Trees Unbending

Trees Unbending

We were like trees unbending,
You and I
Tall and proud, in hardened coats
Rough exteriors, ancient roots,
Painful memories that would not die,
Besetting birds that would not fly,
Growing and growing yet bearing no fruit,
Standing alone with our heads in the sky.

But in the night,
Our leaves would fall
Silent tears would downward run
Whispered vows would be recalled
And days of love in Summer's sun.

We were not always trees,
You and I
Once seeds and flowers, stems and vines,
Softly swaying, in lover's arms,
Children of future that knew not a past,
Unaware of the storms overtaking us fast,
Too blind with our love to notice the harms,
Love's jealous cold rain, fell on us at last.

And we grew into trees
That would not bend,
Grew into strangers that could not touch,
Turned blessed words into curses of sin,
And lost the treasures that we loved so much.

We were like trees, unbending,
You and I,
Surrounded by a forest full of green,
Living things that pulsed with love,
While you and I, we pulsed with strife,
Living things devoid of life,
Our branches broken like shattered dreams,
And only dark skies up above.

Till the woodsman came
And cut you down,
And you fell at my feet with a grievous sigh
And the sound of your falling was a terrible sound
And the forest was filled with my too-human cries.

We were like trees, unbending
You and I,
Suspicious mean mouths with nothing to say,
Wasting the years encased in that pride,
Depriving ourselves of the joy and the good,
Starving our hearts of the heart's only food,
Not finding that love again till it died,
Two trees, cut and wounded, now rotting away.

We are like trees, no more
For death has a way of making life
A thing so precious that nothing can
Replace the woman, replace the man,
Tear down the walls,
Remove the pride,
Love lives on in spirit
Though the vessel has died.

This is our story
And you must hear
First with your heart
And then your ear
Don't be like we were,
Please heed our pleas:
The falls come the hardest
For unbending trees.

©by Voo

Feb 21, 2011

6:44 p.m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6NiZitg9l8

Speak Your Heart
by Lizz Wright

The Road That Ends In The Sea (repost)

The Road That Ends In The Sea

"Call me!" he said in a voice full of woe

On the message he left on my phone

Along with a dozen other ones I had missed

I could tell he felt so all alone.

But it had been one of those days

And my job had taken it's toll

My mind on the blink, couldn't talk, couldn't think

And he was probably just trying to be droll.

So I had listened to some of them

And the other ones, deleted

I was so tired and needed sleep

And his calling went unheeded.

I went to bed, dreams in my head

Dreams so dark and dreary

Tidal waves and things unsaved

And I woke up so weary.

Driving into work I thought

About my sweet lost friend

We'd tried to make our love work out

But it had reached it's end.

And I'd moved on, found someone else

But he couldn't do the same

He'd call me twenty times a day

To only speak my name.

"This has to stop!" I said to him

When next I saw his face

"You've got to stop this stalking me!

This is so out of place!"

"I know, I know!" he said, in tears

"I just can't help myself!

I've screwed up all of my life

And I have nothing left!"

"That isn't true," I said to him

"You've got so much to give."

"Oh, no, I don't, for without you

I just don't want to live."

I took him in my arms and sighed

And shed a tear or two

It is so sad when love goes bad

And  your love does not love you.

We went our separate ways once more

And I thought that things were good

Until I noticed him hiding himself

Doing things that he never should.

He left me a dozen roses

Upon my car's windshield

Letters and song requests on the radio

He kept trying to break my will.

Showing up and showing out

In front of all my friends

They teased me 'bout my obsessed boyfriend'

And it never seemed to end.

"What did you do to that poor guy?"

My clergyman once asked

"I've never seen anyone so much in love!"

But that die had already been cast.

I'd found a love that just felt right

And seemed so good to me

We met each other's needs and yet

Let both our hearts run free.

I'd never had that kind of love

With sweethearts in my past

Some were fickle, flighty things

And some not made to last.

But when I'd met my former love

Things took a different turn

We started out on the same page

But his heart began to burn.

And burn in ways I didn't like

That gave me no reprieve

He was obsessive and so possessive

That I felt I couldn't breathe.

Our break-up was so messy

I tried hard not to be unkind

But he refused to accept the news

And I exploded and spoke my mind.

And I said things I shouldn't have said

But things that still were true

And I saw the hurt upon his face

When he said, "I still love you."

"But I don't love you, I never did."

I said and walked away

Leaving him crying on his knees in the rain

A scene burned in my brain to this day.

I didn't mean to hurt him

I just tried to protect myself

Sometimes you give so much of you

That there is nothing left.

Months passed and I started to live again

Feeling the freedom to breathe

Finding the joy and the love to employ

While he sank and continued to grieve.

Then slowly he seemed to mend himself

And I reached out friendship's hand

We talked, we had fun, a new era'd begun

But inside, he was still the same man.

