gave it all, that I might know Him.

Dawn and Dusk

We share light and dark.
We might disagree on some things.
There might be arguments at times.
But I know that what's in you is in me.

I wish to love with no agenda or expectations,
With no action plan to turn you into something you can't be.
I don't understand where you come from, or how you feel,
For I have never walked the walk in those shoes of yours.

The dark and light that burn in you,
Are in me too.
I come in love.
Love that is fierce and loyal.
Not self-interested.
Patience at its core.

I refuse to pick and chose where my compassion lies.
May my allegiance be to who needs me,
Whose heart I can mend,
Whose freedom I can help.

I will build places where you
Are free to dwell.
It might take long,
For I only have two hands.
Not much more to give than my
Loyalty,
Not much more to pledge than my
Fidelity.

I'd rather be known for loving too much
And putting people before rules,
Than for letting the letter,
Burn its lines so deep in my soul
That I forget that
You and I
We share
Dark and
Light.
That you are not I
Or I you
But we claim
Humanity
Depth
Vulnerability
So much more.

I share the light and the dark
That dwell in your soul
They roam in my heart.
We are sons and daugthers of the Day.
Not always worthy, or pure,
But We are trying.

The light and dark in your soul
I know them too.

Dwelling on Heaven

Heaven.
What if Heaven was beautiful?
Raising hands in worship a constant choice,
Singing praises a natural flow?
What if Heaven isn't about a crowd glorifying a divinity,
But about a Father and His children loving one another?

I've wondered and pondered on Heaven,
Fretting at the thought of a mold I would have to fit in,
A personality I would leave at the door and
My sincerity that would be no more.

Heaven can't be grey or ruled like a prison.
Heaven can't be lifeless, veiled with dullness.
Heaven cannot be worse than this Earth.

Heaven has to be...
Good.

Saved by Grace, this I know.
I shall enter the heavenly place
Feel the magnificence of His mercy
Know that my presence there is undeserved
But desired and free.

See His face,
Hear His voice,
Meet the One
My soul loves.

To be in love for Eternity.
To be loved forever.

When He'll call my name,
I will run, astonished that He would chose me
And transported by this reality.
When He'll call my name,
What joy and wonder shall fill me.

For I will come face to face
With the One I don't deserve
But receive fully.

I love Him in part,
I see Him a little,
I hear Him at times,

I will
Love,
See and
Hear
Fully then.

Heaven is a place of Love,
When Soul and Maker meet,
To never part again.

Here comes the Lion

One dark hour, one quick incidence

One note creating a ghastly dissonance.

Within seconds, an outpour of deadly rain

Resigned, the Lion lies, with no mane.

There's no getting up nor fighting back 

Surrounded by a blood-thirsty wolf-pack. 

The roaring Lion was unequivocally conquered, 

In the blink of an eye, his life slaughtered. 

The wolves retreated, their brava suddenly weak, 

Leaving the air filled with their callous shriek.

What now? Asks the Lion. Where to go so I can disappear?

In the caves of my shame, but there who will hear? 

The cry of my heart, the lament of my wounded soul?

Who will tend my bruises, my feeble nature console? 

I will drag my dying breath to the end of the road, 

And there, maybe, only maybe, my pain will erode. 

I wrestled to get myself out of their grasp

I kicked, wailed, begged til, with a final gasp

My will sunk, surrendered, no option left

But to see my soul marked with a new vast cleft.


It's as if no one heard, no one paid attention, 

The vast vibrant world had for me no compassion.

The birds kept on singing, the wind kept on blowing

The trecherous creation watched and stood without pipping.

Then they ran away and it was all over

Lion, worthy, sweet, dear Lion. 

Your mane is gone, your skin covered in tear .

I can see you are fading, drowning in despair.

You groan, in anguish, your soul whispers it's forever



I've seen others wounded, ashamed, believing time is no healer

In the midst of their pain, they are blind to the future

Acting as if already dead, Memories like feasting vultures.



It ain't so. It ain't so. I tell you it ain't so.

