Tag: poetry

Flowers For Humanity

.Reading time 3 minutes.

In this one weave of life we are all connected. Ultimately, there is no real separation and there is no real other. And in actuality, there is no real enemy to fight. It is the conceptualization of enemies, which allows for hostilities and fighting. This is the very simple reason wartime propaganda aggressively demonizes the “other”, the so-called “enemy”. For without an enemy, whom are we to fight? But in the very creation of “enemies” we ourselves become an enemy—our enemy’s enemy—and the realization of peace vanishes instantly. In the very moment we conceive an other as an enemy, we ourselves are already defeated; our own peace shattered instantly. 

Indeed, everything is energy. The life-sustaining light of the sun is energy; the life-annihilating force of nuclear weaponry is energy. We cannot shield life from the destruction of warfare with more violence; only love can do that. The energy of rage and indignation—whether expressed as anti-Putin or anti-NATO sentiment, whether experienced by perpetrator or by victim of violence—is essentially the same energy. Liberation from violence does not come through violence itself; only love can liberate. 

Ultimately, peace is an alignment with love; whereas war is a state of misalignment—imbalance and disharmony. In the pursuit of peace, the important question to ask is not: How do we defeat the enemy? But rather: How do we align with love? 

Can we not see that the light of the sun shines everywhere, on everyone, equally and indiscriminately? And that the flowers blossom simply because it is their very nature to do so? Love is our very nature, and by design, love does not discriminate. 

So whoever you are, wherever it is that you come from, whatever your walk of life…

in these times of fear 
trauma and hate 
of senseless violence 
hold on 
to your light 
your love 
and your beauty 
offer to the altar of life 
the sacred flower 
of your heart

This post will be in place of my usual weekly post on Fridays, 12:00 a.m. UTC. I expect to return to my usual schedule next week on March 11. Thank you so much for reading, and may love and light be with you always.
~michiru adrienne

skin

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

~a short meditation on water, one~

When you go to the water—be it river, lake, pond, pool or puddle, or the ocean—do you not wonder what world is there, underneath that surface? Surely it has its own ongoings, and a deep story on the other side of seen. Behind these eyes, beyond these body-bound perceptions, what emerges? Can I just be, the water? All fluid, swirling, and free? 

skin

the surface skin of water
is its own song
of an unseen underwater world
where
together with my love
we dream
we dream and we dance
this heartbroken
this wounded and oh so weary, world
anew

pinxit

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
under this new sky
pink is the only color 
alight in my heart

the tryst

.Reading time 1 minute.

Just a friendly reminder for those who need it: Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! Monday, the 14th of February, 2022, to be exact😁 It also happens to be one of my favorite holidays, so here is a little romantic poetry for all the lovebirds out there…😽
the tryst

come for me, whispered the flower to the sun
 
gather my soul with your warm light, rising

into the deep and endless blue

your brilliance is my raison d’etre 

my love
 
for you 

i perfume the winds pink 

and dance gracefully 

inside this humming song of pure light


shine for me, whispered the sun to the flower 

unfurl your soft petals and let me into your 
sweetness 

your deep nectar 

your glowing beauty is my pleasure 

my delight 

for you 

my fire burns, ceaselessly 

into the night 

and boldly across the cloudless blue sky

postcard from the seashore

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Dear Human, 

in my round body
this hard and heavy world rests
carefree and content

Yours truly,
Rock

Commercial Break

.Reading time 1 minute.

In place of my usual weekly essayette and/or poem, I’m sharing links to a short radio interview and a magazine article on my work which were produced last year. I hope you will take a moment to experience (i.e. hear and see) my work through these other media channels. As always, thank you so much for reading!

