Stay in the Dark Night

Stay in the dark night


Remain lost in the unknown


You don't need to find the truth


Because it doesn't exist


As long as you


Stay in the dark night



You won't be judged


Only pitied


Only loved



Stay in the dark night


The search will be your light


Keep reading


Keep writing


Keep searching


Keep hoping 


But don't believe


Don't reach any conclusion


The day you do


Is the day you lose more 


Than your faith



© Ruby Neumann




Poet's Note:  written August 30, 2020  


Poetry is not advise, poetry is poetry.  I am not speaking to people who are going through a dark night of the soul, I am speaking as one who is in her own dark night of the soul.  


The more I want to explain this, the more I realize that I need to leave it alone.  Let the poem speak for itself.  


If you are in "The Dark Night"... I have no advice for you... only empathy, only compassion.   





Song in the Diamond

Sixty years of marriage

Where did that time go

It just seems like yesterday 

How it passed so quickly, we don't know


We remember fun dates and wild dreams 

The wedding, a treasured memory

It was the beginning of a beautiful song

And a melodious harmony


What right did we have to think that LOVE

Would find its way to you and me

And that it would last so long

For us and our family 


In the early years, the children came 

But we blinked and they were gone

Then some returned with our grandchildren

And we wondered what took them so long


The years have been very good to us

Our song gets more beautiful with time

And the family is there to sing along

With their harmonies and rhyme


Sixty years together

And together we still sing 

A lifelong duet of love

Let the song in the diamond ring


© Ruby Neumann




Poet's Note:  I was reminded this week that two very special people to me celebrated their Diamond anniversary this week.  I have no clue what it is like to be married for sixty years.  What a journey that must be... I can only imagine... and in that imagination, write a poem for them.  


Music has been central to their life and their family.  I can imagine their life and their marriage as one life long song... varying melodies, changing harmonies, different tempos, beats and rhythms... but one beautiful song.  







Fear

Fear


I would rather die than embrace you


You are not my addiction


I owe you nothing



Fear


I would rather face my non existence


Than walk on your beaches 


Or swim in your ocean



Fear


Even if my friends will follow you


I would rather walk away from them

 

Than join your procession


© Ruby Neumann




Poet's Note: Written July 4, 2020


As I peruse my unpublished works... I am compelled to bring a few of them to the blog.  Not because I believe anyone will read them here, but because I have a desire in my heart and soul to be known and be authentic.  So it is poems like this one that in this time and space in history, need to be written, shared and understood.  My biggest passion these days is this...


"Perfect Love drives out Fear!"...


but we are living a world where "Perverse Fear is driving out Love"... 


This is wrong... this is very wrong. 


Whisper in the Darkness

There’s a whisper in the darkness

That comes from my shattered soul

“I want to know You’re with me

That You still working to make me whole”


It’s that whisper like a flickering flame

In the wind that doesn’t go out

From the depths of my broken being

When I don’t have breath to shout


“If all I have is Your Love in me

And if that is all that I can see

Then surely that has to be enough

When You I can’t feel or hear”


I still doubt the whispers

That I once believed were You

But if You Are still who You said You Are

Then I can still hope that You are True


So I whisper again in the darkness

And not trust in the endless night

But hope for Your return to me

In the Awakening of Your Light


© Ruby Neumann





Poet's Note:  Written in October 2019.  I found myself in the most beautiful place in… well maybe not in the world, or even in Alberta… but when I am there… it is the most beautiful place.  


I wonder if posting this now almost a year later… am I any closer to a different revelation than I was back then.  Maybe, maybe not.  What I really grasp right now is that Love is still in me… and that is what matters and what fuels me.  

Forgive me at my Funeral

The book of life has closed for me 

And my final chapter’s read 

I have a favour to ask of you

Now that I am dead


Forgive me at my funeral

On this day speak well of me 

If only for this day

Please share the sweetest memory


There are things I’ve done that have hurt you

Moments where I’ve caused you pain 

And I can’t change any one of them

For they’ve left the darkened stain


Forgive me at my funeral

Don’t let this be my trial 

Let those who gather laugh with you 

And leave with just a smile


Forgive me at my funeral

Forgive the way I died 

And for the pain I surely caused you

For this time, please let that hide


But it’s not my place to ask you

To hide the truth for long 

It would not be kind or helpful 

To modify this song


So when the mourning’s over 

And the grieving takes a hold

Be honest in the journey 

And let the truth unfold


And then know the hope for healing
Where grace and mercy bleed

Forgive, forgive and forgive me again 

And let love be what they see



© Ruby Neumann



Poet's Note: I wrote this poem in October of 2019.  An accumulation of memorial memories were wafting through my head at the time.  