Hold on to my words, cling on to every word falling from my lips

I will sing you lullabies, melodies that will soothe your soul

Planting hope in your sorrow, sowing seeds of joy in your midst.



I will wait, rocking you to sleep, and watch as your mane

Grows back, warm, full, welcoming a bright new dawn.

Strength will return, skies will clear and clouds be gone.

You shall walk, run, wild and free, you shall roar again.



Take heart Lion, worthy, sweet Lion,

You are who you always were.

Take heart Lion, worthy, sweet Lion, 

You will remain who you always were.

Are trees lonesome ?

Where the trees die alone,

No man ever walks.

They live their lives, short or long,

Amongst the forest, gathered in a green crowd,

They tell tales of trees once great,

Foliage brighter than the morning sun.

Where trees die alone,

They care not to think

“ If I fall and not a human soul

Is there to see it,

Did I fall still?”.

For, there, man is nothing but a rumour,

A distant fantasy and thrilling danger.

Where trees die alone,

Alone they are not.

The hills and their kin will

Sing them down to the ground.

The low branches will softly

Caress their bark,

And as they breathe their last breath

The trees fall into a sheltered rest.

Make it leave.

When Tomorrow is yesterday,

You might understand the hows

And whys of things of the past.

You could be tricked into guilt,

You might start to reflect.

Don’t look at the past with

The eyes of tomorrow,

For you didn’t know then what

You now know.

Regret will eat your dreams

And kill your bliss.

Feed it a bit

And it shall eat you whole.

Rather

Starve it out.

Make it go back to the

Darkness.

Make it leave with its suitcases

Full of envy, judgement,

Cynicism.

You weren’t made for Regret.

You were shaped for Hope.

You were created for Joy.

You are meant to try

And fail,

But always attempt your hardest

Aim for the best,

Fly the highest

You can.

And give Regret no hold

On You.

It is the Worry of yesterday

Looking down on Tomorrow

Trying to steal your flowers

And dry out the grass.

Make it leave

For it only brings sorrow.

Cracked wings

He is sitting on my heart.

He is sitting on my heart.

I can't help it if he is sitting on my heart, 

If he gave me his name and a bit of his blood,

If he is the root to the branch I bloom on.

He is sitting on my heart.

I saw in him a hero with cracked wings.

He had wanted to soar too fast, too high, 

With the courage of innocence and youth

He had missed, by so little, so few, 

The wisdom that comes with the years.

He is sitting on my heart.

I envy his spirit

I admire his battle

I praise his dignity

Mingled with insolence

He was a bird unable to fly

Whose eyes couldn't brush the skies

By fear of crumbling under the weight of grief.

Sometimes innocence cannot be regained.

He had lost the flippancy of childhood drawings, 

The liberty of the soul that had been spared.

The journey is long for a bird who cannot fly.

Contemplate these wings, majestic, 

These feathers moire and bright

Which momentum has deserted.

Still he learnt to walk.

His coat kept its shine

He went to the end of the pilgrimage, 

Never counted the steps.

Did he will his audacity to me?

Would I, too, have tried to fly?

His legacy echoes in my mind, 

Like the song of an eagle

Calling me to greater heights.

He is sitting on my heart, 

He never abandoned me.

I sewed him on my heart

To keep him in my memory.

To my grand father, Michel Barberon,  who survived the concentration camps in Buchenwald, who took risks but never saw himself as a hero or a brave soul.

Arabica

Early morning, coffee covered with amber foam, 

A table at a cafe, the cacophony of people around, 

I hear the sigh of the appliances, the scream of steam, 

I smell the brown aroma, the whiff of tea in china cups, 

I taste lemon tarts and butter croissants, 

In the midst of this morning noise, the southern Spanish accents echoes. 

I pay attention because

This voice comes with a smile, 

Which comes with a look, 

Which comes with a move.

Every day, around eleven am, 

I hear this accent, 

I see this smile, 

I meet this look, 

I respond to this move,

This moment never comes promises. 

I know nothing of him other than

His country

The tone of his voice.

He doesn't know me except that

I like strong black coffee

I'm not from this land.

