Category: Poetry

A Poem: A Moment

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Happiness is here

its under the oak tree,
or the open sky
of blue, or stars
against the dark.

It’s in the breeze,
soft against my skin,
or strong enough
to blow all my efforts apart.

So that I simply am
here right now;
nothing brought to bear
on this time.

Nothing to take away even.
Not the stars or the sun
that were here before me,
and will be still, when I’m gone.

This moment alone
single and complete,
holds all the treasure
of life in an acorn.

In my child’s smile
and my beloved’s arms
I find brief peace
to last a lifetime.

Even though in a breath
it is lived,
and in a breath
it’s then gone.

For somehow
under each moment
time stretches its tent,
so I am caught aloft.

The stars tell me this,
and that gap in the dark
where the lit heavens
break through.

I fall in to happiness,
which while momentary
depends on something
more lasting than us.

Yes life is full,
and I’m held complete.
This happiness found in the moment,
I unwrap it.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2017

Photo:  My own (Haihei, NZ)

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

A Poem: There comes a day

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There comes a day when
it no longer matters what others think.

All that matters now
is that we follow our own lead.

That we no longer resist
the urge to get our feet wet.

At the waterside.
At the harbour, where we draw our own tide.

Yes all that matters now
is that we source the depths of our own longing.

For we know that our very being depends
on the truths we tell ourselves.

And these truths are reflected now,
in the stillness of the water’s surface.

Yes, look and find,
that after all, you are perfect.

To your own self to which you are now true.
And to your own purposes which call you.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

‘So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbour of your longing.
And put your lip to the world.
And live your life.’
Mary Oliver

Image:  My own (Marlborough Sounds)

A Poem: Made for Him

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He made me not for me
and not for you, but for himself.

He made me delicate, complex,
unique.

In that where I see imperfect, flawed,
and inadequate;

He see’s the beauty of his intent,
the potential of his design,

the splendid intricacy of his plan
come to life.

I was made for him and not for you,
or even myself.

For his pleasure
I have been breathed into existence.

That just for a moment of time,
I might sing the song he’s given.

That my voice and heart might inhabit the role
he’s signalled as mine.

The answer to our inadequacies
is in remembering why.

When we know the answer there is no question.
For we know where our worth and purpose lies.

Our protests die on our lips
and we rest in the peace of his providence.

Yes, I was made for you God
nothing else.

Establish me entirely as your own,
for therein is the place I find myself.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

Image: Copious Tree, Pinterest

 

A Poem: Good

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Whatever fills our soul
God gives us that.
He is pouring wine into cups.
We are to just hold ours out.

He causes the sun to rise on all.
The earth is ours and all that’s good.

And as my skin responds to the warmth
of a late winters morning,
I see dew still on the bud
that’s yet to open for its full.

And I remember, our souls are made of a substance
to retain that which is poured,

upon us without measure,
without limit or withholding.
That we might draw water as the plants,
to use and to store.

Yes God, whatever fills our soul
you give us that.
Pour into my cup, open my buds to their full
to contain you and to trust,

in your goodness to all.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

Photo by Tattyan on Unsplash
You visit the earth and cause it to overflow; You greatly enrich it; The stream of God is full of water; You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth.
Psalm 65:9

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:45

A Poem: Tonight when I stepped out

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Tonight when I stepped out

and beheld the moon,
full and white,
and blooming
against the dark canvas of the night,

I felt a tug,

a pull to a place that I knew.
That I might call home
although I know not from where
it comes, this sense of knowing.

But still I feel it every time

that I am pulled beyond myself
by the moon, or the sea,
or a mountain standing strong and solid
in the ground.

Its as though all that underpins life

is suddenly written
in vivid hieroglyphics across the sky
or the sea, or the landscape’s
sweeping terrain.

And prayer,

and my heart
seems too small to take it all in.
The only way I can is to dissolve,
to become one with all that I perceive.

