A Blessing for Parents

I bless you with wisdom beyond time
and discernment from elsewhere, heavenly.

I bless you with the might of adventurous belief
and grace intentional as the falls of Niagara.

I bless you with the burden of spent wishes
to slide off your shoulders finally

and for the love that is greater
to be greater for you than remorse.

I bless you with friends who understand
and people not afraid to wear hearts,

who can take off the masks of perfection
and share the messy beauty of becoming.

I bless you to be free of the stale taste of guilt
and to walk into the pure springs of Jordan.

I bless the old regret of all you should have done
to pack bags and exit the door.

I bless you to dream with wild imagination
and allow restriction to be momentarily lost,

to step in every puddle and jump the waves
to see with eyes born upon summer and sun.

I bless you with a love for questions
that don't need to have answers,

for the strength of angels to give you
a way to move into the conflict brave.

I bless you with courage to speak into what hides
so that the glory underneath may surface.

I bless you with the starting point of words
when everything cries out, enough.

I bless you to begin again,
and to know that there are no dead ends.

I bless you with the courage to embrace your self
as the intrepid parent you are.

I bless you to share the incredible wonder
of hearts connecting again and again.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Matt Hoffman Unsplash

A Blessing for Hope

I bless you with a slate wiped completely clean
and a brand new box of coloured chalk, ready.

I bless you with the silver lining
of every cloud after the storm slows into rain.

I bless you with a breeze on stifling days
to swirl around your thoughts, lifted.

I bless your boat to be carried
by the broadest rivers of purpose.

I bless the dead bones long lying,
to resurrect with revolutionary dreams.

I bless the music latent in your body
to be expressed through your instrument of choice.

I bless your feet to feel grounded
and your wings to flex amply wide out.

I bless you to grieve all of your losses
on the swell and crest of each wave.

I bless your voice to have a place of belonging,
for you to turn the key and open the door.

I bless what is waiting around the corner
to give you a glimpse of fresh knowing.

I bless the wells of inspiration
to be drawn from in bountiful measure,

and the windows to be thrown open
for the light and air to get in,

for the folds and wrinkles to be soothed
and the past to never dictate the future,

for a lullaby and melody to rest upon
your curtain, and cross the threshold into sleep.

I bless your creative insights
and your stories to be told.

I bless you to believe in yourself,
even when others have lost faith.

I bless your failures to become your friends
and a perspective of truth, your great worth.

I bless you with a multiplication of promises
to be dear to you as treasure once lost, now found.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Leon Biss Unsplash

A Blessing for Recovery

I bless you in the salvaging
of what really matters.

I bless your heart to be massaged
with finest balsam.

I bless all of your interactions
to be of compassionate understanding
and to resonate with healing sound.

I bless you with hands to uphold you
when you have no strength to stand.

I bless the wisdom of the ages to be clear,
a multitude of proverbs to fit your need.

I bless your own innate wisdom
to rise to the surface, benediction through pain.

I bless the silence of your day to be rich
and the moments to be calm water.

I bless you to receive the love bestowed
and to know yourself as never forgotten.

I bless the urgency of your spirit
to rest into the next step as it manifests.

I bless you to never feel lonely,
although tempted to feel so.

I bless you in the rejuvenations of time,
a journey with a particular pace.

I bless you to not feel rushed
and to be with the tears when they come.

I bless you to befriend your emotions
and to hear what each has to say.

I bless you to listen to your own inner voice,
the foresight of your life to surface.

I bless you to let things as they were, be as they were,
so that things as they are, may become.

I bless you with a handing over of reins,
a relinquishing of what can't be controlled.

I bless you to accept your limitations,
so that boundless measures may flow.

I bless you to lean back into the heartbeat
of the One who surrounds you, even now.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Faye Cornish Unsplash

A Blessing for the Weary

I bless you with a spirit born upon spring

opening into the delight of a thousand buds

intent on sap and light.

I bless you with eyes that open on waking,

lapsing into dreams that take you

rippling back and forth from Heaven to earth.

I bless you with the memory of your

most beautiful days with no regret to accompany,

the refrains of your most favourite songs.

I bless you with a yes for all your no's

and a wide open expanse breaking out

inside of your soul.

I bless you with a hurling of old stale deeds

into the sea of no beginning, no end

and the forgetting of what is wrong.

I bless you with the small things 

revealing to you great mysteries,

a spiralling mathematical shell.

