Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Grounded - A Poem About The Soul


Grounded
by Sheila Conner

(For we here have no lasting city,
but we are looking for that city which is to come,
whose builder and maker is God.
The writer of The Letter to the Hebrews).

Yes.
No.
Daddy used to say,
“They’re just too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.”
I resented that phrase.
How can you be anything
But heavenly minded
when your heart has been fastened to only
one sky?

Spirit soars,
Looking, longing for that city.
This world is not our home.

“Sheila, I’m going to plant your feet
back into the Earth.
Lilies needs to be rooted and grounded in dirt.”

A chink in the armor cracks;
the soul peeps through
and delights in time and place.

Spirit soars.
Soul grounds.
Both are necessary.



(The soul is a place
and love must find its way there.
Linda Gregg, God’s Places)

Soul’s places: gardens, mountains, river, ponds,
lakes, fields, grasses.

Soul finds its home in Butchart’s Sunken Gardens’ low spaces
with its expansive rock quarry  walls,
splendid pinks, flowering trees,
deep purples, and shocks of yellow tulips

and the Voice that whispers,
“I know your love for color. Let me color your life.”

Deep calls to deep
just outside Sedona –
an ancient small tree’s roots
grab hold of the side of the cliff.
We commune. She comes home with me;
I stay there with her.

Swallows soar into the heavens
weaving their great dance.
Soul lifts and pirouettes with them
until they disappear to the next dimension.
The dance continues inside of me.

Soul is home in red dirt,
White Sands, the cat’s meow,
the majestic blue heron’s winter visit.

Spirit calls me up, up and away.
Soul binds me with love and attention
here in this time
Sunday morning, 5:06 a.m.
this space
on our Creek
holding dear
Love’s face in his,
our purring cats,
memories of Miss Millie’s House of Pleasure.

There is a city waiting for me. 
Yes.
There is also home today
here and now in this time and space.

Spirit lifts my heart to that city.
Soul grounds me here and brings me home.



St. Timothy’s Episcopal
Poetry as Prayer Retreat
“The First Sky Is Within You”
Surfside Beach, Texas
November 3, 2013




1 comment:

Susan said...

Breath Taking! Thank you for sharing these poems, Sheila!

Susan