Blinding Light (Poems)

A collection of poems from the soul for the soul by Dawn Richerson that includes a range of poems written as I experienced symptoms from mania to depression.  While labeled mental illness, these experiences were a manifestation of my growing awareness that the many layers of separation I was experiencing within myself (and which were mirrored to me so well by society and all its systems) were illusory in nature.

This experience of swinging between the poles was in fact the first stages of a profound spiritual awakening. Yet, the dismissal and distancing in the form of neat labeling and being sent packing with drugs that dulled me drove me into painful years when periodic glimpses of truth could escape only in the form of poetry.

This poetry collection was originally published by Autumn Zephyr Press, a Creative Revolutions imprint publishing passion-powered poetry, in 1999. ISBN 978-1-942969-61-7 Download cover and manuscript from this page or order the paperback here.

Poems from the Soul for the Soul
Visit Dawn's Poetry Website

CONTENTS

• Bleeding, Becoming
  
• Spiders in My Brain
  
• Everywhere Eyes
  
• Something to Say
  
• Stepping Stones
  
• Born of Trickling Streams
  
• Late Night
  
• Holy Precipice
  
• End Times Rhyme
  
• Sad Eyes, Shrinking Self
  
• Thawing Out, Finding Hope
  
• Willow Will You?
  
• Astray
  
• Not at Liberty
  
• Seasonal Affect
  
• To Change My Mind
  
• Speaking in Tongues
  
• Veil of Visitation
  
• The Essential Regressed Male
  
• Won't You Be My Neighbor?
  
• Alienated
  
• Who Are You to Judge Me?
  
• Thread of Possibility
  
• My Never Mind
  
• The Accused, I Stand
  
• The Redeemed
  
• From Beyond
  
• Pea-Stalk, Sea-Chalk
  
• Sexed-Up Charges against the Worn-down Celibate by Default
  
• One Traveler's Travails
  
• The Trouble with Relationships
  
• Sensory Detail
  
• Meltdown
  
• Cause and Effect
  
• Impulse
  
• Gift of Sleep
  
• Bright Death
  
• Reflections
  
• Shy Girl
  
• Both Shoes On
  
• Holding My Breath
  
• Choke
  
• Specimen
  
• Just Her Nature
  
• Three Flushes, I'm Out
  
• Birthday Poem
  
• On Being Orange
  
• The Suicidal Birds Make Their Way to Me
  
• Managing
  
• Granted
  
• Ashes Upon the Wind
  
• Being of Paradox
  
• Spirit Intercedes
  
• Night Vision
  
• Shifting Gears
  
• Shrink-Wrapped
  
• Crumbs
  
• Butterfly Reborn
  
• Wise Woman Within
  
• There Is Goodness in the World
  

SAMPLE POEM

Morning dewdrops balance themselves on slender blades
but the one-winged grasshopper
has no song today.

The little blonde boy with a crooked smile looks sad
standing alone among colored leaves.

They remind him how
his world will shrink again, how
winter's chill will come.

From the window,
his mother watches and recalls

how he came into their lives.

The first day of Spring.
Everything since has been richer, deeper, truer.

Unfurled above Autumn scene: yellow-amber sky.
Angelic choir performs bright
anthem to the day. 


POEMS BY DAWN RICHERSON