Long Rite of passage Poems
Long Rite of passage Poems. Below are the most popular long Rite of passage by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Rite of passage poems by poem length and keyword.
My life has been chock-full of rites of passage
From rising up through the ranks of Scouting
To completing all the grades and degrees
Of formal schooling
To the challenge and discovery
Of dangerous adventure sports
And the many misadventures they naturally provide.
It’s included being initiated into
And doing strenuous religious disciplines
And the good old all-American discipline
Of raising and supporting a family.
It’s also included the pain and suffering
Of life-threatening injuries and accidents
And heart-threatening divorces.
But in all of this, looking back in retirement,
I’m not sure I ever got a complete rite of passage experience.
Did I somehow miss a step
Or feel the next level would give
What the last hadn’t?
Was there an insatiable need for more,
Bigger, better, more powerful hits of Life
To prepare me for what,
A bigger scope and experience of Living?
Was I stuck, and am I still,
In some arrested development;
Part way out of a shell, cracked but hard as iron
A soul confused by what it means to manifest?
Maybe it wasn’t just a matter of becoming
A more mature person
As much as a more complete being,
One whose idea of complete while incomplete
Is ever expanding.
From the perspective of the Infinite
What is an appropriate Rite of Passage?
From the perspective of God
What is the step we have to take
To be complete?
Complete surrender, complete realization,
Complete and perfect communion
Effort and release
To complete the path we youthfully took up in vain
Before we ever could conceive
It is, and always has been, without end…
(8/9/26)
"The Virus We All Want"
Pay It Forward
All the good
in You, shining
the others up
that is
the
Love
we all want
Kindness
to raise
each other
Up
it's highly
contagious
the new virus
the One
we all need
we all want
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
LUX VITAE
“God Gave Everything I Want”/ Jagger, Kravitz
https://youtu.be/cghrHm51qhs
"I’ve learned
that you shouldn’t
go through life
with a catcher's mitt
on both hands.
You need to be able to
throw something back."
(Maya Angelou)
"When we're stuck
with cruelty,
we can either decide
that here is where it stops
or inflict the same on others
like it's a rite of passage."
(Joyce Rachelle)
"So speak
encouraging words
to one another.
Build up hope
so you’ll all be together in this,
no one left out, no one left behind.
I know you’re already doing this;
just keep on doing..."
(as translated by Eugene Peterson -
amongst his other distinguished
qualifications - Poet).
The road's slant design, heaves us towards a gorge,
The mound split opened some centuries ago creating the chasm
Safe enough room for a photo opportunity soon to emerge,
Engine off, I secure my iPhone, lastly, seat belt unfasten.
My last day for my sojourn ends, as it to be a fortnight,
Luggage in the car's trunk, dressed for a journey home,
Plane ticket on my person and a call was made about the flight,
Out on the opposite side of the car, 98% charged on my iPhone.
I check my watch, two hours left before the final flight out,
Hilo is about a 45 minute drive away from this point,
Return this rental car, check-in process, it will be about,
An hour to chill at the airport, hope this picture wont disappoint.
Now above the expanse of a deactivating town of Kona,
Parked on a sloped hillside, I stand with unsettled eyes,
My fingers fumbles between the rings of a sun's corona,
In the scope of a late afternoon of the bluish gray skies.
A Kona hushed, belies a people preparing for a night life,
Maturing day's light begs the virgining rite of passage,
Anticipation bears down on me like lingerie would excite,
Checking my iPhone, seeing that its set and easy to manage.
Sky a little darker than before, a just horizon a blazing orange-yellow,
The moment will somehow happen in a seemingly literal flash,
Iphone camera icon hit as the time gap has gotten more narrow,
There the green light, right into the night for the sun doth crash.
First bell rings, the shuffle begins—
sunburnt stories dragged from skin.
“Write what you did,” the prompt repeats,
while I juggle rosters, forms, receipts.
They groan, they stall, they stare at air,
I sip cold coffee, feign repair.
This rite of passage, tired and true,
a paper bridge from June to school.
Pencils tap, a groan or two,
blank pages stare like skies unblue.
Some scribble tales of poolside bliss,
of yachts, of fame, of movie scripts—
a flex, a boast, a gilded lie,
too polished for a child to try.
Others barely scratch the page,
a sentence gasped, a silent cage.
Then one—misspelled, a tangled thread,
but something in it softly bled.
A whisper lost in syntax storm,
a cry disguised in fractured form.
A paper torn, the margins frayed,
each crooked line a truth conveyed.
No yacht, no beach, no firework show—
just hunger etched in undertow.
My breath halts, the room goes still,
the clamor fades, replaced by will.
This child—this voice—this silent scream,
not fiction, not a summer dream.
I read again, then once again,
each misspelled word a thread of pain.
No time for tears, no space for fear,
the path is clear, the need is near.
How do I reach, not scare away?
How do I help, not go astray?
This is the test, the sacred fight—
to see, to act, to get it right.
Rite Of Passage
*
My Walk to Remember
My father takes my hand,
tucks it in the crook of his arm
and smiles at me as we walk through
the old pasture that has been transformed
into an outdoor chapel
Tears roll down his face
with each paced step we take,
towards the alter, the pastor
And the hopeful face of my
of my husband to be
His grip tightens on my hand
as the congregation stands
and all eyes turn towards our progression
as the clouds give way to the
warming April sun.
I recall the pungent, smoky scent of
the tanned buckskins we wore,
see the blue cone of the tepee with
lodge poles reaching towards the pale blue sky
the red and white bunting my sister
so carefully wrapped around the fence posts
My Beloved’s eyes shining with
promise, hope and love
and the Indian flute music that
drifted on the tangy spring air
marking my rite of passage from
Daughter to Wife.
