finding snow

I.

He is drawn by scented beauty,

And it is among soft roses that he finds her,

Following her sweet song, a melody

Half-remembered from some ancient time

When someone might have loved him.

It carries on the wind, and he, his black heart breaking,

Feels passion’s heat crack the ice that holds him,

So that he spurs his sable steeds through the flowery field

To scoop her up, rending her skirt as he grabs her,

Sending buds and stems flowing behind them

As they streak to the maw of the cave.

II.

It is the sunrise

That she misses most.

These days, it’s bitter dark

As far as she can see.

Through endless days and nights

She’s lost her count of suns missed

Here in the belly of the earth.

When she squints she thinks

She can almost see

Green land, valleys and streams,

But she knows all along

That the horizon is above her

And the moon that hangs

Over sweet smelling fields

Cannot pierce the depths

Of this dark and silent world.

III.

Somewhere again,

The goddess is arrested --

A shriek borne on the wind,

An echo of old fear,

And her mother’s heart

Races faster than her feet

As she crosses the land

To seek her missing child.

What is this fabric caught on thorns?

What marks on this burned this path?

Forsaking fields and flowers,

Leaving grain to rot on stems

And grapes to shrink on vines,

She paces her great grief,

Deranged and vanquished

By the darkness where she cannot go,

And we, without her bounty,

Fall into famine, searching for succor

And finding only snow.

Darkness Falls

Darkness falls like Autumn leaves,

Upon the brown and barren hills

And in my heart, I come to grieve

As winds blow cold across the eaves

And branches scratch the windowsill.

While darkness falls like Autumn leaves,

Small creatures seek their burrows deep,

Heralds of the coming chill,

And in my heart, I come to grieve,

For winter moves in like the thieves

That steal the light and sap the will

While darkness falls like Autumn leaves.

The year grows short and I believe

It is with rue my days must fill,

And in my heart, I come to grieve

For all the failures to achieve

And all the hopes gone unfulfilled.

While darkness falls like Autumn leaves,

In my heart, I come to grieve.

Crossings

At the crossing

On South Poplar,

An old man lost his life.

By the time I drove across,

Darkness hid the scene.

I saw nothing of eternity,

Only a huddle of people,

Caught in headlights.

The old man was gone,

As if he’d never been.

I wondered as I drove on home

If he had known too late

That this would be his end.

Further out on the mountain,

I had to stop for an old buck

Standing in the road.

Impassive in my headlights,

He gazed at me a long time

Before deciding to turn and leap away.

I've been a little busy!

I hope you'll understand that I haven't been around much lately. This is my newest love, Juliet Catherine. She was an hour old here. Notice that Grammy looks a little haggard - but relieved and so very grateful.

For Juliet

Blessings like velvet

rabbit soft upon my skin

swaddle me in love.

ragdoll

I want to be

the doll I recall,

not the mouldering rag

I’ve become,

afraid of the sun,

rooted to the shelf,

dusty head waving

like a funhouse image,

stitched on smile

twisted back upon itself.

I want to jump

from my careful stance,

prop up my wobbly legs

and dance – or run.

I want to look rot

in the eye and spit.

I want to quit

turning myself inside out

to expose the ragged seams,

to find the means

by which the sawdust pours.

I want more.

Ashes and Bone

Ashes and Bone

When I am gone,

Put me to the fire;

Ashes and bone

Are all that I desire

Be left of me.

Let me have

Fair wind to sift me

Through the trees;

Grey amidst the green

Is what I long to be.

Find me in the field,

A rustle of the grass,

Or hollow in the hills;

Beside the garden path,

I’ll sing among the reeds.

Put me to the fire,

Share me with the day;

Let my spark inspire

New green among the grey

From all that’s left of me.

memento mori

The following poem is written as part of the TFE Poetry Bus Tour, a Monday poetry challenge that this week is a response to Krzystof Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims (of Hiroshima).

The challenge was to write as we listened to the music without knowing anything about the piece. In the spirit of the challenge, I did not even look at the title of the composition as I wrote the following poem, which I think has a strange synchronicity with the inspiration for the music:




Memento Mori

Moving, moving,

Roundabout,

We’re in, we’re in,

We can’t get out;

We’re held too long

Inside the song.

Hidden passage,

Many doors,

Stairs to nowhere,

Many floors,

Boarded windows

To the world,

Hiding, dodging

In a whirl;

Sliding slowly

Down the wall,

Head in hands,

We hear the call

To take up arms

Or else we fall.

The train we’re on,

The train is gone.

Looking back,

Grey and black,

Crowds of people

On the track.

Doors not opened.

Empty chairs.

Empty rooms

Inviting stares;

All is loss.

Lost is all.

We’re going,

We are gone.

enough

Perhaps

it is enough

that the sun

streaks silver

as it crosses

leaden skies,

enough

that trembling leaves

let go their bonds

and sail

before they fall.

Sometimes,

I think

perhaps

it is enough

that the heart

expands

over and over

of its own accord

before it finds

its rest.

Sylvia Rising

Sylvia Rising

History on her rosy northern skin

had traced with pain the crossed, fine

lines of vain attempts and vanished

tears, of long endured days and years and deaths

that marked her like a line of graves

waiting for the art within her charge.

Through too few years she bore the charge

of creation; from her fragile bones and skin,

and from her mingling with that grave

poetic man, the mixture of her own fine

poet’s blood with mud made life from death

and dreams that from her heart would vanish

only as the storied, vanished

bird that falls beneath the charge

of purifying fire and defies its death

to leave the self and rise within new skin,

all loss and pain ground down to fine

thin ash that blows across the useless grave.

With art unconquered by the grave

attained, she spins the words of never vanished

heart; beyond the veil of night on strong, fine

winds, she sends her poet’s charge:

Be fire that frees these words of their fine skin

and burns them to the ashes of a death

that is a rising up, the death of death.

With spirit breath, she mocks the wished-for grave,

and putting on a pure new feathered skin,

soars forth upon the wings of her vanished,

but unvanquished heart, from which the charge

of beating with too fine

a beat – hoping with too fine

a hope to find the pall of death

no longer is her calling or her charge.

Her spirit heart takes flight beyond the grave,

bearing through the cast of this dark night the vanished

hopes and dreams of verse and skin,

delivering the poet’s charge beyond the grave,

to mingle with us in a living fire and vanish

from her death into this fine new skin.

the land of me

The Land of Me

I wish I were the red balloon
Of a hurdy gurdy man
Whose little monkey set me free
To sail across the land

To places that I’ve never been
And times I’ll never see;
I’d float beyond this Isle of Man
And to the Land of Me.

A stranger to this foreign shore
Where one can think all day
About the things she wants to know
And what she wants to play,

My red heart would then swell with joy
To very nearly pop
As I pull my own strings along
And never, ever stop.

I’d float just where I want to go
Without a hand to hold
And sail away on fresher air
Than I ever breathed of old.