The Gypsy Road

Darkness covers
Dawn breaks
Stars flicker like a thousand candles
Morning's breath hushs and paints the sky
A golden sun sits amidst pinks and oranges
Shadows dance
An ethereal melody plays
Unveiled glimpses
Reality bends
Dreams and visions
A sojourner's path
Trees rustle
Songbirds sing
Lovers' duet in spring
A lone traveler
Paxton's gypsy Shannon of July summers
Steps hesitantly
Trees whisper at her return
As the bluebonnet fields brings her to her knees
A snow globe falls out of her sack
An upside down scene plays out from the past
Memories like a faraway dream
Darkness covers
Dawn breaks
She travels onward.

By Shannon McKemie

Red Light

A whirlwind blows
sweeps the empty hollows
Past red light shows
As one follows
oranges, yellows, and brown
A shroud hangs
Over the dust-covered town
Nightfall shows its fangs
Dew-drop tears fall down
Shadows dance
Into a gray nothingness
A lifeless heap
Crushed and pressed said the witness
Eyes ablaze as crowd jeers, jests, and mocks
Stones held high ready to strike
Until the rabbi stops
The sinful harlot lays shattered
The rabbi writes in the sand
The crowd scattered
He told the harlot to stand
Illusion's mask they did not see
Death is what they breathed
Colors flow in painted dreams
A whirlwind blows
Sweeps the empty hollows
Oranges, yellows, and brown

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
02-17-2010(originally written)
03-16-2017 (edited)

Tears on the moor

Tears on the moor
Eyre's broken dreams scatter
Thornfield's gossip and chatter
Words echo in western wind
Memory's wake blood paints
Three cords twined
False pretenses taints
Lies confined
Heart dictates
Hope drowns
Love waits
Darkness sounds
Silence condemns
Grace extends
Laughter and scorn ring
The road ends
Beauty unveiled
Stars shimmer
Separation travailed
Bodies quiver
Morning breaks
Night claws
Emptiness's aches
Despair's paws
Dagger cuts
Tears on the moor
Eyre's broken dreams scatter

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
02-16-2010 (originally written)
03-15-2017 (edited)

The Blue hour

Ethereal light beckons
River ripples
Minutes pass in seconds
Train whistles
Peace in presence
Wordless riddle
Another lesson
Water trickles
Heart's confession
Castaway nickels
Darkness encloses
Lone vigils
Letters compose
On mountain ridges
She stands alone

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
03-14-2017

Tempest

Tempest within
Blows a whirlwind
Stones thrown
Alone
Salty tears fall
Plain and small
Never enough
Overlooks the bluff
Empty words
Sings the mockingbird
Floats a feather
Scarlet letter
Bonfires burn
Hope spurned
Wind whispers
Candle flickers

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?
You think wrong! I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had
gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you
to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!

--Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

BlogThis!

The Child

Like a child afraid of the dark
How does one open their heart?
Like a glimpse of the heavens
The blue hour beckons
Like a child grasps in wonder
Doubts thunder
Like a veiled scarred reflection
Marks from society's rejection
Like a child comforts with their hand
A touch heals the wasteland
Like a child who speaks truth in the void
Builds what was destroyed
Like a thousand diamonds shimmer in the river
Kindness thaws the heart's winter
Like a child fearlessly lives
Surrenders and forgives
Like a child sings
Hope springs
Like souls touch unseen
Beyond the impediments that stand in-between
Like a child afraid of the dark
How does one open their heart?

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
03-10-2017

Rock and Stone

               At the river's edge
the sojourner sits
               amongst the carpenter's masonry
               stone
               as the billowing foam and smooth,
liquid crystal stardust bathes under
  light's dome

               At the river's edge
the sojourner sits
               the cobblestones glisten veiled
beneath
               as diamonds, sapphires, emeralds
whispering of the Jerusalem
to be ensheathed

               At the river's edge
the sojourner sits
               with quaking unspoken fears
and in trembling tears
               beholds the mountain steps to an
unknown land

               At the river's edge
the sojourner sits
   amidst the hues of death's destruction
and life's resurrection
       the soothing peace that
gentles the battling and breaking

               At the river's edgge
the sojourner sits
        in bridal expectancy for the call
to see what is cloaked in mystery

                At the river's edge
the sojourner sits
                cast away and alone
                     among the rock and stone.

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
06-22-2002

Bethels

I

Handwritten letters
Woodland adventures
Red rose petals
Morning splendor
A prison without walls
Fiery embers
Thunderous squalls
Soul trembles
A cage without bars
Broken clay vessels
Eternity's hours
Jacob wrestles
Blooms Texas wildflowers
Near my bethel
Winter whitens the ground
Spring awakens all-around
Lamentations and sorrow
Grace abounds
Each morrow

II

Silent playgrounds
Flies a sparrow
Darkness drowns
Red wheelbarrow
Justice arraigns
Shared marrow
Blue turquoise rings
Raven caws
Orchestra strings
A child draws
New chapter begins
A hushed pause
World spins
Absence gnaws
Silence sings
Under the expanse
I stand.

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
03-07-2017

Jubilee

Shadows, shame and pain
Night's tendrils
Thrash the window pane
Rose petals
Thunders the rain
Broken clay vessel
Entwined hands remain
Doubts heckle
A walk along the lane
Questions wrestle
Conversations sustain
As they nestle
Whistles the train
Crashes the sea
Sunflowers upon the plain
A silent plea
For this not to be feigned
If we
Turn the key
Hopeful and carefree
A quiet jubilee.

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.

11-02-2016

A Thousand Moments

Lights hush
A baton raises
Silence paintbrushes
An unheard beat lays
Worlds waltz
Strings obey
Drums haunt
Fingers frolic as piano chords play
Violins flaunt
His hands move in a ballet
Her tempos allure in thought
Tension pushes and pulls and betrays
Veiled realms are wrought
A thousand moments sparkle in praise
His hands thread the tapestry from ink blots
The arrangement and the composer.

By Shannon McKemie, M.A.
07-10-2012