Anne M. Malley

Torrington, CT, USA

I wrote my first poems when I was seven, then continued writing about everything from clothes lines to deserted houses until college. Then I stopped. I graduated from Boston University as Valedictorian with a B.S. in Education. Teaching, marriage, children, and metaphysical lecturing filled the next 4 decades. And always I was reading, reading! Infrequent bouts of poetry-scribbling punctuated the years, but it wasn't until very recently that I became a "woman writing after a long silence." Poetry is my truth serum. It awakens me from "sleepwalking." I need to hold onto it to stay truly "alive."

To the ONE, Ocean of ALL

The Ocean conquers all;
Then conquer me
In one consuming wave,
Not stealthily.

Not as a sneak thief
Depletes my gain,
Stealing from my substance
Grain by grain.

Leap the prison of tides,
Nature's boundary.
Invade my furthest shores;
Inundate me!

Conditioning

Our lives are
Sealed in a bottle,
Like a toy ship
Pretending to be
Christopher Columbus
Without having to fear
Sailing off the sea's edge, or
Plunging into an abyss where
Space is not a boundary
But the eyehole of
Infinity.

We are led
Like any convict
To his execution,
The black hood of Reason
Fixed tight over our heads,
Shutting out the stars,
Deadening the sounds of
The far-off worlds.

Joy

Much more than eye can hold
Stretches along these rockbound shores.
The trees bend low, bidding the earth to ease its deep embrace
While brilliant streaks of sun stream through space
And spark a brilliant glow
Within that place
That's called my soul.

The ocean casts itself upon the shore,
Heaving it's pleasure in the glorious fray
Of water pounding it force on rocks,
Spending it's joy in flying spray.

If only I could speak my elation
In manner free and unrestrained,
Grinding this singing, driving force
To a gentleness more easily contained.

Men search for happiness. Here it lies
Emblazoned in the beauty that is God's touch.
I never sought it; yet it entered:
Now I fear I cannot hold so much.