By the Morning of Our Healing

By Steven C. House

By The Morning of Our Healing contains poems with passion, depth, sincerity and the stuff of living. They convey honestly and vigorously the joys, pains and rough resolutions of living and loving in the world. The book calls the reader to reflect on that invisible contract we all have with life. Remember that naive and idealistic state of sweet young love, becoming aware for the first time of the immense power of the ocean or the unpredictable impact of growling death? In response, we are all called to show up and participate. These poems convey one man's journey through these unique yet universal experiences. With confusion and anxiety, joy and sudden pleasure, the book takes the reader on a powerful journey through the geography of relationships. The book calls to mind the awareness that suffering does not stop us from succeeding. Healing happens all the time and in quite gentle and subtle ways. The book reaches into scenes and senses of living, loving and loss. It reflects the wisdom, triumphs and tragedies encountered along the way. Expressed here as well, is how we are shaped by the power of the wind, the grandeur of the mountains, the ethereal presence of the ocean and God's subtle voice in all. You will find here an eclectic collection of poems. Some are as serious as leaving home. Others are as carefree as an ice cream sundae. Hopefully you will identify with and hear echoes of your own voice and journey. These friendly poems will take you on a pleasant and challenging ride through living and loving that may get your heart pumping again and remind you that you are still alive and the fat lady hasn't sung yet!.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452064512

Steven C. House

The author is an almost 60 year old psychologist, husband and father of three grown and married children. Born on the east coast, he has lived his adult life in the midwest. Poetry has been an informal commentary and companion since he was young. Having lived in an alcoholic home, experiencing the early death of his father and making his way often blindly but usually keeping it on the road, the author has had a lot to write about. The author has been joined by friends and family along the way and by that irrepressible spirit to honestly experience this life in all its wonder and tragedy. As well, he has traveled from ocean to mountain and back again and to that inner place of desire, pain and healing.  He received a Ph.D. in psychology and for almost 30 years has been a therapist and teacher. He has spent his working life talking to people of all ages about their suffering and growth. This has given him a reservoir filled with the experiences of joy and pain that has sought expression in poetry. He decided it was a good time to clean out the file cabinet in order to make sense of it all. So, here you go. Let the words show off their stuff. When it comes down to it, it's nothing special, just some old guy's poems about a walk in the woods and 30 years of therapy!  

Book preview

Acknowledgments

I have been thinking about this book for quite some time, I had the title in my head years ago. Although I hope that you can’t tell their age, some of these poems have been around for a while. As I’m turning 60 later this year so it seemed that the time was right to do something about them. I guess my age really has nothing to do with it. They needed to see the light of day and get out of that old file cabinet where I know the air gets stuffy. When I approached my wife with the idea, she was very supportive and I was encouraged: the game was on. This book was born of a rich life of pain and joy. It chronicles my journey through an alcoholic family, through the early death of my father, through saving experiences in the wonders of the natural world, through the struggle of relationships, to the inner drama of wrestling with one’s demons and angels and somehow coming out whole on the other side. I want to thank a teacher I had years ago, Mrs. Ulrich, who literally saved me from a home life that was splitting part. She had a calm direction and I didn’t know then but she was something of an angel sent to lead me through a most trying and unstable time. I also need to thank Steve Greenstein, Ph.D., who conducted a therapist supervision group in Bloomington, Indiana, in which I had the pleasure and good fortune to participate during the late 80’s and 90’s. He gave me permission to read my poetry and to use it as a reflection of important internal things, those reactions we have, those sensitivities we discover and those wonderful and painful changes we necessarily go through to reconcile our inner and outer worlds. By doing this I found my voice. I owe him a tremendous gratitude. This was a time of great growth in my self awareness, my skill as a therapist and in my writing. The Greenstein group, with several beautiful people (you know who you are) will always hold a special place in my heart. I have participated in a weekly men’s group for more than 20 years. To these guys I also owe deep thanks for the insights, the challenges, the jokes, the camaraderie and the love. I must also thank my wife Rochelle for her willingness to put up with me and her steady support over the course of our 35 year marriage. My three children with their significant others have also been inspirations over the years. The trips, the experiences, this family life was so different from my own family of origin. I hope the following pages convey clearly the good life my family has offered. I am privileged to be a part of this enterprise of loving, raising a family, working, and making a life. Finally, God has smiled on me more times than I can imagine. I am forever humbled by the power, grace and goodness of his creation. I only hope that my poetry conveys some of the wonder of this world and all its creatures. I believe that Robert Frost summed up his life by saying that he had a lover’s quarrel with the world. I must say that this is true for me as well, but further, I think the world and I are now on the mend!

Steve House

August, 2010, Columbus, Indiana

Contents

On Awakening

Goes the Night

Book Bones

On Awakening

Give Rise to New Beginnings!

Life Abundant

Today

Millennium

The Turns in the Road

The Dawning Morn

The Smiling Sun Notwithstanding

Touching Souls

Sing to Me

Life Is

To Adventure!

