Ray Whitaker – The Sacred Places

Whitaker LE P&W 2 Nov-Dec 2024

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Two November-December 2024

The Sacred Places, poems by Ray Whitaker.


The Sacred Places

They are a forever altar
and visiting them, we are altered
as the voices of those grounds
speak louder than any rock band like The Who.

It is the stories of our existence
of those that preceded us, and mattered
ranging far beyond any one culture
a sanctified parcel strong enough to hold
all our feet together
with Those That Came Before.

The facets to our thousand thousand cultures
is the duty Poets have to speak to
for those few seekers live
in the places most do not.

A place reverently constructed
to become the stony reminders
of the great deeds mankind is able to do.
A place to remember the sky fliers
whose bones lay beneath the ground now
while their spirits live on within us.

We have had that combat
wether it be one of blood and outcome (or not)
all of us have raised mausoleums from the earth
to commemorate the building for the lost, the inspired

those that tower above the ground
and draw us nigh, buttressed, to feel.
In the taking into our conscious thoughts
our souls grow because of the many blue depths there
reaching back into the stories, a telling of
the holdings our red hearts have.

There are many of us that need to hear the colors,
to be in the place of no one speaking in the awe of it.

The Falcon and The Deer are of the earth
even as we are, and we always return to it.


I didn’t hear the wolves

Last night, its usual darkness surrounding me
staying awake as long as I could
seemingly like when I was twelve
instead of seventy
an eager anticipation of what may come
resting with eyes shut definably not asleep

Walls of my tent like those walls of Jericho
and would’ve stepped outside those
to hear a bucket list sounding.
If if if there had been the sounds of the wild
I have come here to Mid-Northern Colorado,
the Blue River, Kremmling, and river the flows north,

We all hear those noises when camped,
mysterious, even terrifying at zero dark thirty
that thirteen foot chipmunk just outside
those coupla millimeters of tent wall
between you and the ravages of the dark
snapping into: where to climb to get away.

Ten wolves were released about three miles away
from where I am not sleeping
sequestered, listening for the songs
that resound in the night
with the intensity of a stereo turned up
‘way too loud.

Reintroduced from where they were trapped
these ten [now nine] are moving
it appears well away from my camp
removing themselves from the terrors of capture
of confinement and plane flight, the close presence of humans
exploring where the best hunting, in wolf wonder.

I didn’t hear the darkness’s wolfsong
any of my nights in the secluded wilds.
My want still wanting, in a wondering
the why of things, all my life
they are eagle eggs in a five foot nest
way high in the stout, tall pine by the river

those ideas hatching into flying
eventually off into the windy directions
far and wide, going to the reaches of thought
the wolves wonder what happened,
those undecipherable events, happening too in we people
both the why, and the how.


© Ray Whitaker

Ray Whitaker was a Delegate to the 2024 Writer’s International Panorama Festival this past January. He participates regularly with several zoom poetic events worldwide. Among them, he has been spotlighted on a US National Poetry broadcast from Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio In April, ’24; and also an International Poetry Recital hosted by The Fertile Minds out of India this past April. In July he was the reading featured poet in David Leo Sirois’ Spoken World Online; in August upcoming was one of six poets featured at the CHAUTAUQUA Arts Festival in Palmer Lake, Colorado. He is Moderator for Michael Lee Johnson’s social media page “My Voice, Your Words—Poetry In Action”, and an Editor on Chewers Masticadores Canada. Ray has four books published, and two chapbooks. His work has been published in twelve different countries. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA.

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