Journey of the Heart

Editors note : Today, in celebration of International Women's Day , we honor the expressed voices of women all around the world, which are so very  valuable. We especially honor the unexpressed voices of women, which are equally valuable, and which we long to hear. The following is a poem on these hidden voices, offered to us by Tracie Nichols, who facilitates workshops designed to help women release their voices. Journey of the Heart is giving away one of these workshop sessions today, in honor of all women struggling to share their voices. Now, some words from Tracie:  Most of my life I've been exploring human and wild nature through words, making sense of this intriguing, sometimes overwhelming world we live in. Writing, especially writing poetry, helps me uncover and give back words, beliefs, and expectations that were never mine, simultaneously unearthing the truth of who I am. I know first-hand that writing poetry is a life-changing practice, that's why I facilitate w

A glimpse of spring   shy blue morning black trees etch sky   children skipping over puddles   bramble on snow soft birdsong   listening to water race downstream   winds gently kiss my forehead   grass shoots push through first thaw Joan McNerney :   Joan's poetry is found in many literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Poet Warriors, Blueline, and Halcyon Days.  Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Journals, and numerous Poets' Espresso Reviews have accepted her work.  She has four Best of the Net nominations.  Her latest title is  The Muse in Miniature ,  available on  Amazon.com  and  Cyberwit.net *For submission guidelines,  click here. *

Whole Could it be we each are branches of the one tree? That love is the sap connecting us. That leaf by leaf we are woven as thread into the other, that there is no standalone limb that is not fused somehow into the trunk, and has its anchoring piece. And that the wholeness we seek is both the fullness of the body of the tree, and the completeness of our own individuality shining as a mirror, looking similar but with our points of difference, that together we might make an entirety - our own longings just the shape of ourselves reflected in the other. And to come home to ourselves is something like smiling in the dark across the embers of a fire into another's eyes, skin, face. glowing with the same heat as the dance of flame, and knowing that this countenance that shines is also our own back reflected. Akin in the way that we are all fronds of the same genus of tree, the same plant that lifts its arms, and drops its foliage, each leaf and limb through which the sap runs in spring