Dust of Shooting Stars

By Jeanette Richardson-Herring

Dust of Shooting Stars

My skin is holding

a whole universe

filled with the dust

of shooting stars

and galaxies

just waiting to be set free

pulsating

pushing

prodding

to rejoin the source of life...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanette Richardson-Herring
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734188110

Book preview

Dust of

Shooting Stars

by Jeanette Richardson Herring

Copyright © 2020 by Jeanette Richardson Herring.

All rights reserved.

Published by Divine Ink Publishing, Anchorage, AK.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author and publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by United States of America copyright law.

For permissions requests, please contact the

author at [e-mail].

Front Cover Design: Valory Waligoski

Interior Layout Design: Standout Books

Contact the author via email at [e-mail]

or through her website www.PineMountainArts.com.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN (Print): 978-1-7341881-0-3

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7341881-1-0

Dedicated to my darling, Chuck Herring.

You responded to my plea to know what love is.

You show me in countless unconditional ways

how to reach for the stars.

Table of Contents

Preface

As I am

The Tree of Life

One Point Many Views

The First Light

Poppies

Barricaded by Snow

I sit in the Balance

Dearest General Sherman

Slippery time

Fire

We Exhale the Tree Inhales

Nature doesn’t need people

Ragged Raven

The Gray Fox

Winter Moon

Blow Wind Blow

Waterfalling

The Dust of Shooting Stars

A Little Story of Yayas – Sisters and Sisters-in-law

One Voice

Searching for the joy that only love can bring

Love all My Children

In the Darkness of Night

Dreaming of Peace

Daughter Mother Sister Wife

The Circle of Grandmothers

Mother’s letter on my 16th Birthday.

The Family Dinner

Sammie

What I still have — hope

Love is an action Verb

The Tug of Family

Grandmother’s Wisdom

We’re keeping June

The Many Roles of the Other

Meeting or Homecoming

Circle of Friends

Poetry and Photography with Friends

Diving into the depths of love

Robbed of Hugs

If You Know Me

We Have a Lilac Festival

Today

The Gardener and the Garden

My Love for LIAV Camp

Girlfriends are the best

In These Days

The colors of love

Hopeful

So Now They’ve Proven

True Love

A poem of paradoxical proportions

How Often Do We Settle

Does One Person Make a Difference

Caught Myself Judging Another

May you know

No word for love…

Kindness

Different Kinds of Happy

I Am Light

Wind. Love. God.

In My Knower

Overcoming Darkness

Life is a Prayer

God Experiences

In the silence of the soul

The Miraculous

Realization Floats

Life Lessons

Who’s God’s Mommy

I’ve Been to the Center of the Sun

The Lost Word

I Do not Pretend to Understand

Chameleon

Life Lived on Social Media

Up Praying for Truth

What cost kindness spoken

Moving forward from here

Soap in the Mouth

The Light Leaking

Is This Love

Sometimes

Vision or Dream?

Freedom in Letting Go…

I have to be ready to let go

So They Say No

My Time is My Own?

The Path to Truth

Pure LOVE

Perfection

Saying Yes

Keepin’ the lights a Burnin’

Layers

Some Thoughts on Thinking and Truth

Every heart has a story

Full of funerals

The Living Tombstone

Facing Death

She Wrote her Death in her Life

No Names to Mark the Days

Never the Same

32 seconds – 9 dead

Have I Expired?

Sunday thinking on a Saturday

When Silence is Cruel

Hard to see in the chill of loss

The Caged Heart

Tick Tock

As the sun rises

Scent matters

Retired Rewired Reworked

Google what?

I may be done

The years I cried in silence

There’s Light in Me Yet

Words

Write Write Write

Aha moments

Culinary Arts

Creative Inspiration

Love for the Arts

In a Paradise Lost

Words fall from the sky

Poetically thinking

And this is me

The Irish Experience

Testing my Muse

Metaphorically speaking

No Black or White

Coffee with Mary

Dear Agatha

Birthing Poetry

In Honor of an Artist Friend

Revelation

Haiku Times 2

Worth Knowing

In the Heart of the Poet

Acknowledgements

Special Acknowledgement for Poetry with Friends

About the Author

Image Credits

Tears are words that need to be written.

— Paulo Coelho

Preface

I lay on the sun-warmed sidewalk staring up into the night sky, asking the stars: Why am I here? I was seven years old. Ever curious and seeking answers, my childhood was riddled with questions. Neighbor ladies took turns taking me to churches telling me if I tarried long enough, said the right prayers, and was dunked in water, I’d have my answers. I’d be saved. Saved? I was hoping I’d be saved from my father’s mean-spirited words and behavior. I was a little girl; I didn’t know his anger wasn’t my fault or what alcoholism was. That didn’t happen. At least not how I imagined.

The difficulties I experienced in childhood led me to find ways to find real sanctuary in nature, music, art, and books. I read voraciously, expanding my world with wondrous fictional adventure and mystery. I discovered journaling was a safe place to reveal my hurt and to continue to seek answers. Along the way, I expanded my world of words—they became the palette that later colored my writing, teaching, and how I learned.

I’ve worked, married, mothered, and divorced. I thought I’d found my life partner. Together, we battled cancer for six years, until he lost his battle. When his breath vanished so did my identity as wife, caretaker, mother. I was heartbroken. Needing to find renewed meaning, I sought answers anywhere I thought they might be waiting: Work. Family. Structures from my past. An insatiable desire to learn. Multifaceted career opportunities. Visiting world cultures, innumerous joys and sorrows. No one thing felt like the path I was seeking.

Nine years ago, still staring at the stars wondering, I decided to walk away from my life as an arts administrator. I re-wired. I continued to use my imagination, create art, and write. Starting a new lifestyle meant down-sizing memories and stuff. A surprise changed the course of my life—Mom had kept all my boxes of writings and a full house of stuff. As I de-cluttered, I found my heart expanded with room for more love. The used ta’ be tour that was backward looking was traded for increased listening, creating, and writing new works. I’m basking in the daily moments, discovering, uncovering and recovering—me. I found the path I had been searching for all those years.

Serendipity may have led you to this moment. Perhaps, you’ve been looking at the stars for answers to life’s questions, hoping some star dust of revelation and hope would fall from the skies. You may think that what you’re holding in your hand is just another book. My strong desire is that it acts like a mirror—when you look into it you see parts of yourself. The sanctuary that comforted me in childhood is now, more than I could have imagined, an essential part of the road I currently travel. These poems represent