Be Still My Heart

 

©2010 Howard Paley "Stillness at Dawn," Sedona, AZ

 

The photographer calls me

Echoing God’s voice as it reverberates

Against red walls of stone

A sculpture of magical vistas whisper

Dewey dawns of morning light

Amethyst blush of babies cheeks

Ochre shades of foxes’ tails

Raccoon eyes that see the night

Become dawn’s glow

Such hidden treasures

Permeate the Arizona landscape

As peppermint canes peaking out

From branches of Christmas trees

In front of the arched window

I love to peek out of 

Sipping melted chocolate

With gummy marshmallows melting

Absorbing the seasons’ shift

Dancing in rhythmic days

Moving softly from one foot to the other

 

All rights reserved.  ©2010 by Sara Fryd

Another amazing photograph by Howard Paley.  I wrote this poem staring at the photo.

 

Comfort Food

Maple, oak, aspen are going to sleep till spring

Leaving behind a comforter of leaves

In colors created by angels above the clouds

Who sneak down before dawn

With brushes held in pockets in their wings

Dropping leaves of scarlet, tangerine, and lemon

Leaves to warm the roots below, the earth above

Even Sandia Mountain is a darker shade

Of violet-laced magenta at twilight

Than it is during April’s break of dawn

“…how God how? How do you mix cerulean skies?”

How do you create lavender stones?”

No audible answers from the heavens this time

Revealing what I know and haven’t seen before this day

Time to view the world again with new eyes

Or maybe a transplanted heart

Received from friends who chose to love me

Even when I couldn’t love myself

Seeing out my window through a heart of joy

Belies the view

When did my heart grow wings?

When did my eyes change colors?

When did I learn to see?

When did the air become chilled like Riesling?

When did the mood become warm like chocolate?

When did Autumn become the comfort food

That filled my soul?

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Denim Blue Days

Denim blues on fences painted

Ready for a party

    of skulls & wooden angels

Hung on nails, left to wither…

Adorn the roadside

where we stop to buy chilies and beer

Just past the right turn of the Rio Grande.

Purple blue mountain ranges

                                                                                                 Jackalope Fences ©1996 by Joshua Liberman*

            divide horizons

Pointing North or East, depending

How you turn the compass

            towards the ever glowing

orange mango sunset.

The wind tossing tumbleweed

Around, against the desert floor

            like beach balls

                           at the ocean

In the sandy warm summers

                  of my childhood.

What a day to

     R…

             I…

                   D…

                          E…

          ride with the top down.

A day for keeping a faded denim jackets

(forgotten in the trunk last spring), close

Before the evening chill envelops.

Like skulls bleached, forgotten

Left to wither, left to whiten

on the desert floor.

Covered gently as a whisper

               by a blanket of the setting sun.

*This poem was written after receiving Josh’s picture above.  As with San Juan Windows, I sometimes set the photograph next to the computer, stare, then paint with words.

Queen of the Night

Such still beauty born at night

Cereus by Sara Fryd

protected

from prying eyes of man

lighting the way in the darkness

for a heartbeat

to confirm for non believers

the true existence of God.

The cereus queen awakes

for twelve hours

so we can breathe in her light

          her smile…

until the bees drink in her nectar at dawn

and then she dies.

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

San Juan Windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deserted windows

Empty now

         no one looking out.

No sounds of children playing.

No birds resting

          waiting for a crumb of bread.

No poets

          sitting on your ledge,

          watching goings on

          on streets below.

Reporting to the world beyond

          passionate fantasies.

Dreams…

          as yet untold.

Why do your fading colors,

          your falling

                    c

                            h

                                      i

                                               p

                                                         s

          of sea green paint

Illicit such emotion in me?

The amateur photographer 

              more poet

than lens or eye.

Who stumbled

          upon your timeless beauty

Yesterday…

Walking a deserted street

    one warm November afternoon…                                      

                 …alone.

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Photography & Poetry by Sara Fryd*

*The photographs were taken November 1990.  If you took below the first photograph there is a piece of paper with the words “me poeme” (my poem) in Spanish.  I started writing March 1991.  Four months before I started writing, God left me a note on a wall in San Jan, Puerto Rico to pursue something I had never done.