And every morning,  

He brews the nectar with zing, 

He starts off my day

Like the song of a clock

He lightens up my steps

He warms up my smile

No strings attached, 

No promises, 

No identity even.

But he hung up my drawing

In the corner of the coark board

He grined subtly and

Read my name.

Short lived

I once thought disappointments could keep me put. 

I believed goodbyes, unanswered dreams and prayers

Had the power to burn my wings and scar my heart. 

But my wings grew back, with feathers made of silk, 

Softened through the years and the disappointment still. 

And my heart was scared, a little bruised and thrown around

But it healed over and held on tight. 

I tried to be cynical and believed I became old. 

I once thought I could be somebody else, who would know

No excitment too high, no sorrow too deep.

Who's heart would be safe and never skip a beat.

But being someone else is only short lived,

I realised my heart was meant for leaping, skipping and 

Falling.

My wings were made for flying, soaring and 

Crashing. 

The good couldn't be without risking the bad, 

I couldn't be happy if not willing to be sad. 

I am a dreamer, I paint thrills, adventures and tomorrows, 

Better.

I am a lover. I carry my heart in my pocket. 

I want it to meet hearts to make it bigger. 

I want to cherish life and people

And maybe even, 

A man, 

If life would grace me so.

To live and to love, 

To lose and to gain,

To hope and to mourn, 

To have and to hold. 

I tried to be cynical and believed I became old

Until I was bored.

The face I love.

The face I love 

Has tiny, young crow feet at the corner of its eyes, 

From laughing and smiling, crying and feeling. 

Its skin is marked by the years it's been living, 

Its journey is written on it, 

Like a loud and vibrant testimony to being alive. 

The face I love is alive, 

Fully, unapologetically alive. 

It's been sunburnt before

For playing a little too long on the beach.

You can see the bed that tears have molded on its cheeks.

It has loved much, 

It has given much.

It has felt much. 

The face I love is a canvas for its heart.

Where kindness, grace, generosity are

Painted in bright colours and bold patterns.

Where humour and hearty laughter find 

Their way into the picture. 

The face I love

Has tried,
And failed 

And tried again.

It pushed its limits.

It has suffered, waited and longed for better days.

It has a past, with strings and burdens attached,

A present where release and healing are blooming, 

A future. A blue-skyed future. 

One built on the bricks of perseverance and goodness.

The face I love

Makes mistakes.

The face I love

Is not a mistake.

The face I love, 

The face I love, 

The face I love.

I love this Face.

For its soul and despite its failures.

For the way it stares in the distance, forgetting reality.

For the love that dawns on it when it looks at me. 

The face I love

Is real.

Is unique.

Is beautiful.

Is in front of me.

The face I love

I seek it when I hurt

I find it when I wander

I am bound to it.

The face I love.

You are the face I love.

I made you a promise

I made a vow.

You will stay the face I love.

To be in...

To be in love like no one cares, 

With a hand in mine and a song in my head. 

To be in love. 

 

I like company and I'd like to share mine. 

We pretend it is as good to be alone as it is to be two. 

Not to me. 

I savor being one, who I was meant to be,  

Being quiet or loud.

But to be in love. 

Hearing a voice respond to mine. 

To share moments of beauty and others of pain. 

To be known, fully known and loved still, 

Loved because. 

Feeling the warmth of one's presence,

Fit together like two jigsaw pieces, 

Knowing his voice, its tone and what it transpires, 

Learning his worries, his joys, his questions and

Certitudes. 

To hold his hands, carry his burdens, 

Let him carry mine, 

Learn to tell him I need a hand, 

To notice his smiles, his looks, 

Count the hair on his head. 

Carry on through the struggles, 

Fight a little, 

Without the sun setting on our anger, 

Persevering, 

Because love florishes, it grows, 

It births, It bears fruit. 

It leaves legacies and carries generations to come. 

To be in love and raise children.

That look like him, or me, or neither.

Children that will be given our family, 

To shape and to hold, 

To be loved by and to hold onto. 

To be in love.

The wanderer and the Pursuer.