Young Love

A Morning Poem

A Love Poem

When I See Not Your Eyes

Softly

She Disliked the City

The Gone Woman

The Spell

Here I Sit

In Passing

Again

It Doesn’t Matter

The Unsought Man

The Dream

To Drown Slowly

Tired

Let Us Be Lovers

Opening and Closing Doors

Dream Days

Comings and Goings

Naïve

Leaving Home for Good

Chancing Life

The Homeless

On Hearing of War

The Distant Guns

Dead from the Neck Down

Between One and Another

I Fall

Aftermath

Less

The Dogs of My Pain

The Night

Face Not

Ocean Songs, Mountain Verses

The Price

By Your Shore

Gulls

Here the Trees Go on Forever

The Horizon

You Mountains

Walking on Waves

A Storm at the Shore

Windswept

The Roar of the Sea

I Wish for Inspiration

Unexpected Grey

My Trees

This Night

Going

In Winter Wood

Wings

Daybreak’s Addiction

In the Wonderment of Light

Father Stories

The Dark Men

Antiquity

The Father Within

As He Lay

This Dismal Day

When He Was 19

A Memory

He Lay Still in the Bed

Grieving

Angry

The Sweet Ocean, to My Dear Father 20 Years Gone

To Spirit’s Passing

Walking the Road

Mere Transformation

Make Bright the Sleeping Sun

As the Day Turns

Bindings

The Old Road

The Dust that Fills My Pockets

On Leaving

Now and Then

30th Street Station

The Next Scene

My Hands Are Weights

Waiting

Winter

I Didn’t Catch Any Fish but I Had a Nice Conversation with the Water

Chasing Cars Again

Respite

Flowers

It’s Lost

Drowned

Love’s Race

An Umbrella

Like a Fly

Night Skin

The Furniture

Jeans

Ball

Economics

Family

On Vacation

The MG

The Deafness of Driving Real Fast

By the Window

The Solemn Vow

So Many

My Children

Raucous Poems

With Pencil

Swimming

A Gathering of Wind

weetness

Something Happening

When Time

I Honor the Spirit

A Familiar Stranger

Homeward Bound

The Anvil’s Passion

Somewhere

The Winds of Change

The Turning of the Shadowed Heart

How Many?

Gritty Days

Success

Test of Will

He’s Gone

Stand Tall

How Precious

Love Will Endure

A Long Life Together

Let Us Mix

Why Should I Worry?

O Quiet Repose

People in Still Life

Quilt Maker

The Guitarist

To the Trumpeteer, for John

The Pearl, for Beth

The Journey, for Grace

With Gentle Love, for Elvie

The Young Priest

How the Music

A Baby’s Sight

In Celebration of You

Sleep, Dear Baby

We Have Rested Our Dreams, for Catherine

Why Can’t You Listen?

O Child

Words of Comfort, for Thomas in a cast

Looking Back

For Sunny Days, for Catherine

The Light, for Rochelle

Upon Retiring, for Jerome

Mother

In Therapy Group

The Elder

The Tall Magnolia, for Rochelle

Feed Your Soul, for Paul

Alex

It Pervaded Her

She Talks Too Much

Beer

The Old House

The Half Century Man, for Mike

They Lived on the Land, for Margie and Ron

Greenstein

A Farewell to Early Friends Long Ago

The Impulse, for Sharon

Potpourri

Your Path, for Nicole

The Artist, for David

The Worker

He Was Rage

A Band of Brothers, to Men’s group

Marriage Vow

The Monks of Meinrad

In Celebration

This Day

Dance

Recollection

Pleased

Springtime Memories

To Fly

Song of the Journey of Life

The Sweetness of Dreams

I Sing the Celebration of Life

Walking

Sing Low the Rush of Time

Leap of Faith

A Blessing

onAw.jpg

On Awakening

Goes the Night

From darkness to light

Goes the night

And being human

We follow the night’s lead

So that our inevitable wounds

Are dark with hopelessness

Only to be awakened

By the morning of our healing

Book Bones

I have many stories

My bones are thick with the pain and joy of lives I’ve seen

My fingers and shoes contain the echoes

Of smiles left behind by others

I move and my muscles squeeze

Words said in passion and in anger

On Awakening

I gather in my thoughts aware of the residue of sleepy emotion in my lungs

The fresh air is cool, responsive, blowing from the mountain and into me

The clean sense of alive surrounds me and I breathe it in

A sparkle of stream water, crisp and wet flows within me

Clouds billow above, around and through me, making me buoyant and light

I am tall, tree top tall, and I feel beyond my vision

The open land contours before me

I can taste the snow upon the peaks I’ve yet to climb:

My journey has begun

Give Rise to New Beginnings!

Give rise to new beginnings!

Let loose the chains of past mortality with its anchored being and cloistered experience

This day is like no other

This breath seen never before

Do not mistake me for another

You do not know me

But if you open your eyes I shall greet you with a kiss as sweet as any you have tasted

I am the chariot that rides to a new day

I am the source where the river leaves the soil

For the first time, rise and greet the new day

I am the first glimpse of tomorrow’s sun

Life Abundant

Life abundant, life creative, seeking always a fertile home

A flower blooms delicate and bright

A vacant ground yields wonder to joyful impulse

Sense the spiraling ripples, surrounding in declaration: I am life, I am new birth, I am irresistible, and I am everywhere

I am God’s first thought and his ever present revelation

I am a wise unfolding, a determined fulfillment, and a rich circle of love

I make fervently alive all the ends of the earth

I fill all with energy, ecstatic, kinetic, and self aware

I make the sound of the universe a small heartbeat, rhythmic and strong or the whistle of the wind reaching the mountain plateaus

I shake the roots of the world, I crack rocks, and I speed invisible across miles

I rest only in the knowledge that the world has been conquered and is green and blue and abundantly alive.

Today

In hope, I rise to greet the sun

With anticipation, I take on another day

I gently open my life to its unfocused opportunities

Aware of the greatness that can be achieved

And aware of the baseness that can be encountered

I stand perhaps shaky, perhaps smugly, perhaps saintly

And walk into the gust of my life, the heat of the raw and unpredictable encounter

The holy and tenacious ride that my steps will uncover