I bless you to once again feel your inspiration

a tide determined, with the determination

of dawn and the colours of earth turning into the sun.

I bless you with sleep uninterrupted,

with doubts appeased and hope beating with the blood

through every one of your arteries and veins.

I bless you to be able to see gratitude

and feel it on every breath, peel off every mask,

every label and step out in your brand-new skin, astonished.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Linus Nylund Unsplash

An Archaeology of Time and Secrets

We fled the hungry streets
To find solace in upturned faces,
The eyes always speak what the mouth cannot.

The pedestal, such a lonely place
And craving for what can never fill,
The heart expands into precipitation and rain.

We are peeling the layers of earth
To dig up an archaeology of time and secrets,
Gently we brush away soil from each bone.

We have found inside of us a voice
Interlinked with the wisdom of generations,
A whisper is all it takes for these bones to rise once again.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Dane Deaner Unsplash

Join the Poetry as Therapy online Retreat - it's easy, just enter your email into the sign up form at www.secretplacedevotion.weebly.com and you will receive an email a day for 21 days in the comfort of your own home 1-21 June this year.

A Psalm of Mercy Relentless

Your mercy spreads like waves
relentless over the faintness of my soul.

How long, Oh Lord, is the question
that rises from deep within.

Because it is only while I am alive
that I can be the expression of
your love and light into the world.

Deliver me by the mercy that keeps on
coming.
Deliver me, by your mercy that alone
can save.

I receive no comfort from my futile efforts.
I cannot continue in groaning or tears.

All evil, flee, all darkness go!
For you, Oh Lord have risen upon me
and you have heard my every cry.

You receive and hear the prayers
I offer.

All darkness will turn back and return
to the place from which it comes.
It will turn back from the threshold of the door.

Your mercy will comfort me.
Your acceptance will soothe and re-create
my soul.

Your discipline will not consume me for
I am the Father's pleasure
and you have borne me into true delight.

Your enjoyment is upon me with
the soakings of mercy, filling, my every
broken place with your love.

Amen.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Frank Park Unsplash

Reach into the Side

Ashes strewn to the ocean
have returned to us as birds.

Notes are tied to these messengers
for the ones who have waited too long.

You felt forgotten amongst the heavy agenda
of Heaven's timetables.

Intercessions floating up to the throne
didn't seem to bear your particular fragrance.

But God has written down something for you
in his own hand.

Communion is once again opening
with lines that are clear.

You've been blessed with the
blessings of fumbling Thomas.

We too, have felt the doubt and the pain.

We too, can reach into the side of Christ
and come away with resurrections of faith

on wounds and scars, transformed.

Jenneth Graser

The Sound of Amen - this newly released collection of 100 poems for download at Noisetrade is birthed out of a one year pilgrimage with God through difficulty, loss, the end of seasons and the beginning of new things. Discover an adventure into the deep places of your listening heart. 

An Embrace that Holds On

In the hands of some people
there are beautiful things.
There are hands reaching
out to give these things away.

There is a heart restricted
so tight it can hardly breathe.
It is time to unzip this heart
and place what is inside
into a field.

I am moulting
and finding I know not what,
but this must be OK,
to not know and to be so angry
under the peeling skin.
Anger first,
then what is to come, can come.
What is to be, can be.

There is a hammock in the
field for misunderstood
misfits who have looked a long
time for a place to belong,
always on the fringes
of other people's dreams.

Memories dislodge with the voices
of laughing children and
water on the rocks.

There is an embrace that holds on
until the heart relaxes once again.
Sun may shine on such an
awkward feeling until the
muscles thaw out and
remember the sweetness of being,
out under the warm light of
everything lovely about the sun.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - eu.fotolia.com

Becoming More

She has made her soul to be
as smooth as possible,
laid down before the feet
of passers-by as a road for travel.

She has attempted the intricate
architecture of bridging across landmass
for others.

She has contemplated the doormats
that ordain front shops and village homes -
some welcome all guests,
others used for wiping off the dirt alone.

As long as she is beneath and
not above, all eyes greet her
with warmth and happiness.

As long as she is quiet
when quiet is expected.
As long as she is vocal
only by definition, all is well.

But to become aware,
to wave her soul as a banner,
to extricate from the web
of articulate conversation,
to express deeper thoughts
that arise from within like prisms,
to attempt to walk
on top of the water when others
prefer taking the ferry,
to shake off the doormat dust
and walk through the threshold of the door
into what may come -

This is met with a variety of
possible reactions, not all welcome.