The thoughts of my heart often overrule the whisper of your love.

Still you whisper,

Still you murmur that you love.

Me.

As much as I wander, you pursue.

You pursue and I run.

But I turn around and wait for you,

Always in the end,

Because I, too, love.

You.

Naive little souls

It's a little bit like a hole in the road.

We didn't see it coming. 

The shadow of the trees might have hid it there. 

We could have been watching the birds for a little too long.

Or a bed of leaves was covering it up for a while?

But there's a hole in the road. 

Can we walk around it and leave it behind?

Would we pretend it's not there, act a bit blind?

Could we tell the hole to fill itself up? 

Should we stop by it and wait until it is no more?

Holes in the road, unexpected turns of things, 

Words that dig deeper than they seem, 

Faces that turn from benevolent to pernicious, 

Silence that reveals to be manipulation, 

Control which for so long disguised itself into love, 

Family that prove to be wolves among the sheep. 

They all come without warning.

Did we look up to long?
Did we want to think of the birds and the sharp blue sky, 

More than we were looking for direction?

We might have simply thought that life had been sweet and easy and it would always be.

We didn't know love could turn sour. 

Naive little souls we were. We took discernment for suspicion

And love never suspects evil, does it?

So we walked around, head in the clouds, 

Dreaming of tomorrows painted in pastel colours, 

Finding todays tainted with anger.

Naive little souls we were.
Shall we keep on believing?

That hearts can turn, situations change and scars heal?

We are waiting. For the sweetness of yesterday to come again tomorrow.

We believe today is a simple hole in the road that isn't meant to stay.

We believe you'll come to your senses.

That you'll see, that we were naive little souls, 

with open arms and gentle hearts, 

That we are hopeful stronger souls,

 with open arms and gentle hearts.

Wanderer

I am a wanderer. I have been going in circles, 

Thinking I was walking a different path

Trotting along, whistling, hoping for new scenery, 

Just around the corner. 

But the scenery is the same.

Over and over again, the scenery doesn't change. 

The same tree, the old dry footpath, the piles of leaves to the side

The grass that neither seems to grow nor die.

The flowers ready to bloom but forever stuck in between. 

I am a flower, not a bud,not blossoming.

There are leaves around me, keeping petals in place

Open, just enough, so I can't retreat in my green shell, 

Sufficiantly closed so I can't spread out and sprout. 

I've grown too much for this pod.

It's keeping me in.

But maybe, just maybe, I am not big enough still.

Big enough for this world out there, 

For the wind that blows, the sun that burns, 

The rain that drowns, the cold that bites.

Not big enough, too big, grown, in the making

Ready, under prepared, humble, proud, 

I'm everything and it's opposite.

I'm strong and weak. 

I'm a hopeful flower stuck in its bud, 

Will the time to prosper ever come to me?

Will my tiny green shell ever set me free?

I am a flower, stuck in between, 

Looking for space to grow

I am a wanderer, going in circles, 

Looking for a newfound land.

I am a dreamer, bound by reality, 

Looking for a promise.

Unwritten

People stir up poems in me that can never be written.

For words rarely truly match the value of hearts and souls.

I have many pages blackened by ink, that hold so many emotions,

Yet the shape of the letters, the rhythm and sound of sentences

Lack in expressing my love, my grief, the things I've longed for, 

The faces I've lost, the dreams that never came into being 

and the parts of my heart I gave away and were never returned.

Some inspire light, bouncy sonnets, that float in the air, 

Translate the feeling of being in love, of receiving a smile

as the greatest gift ever given.

Others fill me with words like pebbles: small but heavy, greyed by the years

That will pave the way to my next fears.

Verses will draw the silhouette of old loves, they will paint the colour of their lips

Say the sound of their laugh, the smell of their skin.

But memories can't be held in a few lines. 

They keep on unfolding, emotions persist to disrupt my day to day life, 

With small flashes of light or deeper holes of dark. 

Words sketch the outline, but the weight or the light in my soul, 

Will never fully hold in a couple of letters.

People stir up poems in me that can never be written.