I understand the need to lay aside the truth for an brief time during loss, tragedy and grief.  Maybe the funeral isn't the place to be honest.   It is the place to remember the beautiful.  Total healing requires truth but sometimes it can take years before the truth surfaces again.  When that time comes… can we forgive all over again like we "forgave at the funeral." 


Blind No Longer


I was blind

Once

I could only hear the story

Seeing it not possible

I listened to the story over and over

But without sight the story was limited

And yet I listened to it

Over and over again

Even though I could not see


And then

Forty years later

I could see the story 

And hear it

The story became full

Seeing and hearing

It makes sense now

I understand the story

I am blind no longer

© Ruby Neumann


(images from "Robin Hood" Disney movie) 


Poet's Note: Written August 17, 2020

Robin Hood… The animated Disney version of the movie is the inspiration for this poem.  When I was a child, my mom had some records that contained the audio of various Disney movies.  All I had was the records, I didn't see any movies, so I didn't know they existed.  One of those records was Robin Hood.  Robin Hood is a Fox, Little John is a Bear, Alan a Dale is a Rooster…  the whole cast is animals.  

There were pictures in the record album, so I could see drawings of the cast of characters… but the story was hard to follow.  I listened to them "over and over again".  I had the songs memorized and the dialogue imbedded in my memory.  

Forty some years pass by and I saw the movie for the first time, just a few months ago.  Then I saw it again today.  I sang along to the songs that were familiar to me, bringing me back to my childhood.  I remembered the dialogue, but now it made sense to me.  The words fit, now that they were reunited with the active figures on the screen.  What a huge difference.  The story became alive.  

I wanted to write something that captured the emotion of the discovery… and I defaulted to my best emotional communication device… Poetry.  

It ignited something in me regarding my life journey.  As a child, everything was so limited.  I didn't understand much, because of my "blindness".  But now that I am forty years farther down the road, there is so much more clarity, because I can see things I didn't before.  I am able to piece the audio only version of my life together with a much more complete moving picture.  How precious is that… and all inspired and revealed… through Robin Hood.  

The Second Pew

I don't want to be here

I don't want to go

Too soon, too quick, too public

I'm not ready for this show


But I belong to that family

That died the day he died

And tradition begs me be here

When I would rather hide


I labour every step 

Down that lonely aisle

Only a short path to walk

But what seems like a heavy mile 


Eyes are on my family

As we walk to front of the church

A section designated for the grievers

In pews carved from ancient birch


I take the place assigned to me

In the second pew

Though he meant the whole world to me

My bond was not as true


From where I sit I can see them all

The ones who I love so well

I want to be in the front with them

But in the second pew I dwell  


© Ruby Neumann



Poet's Note: Written August 14, 2020.  

The second pew can be a painful place to be… at least it was for me.  Nothing could be done that day to change my seating arrangement, but it reality, it wasn't about the pew location, it was about longing to be acknowledged that I mattered too... that my pain mattered, that my loss mattered, that my place in his life was significant.  He would have told me that I mattered and that would have been good enough for me.  

My encouragement for others who find themselves in "the second pew"… find a place, a space…  somewhere, somehow… where you can sit in the front.  It is the place where you matter to yourself.  If only for that moment, you don't have be the caregiver; you don't have to hide your feelings to protect others and you don't have to be strong.   In that place, you will find your healing.  

Colony of Shame

Why do some birds sit on the dock

Choosing to ground themselves

When they could fly

When they could float on the water

When they could hide in the trees


Why do they huddle among the humans

Like we have anything of value to offer them

But they will stay there

Soaking in the warmth of the sun


Until a human scares them away

Because that is what we do

© Ruby Neumann



(video is a recitation of the poem) 



Poet's Note: 


Written August 13, 2020.  On a sunny afternoon at Pigeon Lake (45 minute drive from my house) .  


I took a drive to the lake and sat on the dock for a while, I journaled a bit and ended my journal entry off with this poem.  I was watching the gulls gathering on the docks and on the boats.  The very birds I was envious of at the beginning of my journal entry.  


"I am envying the birds, the gulls that have wings, that have buoyancy amid the wavy surface…" 


These were the birds "huddled among the humans" and their contraptions.  


I asked the question, but had no answer.  


I came home and thought a bit.  I have entitled it "Colony of Shame".  Colony is the collective term for gulls and the picture I have of being grounded is Shame.  Shame grounds me and keeps me from freedom, from flying, from floating on the water.  Shame keeps me surrounded by human creations and away from the Divine expression of beauty.  


When I wrote this, I didn't understand what I was seeing, except a colony of gulls pooping all over the boats and docks.  But I was envious of them.  Fear will make them fly again.  Why is that?  Fear of what, the elements that belong in that place.  It would seem that the gulls are out of place, encroaching on human territory.  They must feel safe.  But maybe it is right to fear where they have landed.  It is not their safe place.