Gale force winds have blown away the top of his skull
Impaled by a fallen tree with the prison of his mind exposed
Tim’s pierced splintered and dismembered fragments
mash freely with mushed grey matter ready for take off
A lobotomy of sorts a wholesale removal of a vanishing soul
‘Do not worry, this too will pass you cannot fight nature’
but his thoughts and emotions are lost in oblivion and void
‘After thunder comes the rainbow’ but his colours have faded
Blank paint on black canvass and no light in havoc and pain
‘Take those pills they are pink orange purple and yellow’ yet
braindead waves guts gore pillage and plunder have followed
the storm and Tim lies numb naked dissected and ruptured
Electro-convulsion as last resort has failed as the straight jacket
burst at its motionless seams and beams have nailed him to a cross
and cross fire frying lightning and thunder into hot ashes and gashes
Angels found no right nor rite of passage with all traffic suspended
The eye of the storm's euphemism in contempt of torrential calm
as a mental Hiroshima engulfs him at the epicentre of destruction
Fully enshrined in atomic radiance Tim has neither time nor energy
left for the I-Self in tempest’ turmoil and blesses his very own death
I belong to metallic soiled Earth,
solar-fired water's atmosphere;
these oil and blood-fluent elements
would feel freer
not belonging to you,
to us.
They
we
are our belongings
but not our property,
commodity.
Our multicultural values
measure and calculate
design and develop
investing primal qualities of time
predicting secondary quantitative spatial outcomes.
Less time constrains freedom and value and love.
More freedom responds to surrounding needs and wants and relationships
with less dissonant restraint,
competitive response;
with more cooperative invitations
for mutual mentoring regenerate options,
our pacific path revealing positive intentions.
Missing freedom suffers,
as missing incarnation dissonates,
as absent polynomials disformate.
Incarnation's value grows enculturing time
measured with Earth's elements,
temporal functions,
systems design and development.
Each element
identity
system and set
contains regenerative potentiating value,
functionally forming network constellations
of prime-frequency, flow,
rhythmic relationships,
sustaining balanced harmonies,
an ecological economy
static until its season to unfold again.
Limited value decomposes from ego-systemic mortality.
Regenerate value emerges from eco-logical coincident, co-arising comprehension.
Space enacts time's liturgical rite of passage,
as time incarnates space's ambidextrous function
with fractal equivalent information.
Ambivalent eco-normic tipping points
out equi-valent ecological potential,
permacultural regenerate systemic nutrients
for sustaining polycultural maintenance.
We grow adeptly incarnating cooperative economies
as we become allergic to commodifying competition,
win-lose systemic incorporations.
Well-apprenticed permaculturalists,
Taoists,
Buddhists,
Fullerian Synergists,
enthymematic communicators
re-ligious self-with-other integrators,
economic ecological care of Other,
Earth Justice,
perhaps even Universal Intelligent therapeutic care,
evolves yeastfully prime rooted in multisystemic integrity.
We reach deeply and widely within remembering
our justice womb of poly-solidarity,
regenerate subsidiarity swimming
remerging toward light's bright flashing flight.
We belong to Earth
and feel freer longing with all of us together
in one Earth-bound network cycle.
I didn’t even know what type of bird it was - when I had to shoot to kill.
I left the comfort of my bed
on an early Saturday Fall morning
to enter the unknown - a nearby forest
so that I could hunt with my father.
The canopy of trees further reduced the light from the overcast sky.
It was chilly, with a scent of damp moss present in the air
the ground wet from the morning mist.
I remember mostly silence
except for my breathing
and the sounds of my footsteps
and those of my father - crushing twigs, branches, dead leaves, plant life, and living insects
clearing the road
for my rite of passage
my childhood disappearing
with every footstep.
The bird
spotted by my father
a distance away
on a branch
of a colorful, majestic tree.
He handed me his gun
and gave me a quick refresher on how to hold, how to shoot, and what to expect.
The gun heavy
my arms starting to ache
my hands cold
and trembling.
And then I was told that I was ready
And so I aimed
pulled the trigger
and fired.
The bird remained motionless
and very much alive.
I fired once more.
Again
the bird, still there
unaffected
and at that moment I asked myself, if I would have to shoot again.
My father reloaded the rifle
and as I reluctantly took it from his hands, he looked into my eyes
and I wondered if he knew.
I fired again.
Again - I missed.
Then a fourth, and final time.
I returned the riffle to my father.
Nothing was said.
Nothing else was done.
I asked myself if one day I would be a hunter.
Before leaving the area
so that my father’s hunt could once again continue
I looked - for the last time - at the branch of the tree that once supported the bird.
It was gone - and I smiled.
Today I had my first golden shower,
As remarkable a rite of passage
As I’ve ever known.
While driving my tractor
Loading rock and gravel in the gravel pit
I busted the hydraulic hose to the front bucket
And all of a sudden
With a small popping explosion
I was under a spraying fountain,
A veritable geyser covering me
In thick golden oil
From head to toe.
At first I thought it would burn
But it was only warm.
It even tasted pretty good.
Earlier in the day
I’d wondered what it would be like
To break a hydraulic line on my new tractor.
I guess it wasn’t a matter of if,
Only a matter of when.
(8/16/26)
it hurts to write about you in the past tense
the mere taste of your vulnerability burdens me
and I only caught a quick scent of it
not enough to write about it though
or you
this pain is not painful enough to write
right or wrong
a rite of passage
the hard conversations that our parents tried to warn us about.. well at least yours tried
your parents tried to warn us
you moved my hair bangs to left side of face
you kissed my cheek, the right check
and then you kissed my head, the forehead
maybe one day I’ll be able to write about this
maybe one day I’ll be brave, or bold… or even courageous enough
but never open
and never ever ever vulnerable
fear
silence