The Connection

 

We look for the pretext, the hidden connection

a word to encourage, a sign someone cares–

it’s not in their words that we garner the meaning

but inside the knowledge that someone is there.

Caught up in this void is the echo of voices,

the faces once clear disappear from display;

we hide them away in a cache deep inside us

not willing to share lest we give them away.

The winter months beg to be given our secrets

but who’s really listening to what we might say?

In the silence and emptiness, in hollow of loneliness

lie the chapters of stories and things we’ve outgrown,

yet we cannot forget all the places we’ve come from
the communion of friendship, the people we’ve known.

We’re born to this world, become one among many—

  it seems when we leave, that we all go alone.

 

© Ginny Brannan 2024

Photo credit: C. Parant at Appetite for Photos. Used with expressed written permission.

"We come into the world alone, we leave the world alone." James Anthony Froude

"Testing, Testing...One, Two, Three"

 

Hope lies between the lines

of dreams and of unanswered prayer

as we, mere mortals, search to find

peace from pain we've buried there.

               *  *  *  *  *

Believe in the power if you choose

that parts the seas and turns the tides

Could such entreaty be refused;

a whispered word of urgency

from the place where love resides?

 

When all else fails we’re left to conjure

hope beyond all hope to cure

the ills from which there’s no returning;

I watched you fade into thin air...

you wonder why faith disappears?

 

How many prayers have you seen answered?

How many hearts are left to bear

the pain of loss despite “believing”

that there’s a God that truly cares

while undeserving loved ones leave us

    lost in our unanswered prayer.

                  *  *  *  *  *

“No” has always been the answer,

reprieve short lived; the end’s the same.

We look to pin the fault on someone,

but really there’s no one to blame.

Miracles are not forthcoming

we bear our loss as best we can

our questions gather dust, unanswered

derived from pitting God to man.

© Ginny Brannan 2024

Image: Photographer C. Parant, Appetite for Photos. Used with espressed written permission.

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3

 

What’s to lose and what’s to gain

we work our lives away in vain,

the poor can never get ahead

illusions render poor refrain;

the rich get richer by default

off the backs of all the rest.

Perhaps this life just a test:

with no money to invest

no treasure hidden in some vault

day-to-day, we peck away

just trying to keep the bills at bay,

counting hours as they pass

with very little time to play.

Yet when the reaper comes at last

what is it that we’ll have to show

for all the trials that we faced?

Perhaps it’s time to reassess,

to take a stand for what is best.

Empty, full or in between

we each interpret what is seen…

we count our joys, however rare,

the happiness that we have gleaned.

We weigh the tears that we have shed,

each exhausted minute spent,

every drop that we have bled

each smile, each laugh, each wrinkle earned

each loss, each gain, each heart we’ve spurned

while trying to grasp with clarity

if we are where we’re meant to be.

© Ginny Brannan 2021

MLK's Legacy

Intent to make change
you took your dream to the streets
fighting hate with love

We still remember
a man of infinite hope,
whose legacy lives on

© Ginny Brannan 2018

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death.

Still Searching for Answers

I have lifted my eyes to the heavens to pray

trying to renew the faith I once felt;

coming to find at the end of the day

that life as I know it is centered on doubt.

How can a God sanction such anger and hate,

the loss of a parent to such a young child;

the illness and pain that never abates…

too many questions left unreconciled.

We thank God for all of the good things that come,

but who takes the blame for the unanswered prayer?

Time intercedes until we become numb—

stuck in this place between hope and despair.

I believe there are angels who wander among us:

in the friend who just senses when you need to talk;

in the kindness of strangers when we are in crisis,

who lift and support us when we cannot walk.

Life lessons learned have hardened this heart;

still God bless the ones who can truly believe.

Blind faith without proof is really an art;

it’s in love and kindness I’ll find my reprieve.

 

Still I ponder the words that we heard in our youth:

to pray, to have faith that our voice will heard;

but have come to acknowledge this as my truth—

my divinity’s found helping those here on earth.

