Susan Rogers considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari— a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. www.sukyomahikari.org She is also a photographer and a licensed attorney. Her poems were part of the 2009 event “Celebrating Women, Body, Mind and Spirit,” the 2010 Valentine Peace Project, the 2010 event “Poetry: A Garden to the Human Spirit” held at Cypress College in Cypress, California, the 2010 Poem Flag Installation by Global Alchemy Forum and have been performed at museums and galleries in Southern California. In 2010 she was Writer of the Week for “Words, Spirit and You,” sponsored by Tiferet Journal. One of her haiku won Honorable Mention in the 2010 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Memorial Haiku Contest sponsored by the Yuki Teikei Society of Haiku. She was a featured poet at the Moonday Poetry Reading Series in 2011. Her work can be found in the book Chopin and Cherries, numerous journals, anthologies and chapbooks and can be heard online or in person as part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. She was recently interviewed by Lois P. Jones for KPFK’s Poets Café.
The
Origin is One
for Kotama Okada
The dove knows the way
follow her.
Your heart knows the way
listen well.
Within your deepest self
are wings of light.
They cover the earth
with waves of love.
Do you remember?
You once knew.
Stand in the warmth
of sunlight and recall.
The origin of the world
is one.
The origin of religions
is one.
The origin of all
mankind is one.
Circle back.
Imagine the great will
of all things
stirring in your fingers.
Reach out your arms
and open your palms
to the sky.
It is time.
This Lotus
To awake,
to dream
to open again
into first light
awash with gold
each and every petal
kissed with the sun's love
kissed with the memory of mud
blessed with the touch of water.
Opening and opening
again and again
lifetime after lifetime
pond after pond
poem after poem
until it is beyond
dream, water, mud,
beyond the innocence
of first light, beyond
even the kiss of sun—
there, where it is all
written.
(this poem was previously published in Badlands)
for Kotama Okada
The dove knows the way
follow her.
Your heart knows the way
listen well.
Within your deepest self
are wings of light.
They cover the earth
with waves of love.
Do you remember?
You once knew.
Stand in the warmth
of sunlight and recall.
The origin of the world
is one.
The origin of religions
is one.
The origin of all
mankind is one.
Circle back.
Imagine the great will
of all things
stirring in your fingers.
Reach out your arms
and open your palms
to the sky.
It is time.
This Lotus
To awake,
to dream
to open again
into first light
awash with gold
each and every petal
kissed with the sun's love
kissed with the memory of mud
blessed with the touch of water.
Opening and opening
again and again
lifetime after lifetime
pond after pond
poem after poem
until it is beyond
dream, water, mud,
beyond the innocence
of first light, beyond
even the kiss of sun—
there, where it is all
written.
(this poem was previously published in Badlands)
© 2011
Susan Rogers
Susan Rogers was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the August 2011 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Susan Rogers was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the August 2011 Second Sunday Poetry Series