Category: poetry

Unknowable One

Published on by Alyssa Kanitsch3 Comments 
I heard the call of the Unknowable One.
They left a trail of scarlet breadcrumbs
For my soul to follow,
Because I was lost.
Because my heart was baked hard
like the stony desert.
Yes, it was The Unknowable One
Who scattered their hearts and flowers
across my path.
"There's beauty even here", I heard them say
(when the ocean of my thoughts subsided a little).
"I have no way of understanding.
This new country is unknown." I replied.
And so, they enfolded me in mother-arms;
I was cocooned there.
Nothing else to do 
But be carried
by the Unknowable One.

Tears Like Myrrh

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment 
She can gather up all the fragments.
All the failed lives
And all lives have failed.
We all cast a shadow.
I don't know the magic she weaves,
where tears become sacred drops
Like myrrh bleeding from a tree.
And the upside down way
feeble knees and broken feet
are the very vehicle 
by which God travels the Earth.
They say our hearts must crack open like a seed.
Head first in the ground we go.
Then we become like that Myrrh tree,
with branches too beautiful to be seen with human eyes.
Our senses have become dulled,
through fighting endless battles with fickle tides.
One day we will see the illumination.
With clear eyes, 
see how our wings have formed, 
how love has transformed our lives.
For love has shaped us.
And love tends to us,
from seed to sapling to tree.
With branches like arms reaching upward, 
and our blood, our tears are Myrrh.

Pond Days

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment 
On days that are cloying,
When my ears protest with ringing
When my brain has decided to
blanket itself with a heavy haze,
Blurring my vision
And
Aching my bones...
The Spirit and I agreed
We should sit together 
and watch fish swim.
And side by side there,
just try to be.
She tells me my scattered,
anxious thoughts
Will entice me 
To coil up all my energy
and release it like a spring;
Only to find I become weaker still,
Snapped and broken.

I tell her:
"I'm glad you are ok with weakness.
And I'm glad that's where you work best.
I'm complex like a fractal,
And you knit everything together so well
Even when it looks so feeble and fragile."
So, she sets aside these little pond days for me,
Where we spend some time gazing at the fish,
And I'm learning how to just be,
I in Spirit and Spirit in me.


My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9 MSG

Enchanted Forest

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

Deep in the forest amongst leaf, wood and shrub,

There is a place where the light plays tricks.

As if it were a small child finding joy

in hiding things

amongst branches;

And creating puppet-shows

in the shadowy patterns of the trees.

So a story unfolds,

where heroes and heroines spring from the most unlikely places.

Like the reassuring orb of the moon

Like the movement of a grey cloud

Like the distant chatter of a bird.

And then, in the space between moments,

you glimpse something in the corner of your eye

Tree spirits, angels, faeries

(It’s only a glimpse).

And a story unfolds still

Because, even amidst the infinite possibilities

of the tale;

There is a presence in the silence.

Enchanted light and stillness,

Weave it’s transformation, til

It is no longer a secret place, but rather a place of communion.

Even so, a Soul can be unaware of the Silent Witness.

Mistaking the loud stillness of the forest, for solitude.

A lonely journey,

A palpable aloneness,

A hopeless isolation.

But it was just an illusion.

The shadows were playing tricks.

If you listen, the air has this sort of hush you can feel

because it is damp with water droplets (and you are thirsty).

And the scent of the earth are a jumble of woody spices,

and leafy aromas,

which join hands with you

In solidarity for each and every breath.

And not a single leaf falls unknown.

And in every shadow there is a song.

And the Child laughs with joy.