© Ginny Brannan 2017

“God helps those who help themselves.”

“Actions speak louder than words.”

 origin: 409 BC  Sophocles (before Christianity) from Wikipedia:

— “No good ever comes of leisure purposeless, and heaven ne’er helps men who will not act.”

Optical Illusions, Dreams, and Delusions

We watch as moon ascends the eastern sky

a massive disc now peering over fence—

an optical illusion on the rise

appearing ever larger to our eyes

than any image captured through a lens.

And what we see and what the mind imprints

border between concrete and surreal;

we tuck away to pull out and reprise,

but should we find delusion has dispensed

we search to understand what was revealed.

Same could be said for all the pain we feel,

whether caused by physical distress

or mental anguish covert and disguised—

setting off alarms and raising shields,

then leaving us despondent and depressed.

Hope rises like the moon in pale nightdress

her whisper carried soft among the stars—

and even earthen mother can surmise

that if trials and tribulations are the test;

then blessings and endowments are our prize.

© Ginny Brannan 2017

Day 17 NaPoWriMo, to write a Nocturne, a night poem. Not the same as a Nocturna which is specific to nine lines,  a nocturne in music is a composition meant to be played at night, in poetry it seems to translate to a night poem with a soft cadence in reading. No specific length or meter. 

The Golden Spiral

Life spirals

in ever widening circles,

elliptical orbits…

passing only once en route

to some unknown end;

sometimes we almost touch the past

but can’t go back again.

Through each mistake, in every trial—

conviction holds the key;

a lesson learned at every turn

upon our path to ‘be’

© Ginny Brannan 2015

Image shared by Tess Kincaid/Magpie Tales

The Golden Spiral is a non-linear shape occurring in nature, for example the arms of spiral galaxies, or in phyllotaxis of leaves, or the spiral of a nautilus shell, sometimes these are also referred to as a Fibonacci spiral. Perhaps this term isn’t exactly impressive on its own, until you realize that this ratio is the key to everything from encrypting computer data, to the numbers of spirals on a sunflower head, to our own limbs and why the Mona Lisa is so pleasing to the eye. The idea of this ever-widening yet proportionate shape intrigues me, because life in general is not linear, but full of  twists and turns. And so this piece was inspired, not just as reference to shape, but as reference to the spiral of  ‘life’ itself…

Redemption

woodland becomes church

rugged mountains form steeple

redemption awaits

© Ginny Brannan November 2011

Sharing at d'Verse Poets Pub Poetics: Poetry & Philosophy

On This Christmas Day...

As I watched the dawn break this morning, an orange 

sliver on a gray horizon, my thoughts wandered to that 

first Christmas, and how it might play out today…

Manhattan (or any major city): man and woman arrive, 

little money, can’t even afford a cheap hotel room. 

She’s quite obviously pregnant, and the paternity is sketchy. 

No matter, boyfriend doesn’t care, loves her, and vows to
raise the child as his own. As they walk through this city, 

the woman collapses in labor, and their infant son 

is born in the park. The story warrants a few lines under 

Human Interest in the daily paper. A handful of strangers 

who read it actually step up and help the couple find work 

and a place to stay so they can get on their feet. They beat 

the statistics, and stay together to raise their son, who 

becomes a well-known lobbyist and human rights activist,
speaking up for the people down on their luck,
and bringing needed attention to the ills and
mismanagement of government and society.

I have heard the Christmas story described as a fairy tale.

Whether you believe or not, there is no denying the

lessons we learn from it, the moral to the story of Christ's life:

that we need to care about each other;

that we shouldn’t be afraid to spend time among the ill,

the destitute, the so-called sinners and low-lives who need

a kind word, their spirits lifted,  a hand up;

and mostly...

that we need to treat others like we wish to be treated.

As each one celebrates this holiday in their own way, may your hearts be filled with wonder, and with the true meaning of the of the season.

©   Ginny Brannan December 2011