Three Sisters

Blindness descends

Loose talk, fast talk, false talk
Climbs the stairs, fouls the chambers
Loose talk, fast talk, false talk
Lurks and hisses, twists sleeping minds
Loose talk, fast talk, false talk
Chases blind footsteps into the abyss



We hear our Mother's whisper
We keepers of the Light
We know a different fate

We hurry, we three sisters - the hour grows late
Silent, we ascend past decay
Past rooms where 'danger' was loved
We meet atop the tower
Above ducal counselors keeping the view
While we keep our faith

We hear our Mother's whisper
We keepers of the Light
We know a different fate

With the dawn our Mother we greet
For Her we rise
To Her we listen
We are deaf and blind
To the mistaken minds
Who say Her love is filth

We hear our Mother's whisper
We keepers of the Light
We know a different fate

We Her daughters
Her dissident daughters
We dance for Her
We raise our arms to Her light
We stretch and take in Her truth
We salute Her rising

We hear our Mother's whisper
We keepers of the Light
We know a different fate

We daughters wrap our minds -
Wherein All begins -
In Her glorious light
The light of soul-truth
The sweet light that sets
Its seal within us

We hear our Mother's whisper
We keepers of the Light
We know a different fate

"Let Me tell you, daughters,
Your love is generous, your love is kind
In you My garden dwells
And perfumes mankind -
To the antipodes and back again
To heaven and back again."

Light rises

Barbara Butler McCoy

Now

One foot before the other
One breath at a time
River of life flows past

Bees sup for Queen Mother
Dewed rosebuds innocent of crime
Time stops and Love lasts


Barbara Butler McCoy






[If I hadn't been watching where
I was going, I would have missed
this rosebud.]

The Writing on the Box

Puffs, crunchs, crisps
Flakes and squares
Giants sit down to breakfast
Yes, they sit to eat theirs

They sit and they stare
In the cool morning light
And the laughter does flare
As they read left to right

This one shows a father of four
Spent life living as his daddy did
Never asking if there's else or
If there is life beyond this box's lid

Here, this one, shows a gal
Razor tongue, all armored in black
In her box without a pal
Happy to be a party hack

Funny thing about these boxes
The giants read few younger faces
Which makes them wonder 'bout the foxes
Confining older minds in tiny spaces

Barbara Butler McCoy

I wrote this nearly four years ago, just after the '04 election and it is still, well, more than a little relevant. The idea came to me one day while wearing one of my 'Life is good' shirts. It has an image of a t.v. on the front with the admonition to "Think outside the box." I thought of people inside the t.v. - y'know, like little kids do - and then faces outside the box. Then the whole cereal box idea just bloomed forth. Maybe I was channeling Roald Dahl or something?

As I Find It

As I find it
I am nothing
no thing mere
One form rising
from the great, vast sea -
Emptiness

A paradox
nothing teeming with possibility
Break all down
You will see
you must see
it comes to nothing
Emptiness


From nothing springs
the forest rooted and reaching
Pry open slice into that seed
You will see
you must see
the heart of sprouted seedling
Emptiness

Heart of water
three mere atoms
Separate them break them down
to level where all is void
Empty heart
the source of springs
Emptiness

I find my friend we do arise
not from the dust
but from the void
I and thou dear friend
spring from possibility
Nothing and
Everything

Barbara Butler McCoy

[I'd been reading Fritjof Capra's "The Tao
of Physics" and the Dhammapada and some
of the Upanishads]

A Little Light Reading

A little light reading
Your face I love so well
Exposure to your sun
Reverses negativity
Shutters closed round my heart
Stay the beauty of the time
Beauty seeks beauty
Through apertures in the mind
Apertures for in-pouring light
Solution in the darkness.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[I wrote this to remember my dad's love
of photography. I will always remember
fondly his dedicated use of a light meter.]

Venus and David

No one knows the meaning
of loneliness like
Venus and David
She tempura on canvas
He a gaze of marble
No one knows what they see
but me

Each of the other
does think, I saw you once
and I wanted
Never can I speak it
but you, my love,
are all I see.

I stand here naked
before the gaze of strangers
whose caress means nothing
The caress of your gaze
is ever my desire

How will we find release
from these prisons of
canvas and stone?

How will our hearts
find wings?