Category: Folklore

Trees are singing

Beach, Beauty, Folklore, Genealogy, Ghosts, History, Knitting, Minimalism, Music, Passion, Photography, Picnic, self care, Tea party, Wellness

In this beautiful place for a couple nights while I work at HMCS Acadia with cadets. I’m one of the wonderful bunch of nurses on staff at the clinic. I’m grateful to be able to stay at my uncles cottage in Smiths Cove while I’m at the base over the next 6 weeks. So many kids on buses arriving from all over the provinces and the world for training and fun. It’s been interesting to meet up with about 500 of them yesterday and over the next couple days. Great bunch of kids and young adults. I remember my Air Cadet camp days at Greenwood. It is a fantastic opportunity. They seem to have developed the camps into a fun place. I always felt I was getting in trouble by forgetting my cap or my hair was below my collar. I remember we borrowed the beautiful airforce blue uniforms for our final parade. Base staff loaned them to us. We were informed please do not get food on these uniforms. The minute I picked up my tray of spaghetti I had a bad feeling. Crash! My tray landed smack into the back of a regular officers beautiful blues and I got the coldest look from my commanding officer. Oh boy!

Peace is easy in a place like this:)

Anne Frank poetry

Books, Folklore, Genealogy, History, Knitting, Life lessons, Museums, Passion, Photography, Poetry, self care, Travel, Wellness, World

Death March

By Dawn Illsley

We marched like dead souls,

Through hallways, not stopping.

Not daring.

Like the end was our fate.

I feel the shame,

The disgrace.

We quietly weeped,

As we shuffled upstairs,

It’s still, silence I heard,

On that ghostly trek.

My life faded away,

I was stuck there in that place,

Reality dissolved,

Time took a break.

Those little rooms,

Housing ghosts.

The walls paper thin like a dolls house.

Why is it,

Words pour out,

When tears are flowing.

I saw a pile of shoes

They didn’t need anymore.

Telling a story

Of loss,

Of life never led.

A pile of shoes,

In someone’s porch,

makes me think,

Of that day in May.

The deafening silence.

That I witnessed.

The life that was erased.

(Visiting the Anne Frank Museum)

Destiny

Annapolis Valley, Archeaology, Art, Beauty, Books, Folklore, Knitting, Poetry, Resolutions, self care, Wellness

Destiny

By Dawn Illsley

I’m trapped by my design

I’m programmed to retreat,

Into the caverns of my mind,

I regress, in defeat.

My destiny

Already written

My time drawing near.

When I look out my window

I see the world I’ve come to fear.

That branch on the tree

Seems frail like me,

It could break

At any moment

And fall

In defeat.

The world is different now

It’s a foreign place,

There is nothing left I know

I’m trapped here in this space.

There was a time

I was brave,

But not now,

I’m afraid.

I’m not sure

When to hide,

When to duck,

What to think.

The time has come

I’m ready now,

Please let me go,

I feel peace.

With my guns drawn

I escape,

This time,

I’m determined

to meet my fate.

Good morning poetry

Annapolis Valley, Beach, Beauty, Books, Canada, Folklore, hiking, History, Knitting, Life lessons, Minimalism, Poetry, Resolutions, self care, Wellness

Good morning

By Dawn Illsley

Roaring wind lulls me to another place.

Quiet breathing in the margins of my mind.

Pressing thoughts, bossy and demanding,

yank me from my reprieve to reality.

There’s a call for spring outside the window.

An urgent call from a little bird whose hungry.

Then out comes the sun, like a little answered prayer.

The light creeps across the room,

Warming the spot on the floor,

Soon to be occupied

By a little furry beast,

Desperate for warmth.

On the windowsill,

The pink blooms are dried up,

Not the end,

But it seems hopeful for more.