In September 2021, I was invited to join “Bridges Across World Communities”, a local radio program sponsored by the Nishinomiya City International Association (NIA). Hosts Floyd and Thelma interviewed me about my first self-published book of poetry and photography: Twelve Moons & The Sea ~ A Journey Home. The interview was conducted in two short segments which can be accessed with the links below:

Part One (from 5:10)

Part Two (from 5:07)

In October 2021, my work was also featured in Tokyo Weekender’s series TW Creatives, which highlights “various works by Japan-based writers, photographers, videographers, illustrators and other creatives“. Please check it out below:

TW Creatives: Photo Poetry by Michiru Adrienne

Links to the above radio interview and magazine article can also be found on my new media page on this website:

Media

beginnings

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Some poems seem to take on a life of their own. Apropos perhaps, I do not remember when I wrote the first version of the poem below—only that it was a very long time ago—and it seems also to have no end. I’ve come back to it multiple times, tweaked it here and there, but its completion is forever illusive. Like snake tracks in the desert sand, it evades capture. This poem of beginnings and endings, has neither. Maybe we are all like that, without beginning nor ending, in reality… and our essential self too, like snake tracks in the desert sand, evades capture.

beginnings

In every beginning 
there is death 
and in all death, there is rebirth.
Do you remember your beginning? 
 
We are a continuum, of 
eternity & nothingness 
polarity & unity
a quivering consciousness sometimes shackled
by words.
 
Freezing bits of existence 
into b/l_o.c+k-s tumbling 
from our mouths
we trip 
in the rubble of our own expression.
 
Until weary, perhaps
with splintered and twisted feet
we lay down, seeking 
nothing 
other than earth
and sky.
 
Here we find, an infinite desert.
Here our hollowed self, shimmers 
alive
reawakened 
in an instant of eternity.
 
A single drop of rain    falls 
into the soul 
and the membrane of each cell shivers 
shedding itself 
into currents of grace 
flowing and
flowing like blood into 
crevices 
and over rocks and into ancient 
ravines
 
returning devoutly 
inevitably
to firelit waves of a primordial sea.

Do you remember
                                      your beginning?

A Simple Story

.Reading time 1 minute.

This is a simple story. 

The other day I went for a walk and found a small park with a bench and a very large tree. Sitting there, I took in the surrounding quiet, light, and pleasure of watching a mother and child playing together. And even still, the light weight of an infinite digital universe in my palm took me out of the quiet, the light, and the simple joy. With so much to “do”—I disappeared altogether from the park. 

Then, for some reason, some beckoning from a mysterious somewhere calls and… I looked up. Spinning through the air through the blue through the soft light there, came these two leaves together on one stem. In the park once again. Awake again. My heart beating, once again. I promise to put my phone away and walk over to where the spinning lovers landed. My journey is not solitary. And I collect this little treasure and thank the voices from beyond and my heart is filled again, with quiet with light and with joy. 

two leaves on one stem
suddenly across the sky
spin love into flight

The Ocean

.Reading time 2 minutes.

One of the loveliest things about strolling along the beach is finding seashells. Some of them call out to you, with a little coy glimmer or a slight beckoning and irresistible sigh. “Come, take me home with you, let me adorn your shelves, let me remind you of the sea and its beauty every day” they whisper. And others even more beguiling, “For you, I have made the arduous journey and stranded myself upon this shore! Do not leave here without me.” Alas, what heartless soul does not succumb to the romance of seashells?
Like seashells, poems too find their own ways of surfacing into our meandering minds and our wanderlust—just at the very precise moment we need them. Our wayfaring souls are steered by poetry and seashells alike.

Here is a poem by Khalil Gribran which articulates an inevitable journey to the sea, to the ocean of becoming. And on the eve of 2022, and of all the unknown ahead, I pause on its sandy shore and watch the waves rolling in. Shall I walk back now to the familiar comforts of my faraway motherland, or shall I plunge into this ocean, this unknowable depth with a million and one shades of blue—unabashed, without reserve, naked, and wholeheartedly?

Fear

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

Khalil Gibran

again

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

~a short meditation on flight, five~

and into this house of the sun 
i am carried again
swept up
held, and
laid down in its luster
soft center churning gold
into golden
rims
burning and brimming full
fuller and fuller, thicker and
rounder, rounder rims
        we 
                p
                   l
                      u
                           n
                           
                                      g
                                             e
and we
                 d
                      i
                            v
                              e


and then we  f l  y    f o r    f o  r   e    v     e      r
in all
and in every
d    i    r    e    c    t    i    o    n


again