We double dated with his new girl

And the new love that I'd met

And all seemed fine but in his mind

He just would not forget.

The phone calls started up again,

The letters in my door,

The cards and flowers, hour after hour

Till I couldn't stand it anymore.

My boyfriend beat him to a pulp

When he showed up one night

I tried to keep the peace but failed

And they got into a fight.

The police came and took him away

As he shouted out his pain

And the neighbors watched and shook their heads

When he screamed out my name.

Shell-shocked then, I could only pray

For God to heal his soul

What kind of life could he hope to have

If I were his only goal?

They took him to the hospital

Committed him to stay

I heard that he was making progress

And hoped he stayed that way.

Until last night when I'd heard the calls

Recorded on my phone

(And though collected and calm,

He still sought me as his balm)

And I just sighed and left him alone.

I listened to his messages again

The ones that I had saved

As I ate my lunch, without a hunch

Of what I'd hear that day.

"Meet me at the lamplight," he'd said

"On the road that ends in the sea."

And I couldn't conceive and couldn't perceive

Of the message that he had left me.

As I sat in my car later in traffic

I suddenly began then to see
What he had been trying so hard to not say

And to discern his sad request to me.

I got out of traffic and flew so fast

To the only place I knew

Where there was a road that dropped off that way

And a place that he knew, too.

"Oh, no, oh, no." I cried out slow

As I made my way in the rain

"Don't let him do something that he'll regret

Trying to take away his pain."

The park was deserted when I got there

The park where that boy had met me

The park with the bridge that had been there so long

That it had fallen at last in the sea.

And they'd voted not to replace it

For it had only been used in the past

By a family that lived on an island

That'd been wrecked by a hurricane's wrath.

(So the road through the park

Had no where to go now

It was just a joke for the townsfolk to see

It was still lined with lamp lights

And they still lit up some nights

But the road ended there at the sea.)

I parked my car there on the road

As the rain came pouring down

I couldn't see a sign of him

I didn't hear a sound.

Then suddenly to my surprise

A light came on so bright

The last lamp post at the end of the road

Lit up the rain soaked night.

I walked in trepidation

Up to the old lamp post

Saw the note inside the plastic bag

Watched over by his ghost.

"I'm sorry," he wrote, "Won't you forgive?

I've been a hopeless fool

And you were always sweet and kind

You didn't mean to treat me cruel."

I held the note up to the light

As the rain washed away the ink

And then threw the note into the sea

And stood and watched it sink.

Then I saw the strangest thing

His shoes setting off the path

He had taken them off before he'd jumped

And the sight just made me laugh.

For those had been his favorite shoes

I had given them to him, it's true

On his birthday, he'd smiled

"If  a girl buys you shoes,

Then that means that she really loves you."

And I dropped to the ground and I cried

For all the ways that things shouldn't be

For his love and his loss and his life

And I knew he'd finally let go of me.

©by Voo

Feb 6, 2019

2:10 p.m.

for.......you know

partially based on a true story

of my life........

Ride (one of my old homemade videos)

Video by JessyJane/Voo

Imagining You repost

Just My Imagination

Imagining You

Is it just my imagination
Or are you really real?
Are you really holding me right now
And making me to feel....

That all my dreams might come to pass
And all my hopes come true
Are you really telling me to dream
But dream of only you?

You need not ask that question, love
For there is no one else
That can make me dream such magic things
Not even my own self.

I do not know where you came from
What star from whence you fell
What moon beam dropped you in my life
For the sun won't even tell.

One day I woke and you were here
Where you'd never been before
Walking up my garden path
And knocking on my door.

The bluebirds serenaded 
The rose expressed perfume
The buttercups stood up and danced
With the moon flower and the moon.

And the sound of music filled the air
Pianos, violins
Saxophones and guitar strings
From the hands of holy men.

I looked around to see if I
Had died and gone to Heaven
For you were an angel standing there
That my heart had surely beckoned.

But then you smiled and shook your head
No, I am real, you see
For the angels heard you when you cried
And they have dispatched me.

For I was crying, too, you  know
And longing for your love
And wondering if we'd ever meet
And they watched us from above.

It's not imagination
No matter how you feel
We may have been born in that good place
But you and I are real.

And I have come to take you to
That paradise you seek
It's in a world you may not know
For your heartsight has grown weak.

The world that lives in here, you said
And pointed to your heart
The place that love has always been
Where we've never been apart.

And now we'll abide forever there
Where none can tear asunder
And you won't have to imagine me
Or ever have to wonder.

And I gave my hand and gave my heart
To the man that came that  day
Who walked out of my hopes and dreams
And here will always stay.

Kiss of Life

©by Voo

February 18, 2019
10:49 p.m.