IBD Creative Outlet

Ending Beginnings by Sue Hobbs

Ending beginnings: beginnings of ends;
Today's enemies were yesterday's friends.
Days full of darkness and nights full of light;
This is the way of it; this is the plight.

Deaths shine in rebirth; births lie in decay.
We laid where we stood, and stood where we lay.
Burdened by nothing, weightless with all,
This is the sound; this is the call.

Dripping with dryness, flaking with dew,
We keep what is old and shed what is new.
We beg in our fullness and wallow in need.
This is the law; this is the creed.

Endless beginnings beginning to end,
Ripping the seasons I finally mend.
Wrapped in my nakedness, bare in my clothes,
This, the door open; this, the door closed.

A garden of asphalt, a roadway of grass,
The ground above me, the sky downcast,
Clearly senseless, hazily clear,
This is the dayspring; this, the new year.

Dark white linen, pale ebony,
Huddled in the open, open within me.
Black and white rainbow, monochrome color,
This is the only; this is the other.

The Washing by Sue Hobbs

Oh dark bird, wing broken,
It is time to fly, unspoken,
And so up to the sky I send you, full
Into the hue of mood so mournful
I thought it might not cease,
Not knowing the release
Was up to me; that in feathered freedom
I could dart about in the direction of my choosing.
I could, in this afterlife,
Loose you from about my neck,
Cast you from my shoulder where you would
Peck, peck, peck, peck, peck.
You are wedged here no longer.
No more may you wave cologne and stronger
Aromas under my nose.
These wings, so long pinned closed,
Now spread transparent from my sides
As I fling your fragile feathered hide
Up into the hue I leave to you.

II.

At my birth then, you rode my finger.
At my death now, you ride no longer.
Away! Away! To fly or die
Without me, evermore.

III.

In the stillness it is heard,
The busy buzz of tiny wings
That tease the earthbound creatures
Who know little of such things,
In flight and feast and frolic
There is music in the garden
And the ecstasy in living
Bursts in fountains, gently sprinkling the ground.

IV.

Oh, this habit of returning to whence I came, I cannot maintain.
I elect to swoop back up into the multicolored brown
Of life's immortal dying.
Yes, I go there with a full determination to determine very little.
I go there for the simple purpose of being.

Even the sky is washed clean this day.
Seldom such a scrubbing has it seen in one day.
And all it has released runs in rivulets of wonder,
Washed away and never mine again.

Hitch-hikers by Sue Hobbs

All who've gone before
     ride in the back seat
          dutiful reminders
               are these microscopic passengers.

How far are you going?
     How far can we take you?
          Eternal life or bust!
               The road ends here.

Everybody out!
     No, we'll keep the gifts,
          But the baggage has to go,
               And so do you.

I Know Why the Free Bird Sings Song Lyric by Sue Hobbs (with gratitude to Maya Angelou)

I know why the free bird sings:
For flight, for sky, for mended wings,
And countless other priceless things.
Yes, I know why the free bird sings.

When the free bird fails to sing
It is such a mournful thing.
It's in a cage of it's own making,
But I know why it fails to sing.

CONTENTS | TOP | EMAIL