May 2024 be a year for
11th hour miracles
Untraveled roads
Equations that balance
and
Heart-healing clarity
A Soul of Sky and Stars
I wrote this back in 2018 and still don’t know who it’s for.
“A Soul of Sky and Stars”
What need have I to outshine any star?
I am the night itself, a tapestry
Of lights more piercing for their frame of dark
Than any ray from simple sun could be.
Chiaroscuro love is not for all;
The constellation of my body needs
To be explored by one who is enthralled
Not just by stars, but emptiness between.
So come, oh, come, thou spacefaring stranger,
Thou dauntless wanderer in search of joy
Who looks upon the night as wild pleasure.
So come and seek me, if you dare deploy.
Inside my heart a galaxy resides.
Consider this before you enter here:
If once you chart and love this foreign sky
Could you, in truth, return to who you were?
~Elena Nola
The Alchemists’ Creed
Record the measurement of time with graves
Not seconds, minutes, hours. From tyranny
Of gears we come unbound; we are not slaves
To counterpoint or linearity
Replace the wheelings of the stars with heat
A catalyst applied like key to lock
Consuming all the dry and obsolete
To turn the spiral faster than the clock
Submit to chaos and necessity
Of chance; the process cannot be contained
The irony of alchemy: to see
An end, but not the path by which attained
Surrender to a wider-seeing source
Oh, lord of ash and fire, with scent of stars
And roses formed of embers glowing orange
Incinerate what’s done; let it be char
Transform the darkest shadow so it turns
From emptiness to flame; as bright my light
So deep my dark, but even so, it burns
Black star invisible against the night
All courses are innately changeable
To start a phoenix burn takes just a spark
We hold this truth to be immutable:
Who carries soul of flame need fear no dark
~Elena Nola
As On Arrakis, In My Mind
Abandonment mélange is just another name for Spice
When it is present, it is omnipresent
Touching every aspect of a life
Infecting it, addicting it, shifting all its precepts
Creating a dependence on its cinnamon-like dust
Now, is it sweet or is it bitter? Can you differentiate?
When it changes, too, the world’s trust
Making dune seas of the lushest place?
Desert planet, made of fear, no water to find anywhere
Scraping by on thimblefuls of life’s limiting need
A lifetime spent without the rain, just choking bone-dry air
All travelers be warned in time, all travelers take heed:
This spice will graft itself to you, rewire your very mind
It also opens you in ways no training ever could
Once infested in your brain, it can’t be left behind
But once you learn control you wouldn’t, even if you should
~Elena Nola
When the Light Is Low
I feel drunk on moonlight and hope
Reckless from the silver glow
And the whispers of conspiracy carried in
On this restless autumn wind
The sweetness of this life sparkling
A glaze upon my cheeks
I know what price I paid to be this free
And how long to the hour it took to render
Somehow still it dazzles me in sunshine
Robs me of breath and blurs my eyes
Some things are just easier to see
When the light is low
~Elena Nola
The First Cold Night
October moon eclipsed
By slender tri-part trunk of elm
All other stars burned out
By its relentless beams
The planet just below
The only light in view
Now crisp and cleanly framed
Black-shadowed wood on night
A single yellow leaf released
It falls
Like fire from the sky
~Elena Nola
To Enter the Shadow
A shamanic prayer for the time of year – or the times of life – that ask us to enter the darkness of our pain and our past and examine what is there. Perhaps there might be a call to bring light or healing. But perhaps the simple alchemy of witnessing our own experience without flinching or denying what it was, is all the magic we need.
And, we don’t have to walk into that darkness alone. We can call for aid.
“To Enter the Shadow”
Come Odin, come Lady, come wisdom
Come ravens, come falcon, come runesong
Come hunting, come seeking, come finding
Come Odin, come Lady, come witness
Come autumn, come wild-wind, come fire
Come harvest, come feasting, come culling
Come omens, come portents, come warnings
Come autumn, come threshold, come fire
Come winter, come darkness, come shadow
Come memory, come vision, come stories
Come courage, come honor, come changes
Come shadow, come darkness, come winter
Come Odin, come Lady, come witness
Come sorrow, come anger, come grieving
Come insight, come choices, come freedom
Come Odin, come Lady, come wisdom
~Elena Nola
Highway 7 West, October, 7:28 PM
Two seconds’ notice and oncoming lights Your scuttling steps were swift on cement Your wobbling walk blending in with brown road Why were you on that bridge The unnatural predator of the midnight river rolled on Inexorable Nowhere to turn, nowhere to go It could not stop for you and did not swerve Inevitable outcome Your soft body barely a bump beneath its weight More sound than feeling The brush of fur on fiberglass, rubber on bone Why were you on that bridge There was no purpose in the taking No exchange, no life for life, for sustenance or survival Nothing sacred, just unholy probabilities Incidental death, a side effect Collateral damage from this black tar current A killing machine your instincts were not designed to evade Why were you on that bridge ~Elena Nola
Faith
I think sometimes about That princess in that tower How she could do nothing To help her hero’s cause Except exist, and by existing Inspire him to struggle on How much trust must she have had In the sufficiency of all her charms? She had no reason to believe - No confirmation that she could Call him in and motivate him Past all strife and horror How much faith must she have had In herself to be exactly what he wanted And worth everything he gave to win her? I feel like that princess in that tower In the dark myself, yet still a beacon Unable to assist the fight Or even know if it has happened Unable, too, to circumvent the challenge My only task - MY hero’s test - Is to believe myself enough To trust my worth, with no evidence At all, and live in faith That he will fight, and he will come And he will be enough - and so will I
From One Jane Austen Heroine To Another
He is no Mr. Darcy to elevate you, Elizabeth,
His silence not from shyness but from secrets.
Not shame – he proved himself shameless,
Unrepentant for his deeds, boastful at their intemperate allure
And unapologetic of his indulgence –
But calculation, a deliberate deceit born of keen awareness
That his choice must redefine his character
To anyone of sense or conscience.
Fair of face and false of heart, wickedness
Surpassing cleverness within his breast.
A liar and a user, he casts himself as victim,
A martyr to his feelings, his honor needful tithe
Upon the altar of affection, never seeing
That love esteems and respects before it adulates,
And any “love” which sacrifices either is not worthy of the name,
As he, indeed, is not worthy of the title hero.
He is no Darcy, proud and just and true –
But only Henry Crawford.
Elena Nola, Poet 