And yet to feel her soul
become a skin of tattooed brilliance,
to feel her soul a jewel refracting light,
to feel her soul becoming;
becoming more
is worth sacrificing people's opinions
over the cliff of intention,
is worth shedding old ways
that no longer service,
is worth the pain
of discovery. 

She has become for herself
a flying carpet.

She may pour out abundance
upon the faces of all people.
She may touch the temple
of every human being with full grace
and travel every road with her soul a flag flying
from her hand stretched out of the window,
exuberant.

Jenneth Graser

Artist Dawn Siebel

What it is to remember

A river has begun again to console
the naked stones of summer.

The riverbed sings
of all it lost in the drought.

Frogs croak beside,
reminding all things that
water will return from the clouds
upon the mountain's bosom
heaving with too much regret.

Relief may be found
in the rain carrying the ache of every
unmentionable, into the sea
eventually.

The sea has been known to
cover dark deeds,
to obliterate wrong-doing.

But every wave that wraps
around the shore will whisper
and whisper, whisper again
to me of forgetfulness.

And what it is to remember -
beautiful things.

Jenneth Graser

Photography - Clark Little

Masterpiece

You may tell yourself nice things
like: it's really not that bad,
grin and bear it.

You may tell yourself:
I'm fine.
Happiness is an inside job
and the sun will come up tomorrow.

And it's true.
The sun will rise
on mountains that share in her beauty.

Trees will keep in their cycles
of growth as they should.
Birds will fly, and sing.

Laughter is healing.

And it could be a lot worse.

When you rearrange
what life has dealt you with,

you create for yourself
a masterpiece of
abstract art.

And you don't have to explain anymore
or justify responses.

It is good to express the goodness
that has been kept for so long
on the inside of
unique and wonderful you.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Francoise Nielly

Places to Return To

Having left, there is no desire to return.
Cut the ties and make a run for it.

Delve head-first into a new job,
be there for your new friends.

Write a letter to the past, seal it,
as it drifts into the fireplace.
Watch it burn.

Too many post-it notes on too
many places reminding you of
things to do, places to go, people to see.

Running the rat race full throttle
into the future with both hands
making a grab for success.

It is time to face the people
you left at the threshold of the door.

Mount your horse and ride
back the way you came.

Feel the tears rise as you approach
your failures, with determination.

It is here you will learn to make
peace with yourself;
to forgive, to let resistance go
to align with grace.

Everything familiar and same old
same old, begins to recalibrate -
when you embrace what you left
behind,
in order to find everything new.

Jenneth Graser

#write31days
Day 9 Prompt - post-it

Photography - annagorin.com

Listen to "Here and Now" - Will Reagan

What Hurts and what is Healing

I find myself open to sound,
Quiet on the morning's gift.

Dancing waves of Arabic rhythm
Syncopate with the formation of
Every letter on the page.

There is forgiveness to be released.
Myself reminded, our own treasures
Grow in the blessings we bestow, unmerited.

People wait today
For art to dip into their pain with something
To show how grateful adoration
Appeases loss.

People waiting as a gift between the
Holding walls of my abode.

The gift I capture with my hands
Open wide in thanks, to let each soar away
And settle on my shoulder
Of their own free choice.

I find myself a radiant blessing on the eye's
Reflection of the man who loves me so;
He does not need reminding that his bliss is mine
And mine is to be his, always.

I find myself open, and opening wider.
I find myself new and old, both new and old.

I find myself placed, inside the place
That feels just right for me to be for
Now, alongside what hurts and is healing,

Both: what hurts and what is healing.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Christian Schloe

Misfits

Collect your tears from the face of the sky
Clouds do not refrain.

Be with the dew suspended on the leaf
Drip into the river waiting.

Sigh on the highest mountain breeze
Where it is difficult to breathe.

Open a gift with fingers tentative,
As though it is the only gift you may receive.

Grateful thanks may rise with greater thanks
When borne through the ashes.

Be with roots who remember the music of light
In dark places, go deeper.

Live with an egg in its stages,
On a nest of what is to come.

Be with composting fruit on the manure pile;
A steam of matter rises from loss.

Once you were content to smile at flowers -
Now you bury your nose into scent.

Once you were happy to watch from airport windows -
Now you have booked your flight.

Other travellers have made room for your beauty,
Misfits have joined hands in strange peace.

Jenneth Graser

Artist - Moki Mioke