Showing posts with label Celeste N. Snowber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celeste N. Snowber. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2020

Celeste Snowber: Birdsong lessons


What do the birds teach us
in these times of pandemic?

Vocalizing sounds as music
greeting dawn in a universal language
where tweets, cackles, trills, pecks
are a prayer unto themselves
monovocal melodies from song sparrows
pitch, tempo, beats and whistles
vibrato of feathers, buzzes of warblers

Dialects and tones of plumage
go beyond boundaries

Is there not an iconography of winged creatures
inviting us to recollect what to feed on?

Swallows forage in the sky
we need manna from the heavens
soul food in times of difficulty.

I come from a lineage
of Armenian genocide survivors
where sustenance from above
inspired steps to move forward

and once again
consider birdsong.

Published in the Armenian Weekly

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Celeste Snowber's contributions to our Call for Poems on the topic of epidemics, illness, medicine, death and healing

Celeste Snowber of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, has shared these original works. APP thanks her. 

Let poetry be the transport

Let poetry be the transport
to the world beneath the words
where new words are born
amidst the volcanic ash
of one’s own grief
or the sweetness of a meal
cooked and eaten with love.
A passage exists
to the hymns of your heart
in a time of limitation
15 th c. poet and priest Mkrtich Naghash
reminds us that we are all exiles
Here is wisdom known in the flesh.
Take courage from the lineage
the poetic steeped in the Armenian soul –
proverbs, odes, love songs and lullabies,
chants, folk tales, poems and laments
all a pilgrimage to what calls us
to the alphabet of yearning.
Be your own bard; migrate
to your own beautiful life
Naghash says an exile’s heart is tender
May the poet within you
waiting in the silence of dawn
carry you over to tenderness.



Bodypsalm for Uncertainty


May the plans you cancel
return you to another life
the one waiting as a patient lover
wondering when you will arrive
to the shore of your inner ocean.

In the midst of restrictions -
self-isolation and social distancing
take some ingredients for the journey
probiotics for the soul
the curiosity for small things
quince and daffodil blooming
sipping tea slowly
the free range of kindness
daily practices of breathing deep
reading poems and calling a friend

Drink in kindness and compassion
as you live in a time of not-knowing
become intimate with shadow
live creatively in dangerous times
alive to what comes
a meditation on wonder
calling you to soften
to the unknown.



Celeste Nazeli Snowber

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Celeste Snowber: an alphabet of longing














Migration, 2017                                                                         Marsha Nouritza Odabashian




an alphabet of longing

there is not enough letters
in the alphabet to define
the characteristics of longing

sketched into the Armenian soul
varied, complex and complicated
as the cuisine of food

the alphabet of longing
has aromas which sit
long after is recognized

even words don’t express
the inexpressible haunts
where yearning aches

in the dance of migration



Celeste Nazeli Snowber

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Celeste Snowber: worried for love






















Love in the ruins, 2016                                     Marsha Nouritza Odabashian




Do you have your hat on?
what was your mark on your test?
did you do better than her?
did you turn off the lights?
what about the heat?
   was it turned down?
did the bills get paid?
is the chicken defrosting?
was there enough color in
your cooking, or fabric, or paint on canvas
or your cloth cover on your book?

Did you remember – The Turks killed the Armenians?
Did you remember?

Remembering was a big VERB in my house growing up.
Did you remember?

My Armenian mother said, “You are my star
of miracles - I couldn’t have you
 I finally conceived and bore you”

We are all miracles -
here, when we might have been
forgotten, not born, killed or bled in survival

Do you remember I love you?

Worried for love


Celeste Nazeli Snowber

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Celeste Snowber: Bodypsalm for Remembering back your Passion

Remember back the body
flames in the belly
calling one to live
as each day is the first and the last
Your life is a precious
entity of cells and blood
quirks and sentences of glory

Remember back the passion
don’t let the awe
slip from your fingers
toes, hips, pelvis and voice
Draw back into presence your own calling
for what you are meant to do and be
on this glorious planet
coupled with the paradox of terror and beauty

It is not only the earth
which needs greening
but your own precious soul
sometimes lost in the meetings, emails or laundry.

Remember back all of you
messy and unpredictable
veins pulsing with a hopefulness
to thirst for more.
Hunger is your spiritual director
Coming in all forms –
discontent or agitation
Press on to what is nudging you
breathing you back into
inhabiting your own body

The calling of your life
lies at the door
waiting for you.



Celeste Nazali Snowber