Rising

untitled - Sam Stewart - http://samueljstewart.com/

Written By Lesleigh Misener

In the place where I dream

I dwell among trees; great, strong, reaching, trees.

Firmly rooted, and rising; limb by limb skyward

Forever growing, in an ascent to the heavens

Untamed waters move around me.

The ocean, in its relentless praise of the shoreline,

sings me home.

Fracture; healed in the stinging salt of the tide.

The call restores; filling long abandoned places.

Untitled

I can see mountains - mixed media on watercolour paper, 11"x 15", 2009 -Monica Lacey http://www.monicalacey.com

Untitled
Written By Lesleigh Misener

On dirt roads you will find me
barefoot, released.
Following paths that lead to mysteries
only forest can contain.
Balsam and fir spinning wordless song
Sailing paper-masted heart down dancing brook
to seas of green and spirit.
Here is the breath. Here is the psalm.
And the music that rises from the deep.

The Road Home

Figure 21 ~ life drawing by Gweneth Branch-Rice

Written by Lesleigh Misener

Friedrich Nietzsche said “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

So often I find myself connected to a song or a melody that leads me where I need to travel in my minds eye.

Roads open before me, suns rise and set, dust settles, in the wake of a pick-up truck ambling away down a quiet country lane, and pain rises and falls away like waves lost on the shoreline. There is refuge, promise, solace and joy. What is found and what is lost. Where we have been and where we have yet to go.

This morning I woke with a song. Quietly whispering at the urging of some invisible D.J. in my psyche. Lyle Lovett’s “This Old Porch” was calling from the South.

I listened to it on repeat several times; finding myself again connected to the wanderlust that so often meets me, and to a familiar yearning for a home that I have never known.

I wanted to walk barefoot into that song.

To feel the weathered planks of that porch against the soles of my feet, and the grass and silky dust of the lane between my toes as I stepped from the bottom stair. To run my finger along the edge of the gilded frames of aged photos that hang on the stairwell inside, and linger in their history. To belong to this place and all that it held.

“And this old porch is just a long time
Of waiting and forgetting
And remembering the coming back
And not crying about the leaving
And remembering the falling down
And the laughter of the curse of luck
From all of those passerby
Who said we’d never get back up” ~Lyle Lovett

Strange that my old friend Wanderlust was traveling in the company of the Deep Call Home, sans destination ticket – Lyle Lovett acting as tour guide.

The road home is a mystery…

I’ll have to keep my eye on the signs.