Heather Gelb- A Poem

   Alchemy of Perception

I lie on the top floor of a

Starry hotel room,

Head sunk deep into a downy pillow,

Window wide open while I inhale and exhale

With the gentle waves below.

I see myself running on the packed sand,

Twirling across a foggy  border into a

Fabricated garden filled with statues of people

Hewn from malleable clay and

Fashioned into someone else's image,

Separate and disconnected.

The air is heavy with

Righteous resentment.

Gravity claws at me.

I trip over a broken stone and  stumble into a

Statue of myself  distorted with poetic license.

I pick up the stone and smash my false image into

Myriad pieces that fall like

Sea shells onto the wet sand,

Providing homes for all the exposed

Sea life looking for safe passage back

To their Source.

I once again run and twirl with the tide,

Filled with the freedom and ecstasy of my true self,

Reaching for the soaring birds as I sink into the

Feathery softness of my pillow

Brief Bio: I often feel like a gazelle as I leap from hilltop to hilltop.

On one of these hills I recently publish my memoir, my spiritual journey from the hills of one land to another:  http://www.amazon.com/From-Hilltop-Path-Rwanda-Israel/dp/1937623076

One of my poems based on this book is  featured in the fall edition of Poetica Magazine.

I have also published stories and poetry in Green Panda Press, Deronda Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Stepping Stones, IJN and Esra Magazine.