Survivors Poetry

You Amaze Me

I wonder,
If I will overwhelm you, with the weight of my revealing,
If you will drown, in the depths of my feelings.
I wonder,
If my surging floods, will wrench you from your moorings,
If you will be swept away, in the tides of my outpourings.
But you amaze me,
You set sail into my breeze, and ride my waves with ease,
By minutes and degrees, you chart my changing seas.
You amaze me,
At the edge of my horizons, you show me tranquil islands,
When I rest among the highlands, you fill my skies with diamonds.

Comfort in the Trees
Eleanor Broaders© 2005

Often in pensive mood I sit
On balmy summer days,
My mind does wonder where it will
Searching through the haze,

Of misty half remembered times,
When such a child as I,
Would wander through the woods
By day, before the sun was high.  

I’d hear the echo’s of the words
Still sounding in my head,
Since first in scorn were shouted
And filled my heart with dread.

When comfort in the trees I sought
And every leaf and bough,
Would heal the hurt and ease the pain
And dry the tears I’d cry.

Now many seasons have I seen,
Through summers and winters grown,
And looked out on the world anew,
With children of my own.

And yet if all the truth was told
Great comfort I still find,
Amongst the trees and rustling leaves,
Whose whispered words are kind. 

It’s for your own good

This thing that can’t be spoken
This thing that can’t be said
Keep it from the neighbours
Hide it inside your head.

Don’t tell, daughter
Don’t tell, son
You know it’s for your own good
These dirty deeds are done

Don’t cry, don’t cry
It only makes it worse
Can’t cry, won’t cry
Can’t save me from this curse

She made me into something
Only she can see
I made me into someone
Blows rained down on me

Put me feet under my pillow
As the light shone under the door
Count the blows to the bedcovers
One, two, three, four

So I hid me deep inside me
To find shelter from the storm
But I lost me and it cost me
My childhood, till I’d grown

A little girl with sad, sad eyes
In pain and in despair
Smiling for the neighbours
With ribbons in her hair

Grew to be a beauty
A kind and gentle soul
Bereft of love and laughter
And the joy her mother stole

Searched to find inside herself
Her self of long ago
Buried down so deep inside
Beneath tears she dared not show

Found the maybe that I may be
May be released at last
To the open arms of the future
From the clutches of the past.

I am not lost
I was never found
Something has to have been and had value
To be looked for, to be missed
Who looks for me?

I am the Wind
Blowing over the land
Always moving never still
Wind cannot be still as in stillness it ceases to exist
If I be still then I cease to be

I am the Wind
I am invisible
Feel my soft caress, feel my fury
But strain your eyes and you will not see me
Feel me, hear me, breathe me,
I am breath, I am life,
But still you cannot see me

If I be still then I cease to be
I am invisible, in your eyes, in their eyes.

Cherry Blossom in the spring

I walked as if inside a glass dome

And the snowflakes swirled around me

As I made my way home

In the silence that surrounded me

I heard a child’s voice sing

As she remembered when it snowed

Cherry blossom in the spring.

Eleanor Broaders

To read creative stories by Eleanor click here.