Perhaps that’s why

I said to my love
when I stepped outside tonight.
‘Farewell, its been so good, I am flying to the moon –
meet you on the other side.’

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

Photo: Sebastian Molina on Unsplash

A Poem: Room

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What might one become when given a voice,
and room.

Room to change, expand, grow,
belong.

How might our tender growth,
be sustained

until it is able to live
and thrive on its own.

Can we be space for one another
and give room to speak;

to walk, to dance,
to hold our head high.

Knowing there is nothing of which we need
be ashamed, or hide.

Then how might our growth expand
to reveal the wonders we yet hold inside.

Will you join with me,
in giving each other room.

For each of us has a place,
and each voice a melody of its own.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

Image: Maria Darii, Unsplash:

A Poem: Eden

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Oh Lord you are too Holy.
How do we become clean?

Not by our own efforts
do you assure me,
but by immersing ourselves
into the holy stream.

Oh holy stream,
wash over my stains.

So that when my God looks at me
he sees not the dirt of my hands;
not my sullied self
but one he has loved and made.

One he’s loved and died for,
that my life might be reclaimed.

That I might image him as polished silver
or a river stone set in sand.
Maybe even a jewel,
alight as the morning star in his palm.

Or simply as one that walks with him
in the garden, again.

Ana Lisa de Jong
August 2017

 

Painting: David Hettinger, ‘New Book’

A Poem: A Harbour

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We need a harbour.

A harbour where we can moor our vessels
that have been tossed and turned
by inclement weather,
by changing currents,
and the wear and tear,
of all our endeavours.

We need a place where we can shed ourselves.
Selves we have worn so long,
that, like the colour on our lips,
wear thin with too much time,
between our attentions.
That start to need more effort to sustain,
than we can spare.

Then we need a place,
where we can go to restore and mend.
We need the shoulders of the Comforter,
the Body of His House,
the refuge of His Courts
where He meets us, inestimable host,
as though we had never been gone.

We need a harbour.
Where we can take our longings, our endless needs,
to the edge, and pour them in.
That wraps its presence around us
and reminds us, indeed we need nothing
that isn’t already ours,
here in this place.

This place in which He is
the centre piece.

Ana Lisa de Jong
July 2017

Image:  Pinterest
‘How lovely is your dwelling place,  Lord Almighty!   My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.   Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young— a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God.  Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.  Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.  As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.’
Psalm 84

 

A Poem: Tui – A Poem for Winter Solstice

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Tui, with your white throat,
you dance on the flimsy limb,
and sing a song,
that keeps me still and listening.

As the wind tosses the leaves
against a leaden winter sky,
I wonder you have a tune still
that causes your lone breast to rise.

I fear the cold that I can feel
in the blustery wind,
has got into my bones,
never mind that I sit warm inside.

Yes today, I am aware
there are two ways of being…

And I wonder Tui, with your tune,
how you could have known,
that for a moment there,
I’d forgotten

the notes that give us a song.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
Winter Solstice 2017

Image: Jason Hosking, New Zealand Geographic

A Poem: These Three Remain

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These three remain –
Faith, Hope and Love.

Let’s teach our children,
not of things which they must strive to obtain.

For one day they might find such things
to be built on sand.

To be made of such stuff
that dissolves in their hands;

when they cling too hard,
or too firmly depend.

Instead love,

in truth
is not even a lesson;

for us to pass on,
but a gift already given.

Unmerited, and without condition,
it’s the foundation of faith.

And faith,

is the substance of things hoped for,
and unseen.

But believed,

because the love by which we are loved,
has proven them to be real.

Yes faith,

is the means by which we
can know ourselves assured.

And hope,

is the tenacity
by which we hold to all that’s good.

And which without
we would not

risk, or seek, or trust
or even love.

Yes these three things,

we must give our children
if we give them nothing else.

And we give them these things,
by first finding them ourselves.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
June 2017