Writings — Laura Weaver

Poems & Writings

Sample Poems from Luminous & River of Awe

When they ask where you have been,
say you have been swimming in the River of Awe again—
dropping skins to arrive here,
to be bathed and reborn in this starlit current.
Some of the most difficult work we will do in our lives—
is to retrieve joy from the clutches of bitterness.
There is a choice along the path—the many crossroads.
Will the crucible of living soften you, or simply thicken the armor?
*
In a recurring childhood dream—I stand at the edge of the sea—
watching a mountain of a wave surging towards me.
In that moment, I know just how to turn my body inside out
to create an opalescent shell. So that when the wave crashes,
I tumble unharmed in the wild foam.
*
A teacher says to me, perhaps it is time to let go of that dream—
for now you know you are the sea itself.
*
When the fierce visitor of dis-ease or loss has come
into your body, into your own mind-heart—you are asked
to learn how to receive the teachings and let the teacher go.
It is only the raft to the other side of midnight.
*
A revelation—to see that your story is not as personal as it all seems.
That the gods are not out to get you. Nor are they here to save you.
*
It’s more elemental than that—this body a landscape
where storms wash away entire canyons before the sun \
rises again over green shoots. Yes, this map of you
is rewritten over and over by these elements
that shape you, as they shape the mountain.
*
Go to the River of Awe and let the waters clear the pain
of the small self. You may feel the disorientation of this—
of unhooking from the familiar habit of you. And yet
there you are emerging—the light streaming off your skin.
*
You were given this Oracle long ago.
There is an Intimacy with life you are offered.
It requires everything of you.
Even the surrender of the story of the life
you thought was yours to live.
Even the opening to the story
of a life that would bring miracles
and set your heart on fire.
Beloved, we do not have to do anything to deserve you. And yet we are always trying to prove ourselves~
asking about purpose, looking for meaning,
when all along we are swimming in the coral reefs
of your warm oceans and tilling the soil for the next season
of waving rye. This is the home we have always dreamed of~
the garden where we once saw a no trespassing sign
and believed it! The drill of the mind bores down
through layers and layers of solid rock searching
for answers. Meanwhile, a dance is wildly unfolding
just outside our seeking. Nothing to do but love them—
these bees of our thoughts, buzzing the summer flowers.
Quick! Run past the construction sites of the self
to the hive where all the honey is stored!
Step closer to the story that scares you~
the one that has you gasping for air
in the night, searching for ground.
This one wants to take you past
the lip of the void to the birthplace
of stars, where all stories dissolve
into the blessing of original song.
Leap into the love that terrifies—
you know just what it will do.
It will un-hinge every door in your house.
It will blow in like a hurricane
and re-arrange your furniture.
It will howl like a banshee through your bones
and leave you delightfully hollow.
Without this love you are only playing
at this life– and you are so tired of that!
Turn your wild horses out
into the fields in the morning,
when first light purples the hills.
They are hungry for this earth
under hoof, this thunder of full gallop.
They may trample all the places
you have so carefully tended.
They may leave you in a cloud of dust.
And yet, this is the only way
they will return to you truly,
without a fence to keep them in.
Let the current lift you
out of the churning eddy.
There is only one place where this river flows—
through slot canyons and the eyes of midnight,
through singing valleys and greening glens.
These holy waters will have their way with you.
They are dreaming you into a body of light.
Why fight what you most long for?

The riot of the earth’s wild feast is laid before us,
daily, in places we have forgotten to look. In the veins
of the leaf in the sunlit corner of the room.
In the depths of the tiger iris of the daughter who has grown
into a woman overnight. In the clear pools of water
where night animals bend down and drink.
If we have any task it is this: to live in this exquisite seeing,
to clear our eyes of the dust of memory and expectation
that would leave us blind to what we most long for.
For even in the leanest of years, when our bodies are wracked
with grief, there is more than enough beauty to feed
all the species of this world. Take the Pleides.
Take Jupiter arcing west in the night sky. Take, the bees
that roll over on the flowers drunken with nectar. Take the globes
of squash and the sage brush in the russet hills. Take it all in.
For even in the bones and cinders of the old world, children
reach into pockets for marbles and a man gives another man
his coat. Even in the skeletal remains of fields gone fallow,
seeds settle and germinate. This cornucopia is what you came for—
for this chance to tend life, to give back to that which gives.
To be breathed one breath at a time.
In every being there lives a wound.
This is the nature of being born here, like this.
And in every life there is a choice—
to wrap ourselves around that wound,
protective of its shape, its cadence, its nuance
to build our life around that story—
or to extend through the fire of pain
to some other horizon.
The seed knows this: how to arise
from the dark tight curl of itself—
to bloom from the dark. As does the butterfly,
as it emerges from the chaos
of its own dissolution into winged delight.
It is the impossible miracle
of the luminous heart that brings us
to the hearth of our own awakening
that risks stepping forward to broach
illusory walls, that opens against all odds
seeing that we have nothing to lose
but our own false protection,
our own holding back.
In every being there is a wound~
a fissure where sacred longing is born
so our gifts can be revealed,
so our gifts can be given.
You have not missed the boat.
You are not late to the party.
You have not taken the wrong turn,
or the wrong ticket, or ended up
in the wrong line. You have not made
the fatal mistake that will destroy you
for all time. You haven’t undershot
the bullseye or slept through the final
moments of the ultimate opportunity.
You have not missed the boat.
You are the boat—
and the sea that gently tugs
on the moorings, unties the knots—
and in its time, when the wind is right—
releases you to the drawing tide.
For you know this open water
and this joy that breaks free for no reason—
you know this unmovable peace
that arises in spite of storms
and high seas and even the terrible
losses that seem unbearable.
For there is all that comes and goes,
and there is that which is indestructible—
the essence that changes forms
but does not die. There is the one of you
who laughs at the impossibility
of being human—to be wired like this:
with the hurricane of the mind
and the tiger of the heart,
and the rise and fall of the passions
moving in us like sweet fire.
Yes, you are not the one running
for the boat that is leaving the port—
not the one who is seconds too late
for your life. Nor the one debating
which way to go, or frantically seeking
the ultimate truth. You are not even
the one trying so hard to find
the last piece of the puzzle
that would make you whole.
You are the boat
and the drawing tide.