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Emergence - pics & poemsReflections - the blog





 * BREAKWATER
   
   
   
    
   
   Where the water washes
   and a wooden altar stands,
   we will gather stones and hope
   
   
   that beauty still has meaning
   that will make us think on more
   than wood and water and stone.
   
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
   
   DARKNESS
   
   
   
    
   
   Woke to a midnight moon,
   and didn't sleep for the rest of the night,
   listening to the wind.
   
   
   Walked in the rain,
   to stand in a simple, white-painted church,
   outside of myself,
   
   
   waiting to see what I have learned.
   
    
   
    
   
   
   FLOSTAM
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   Old rope and weed,
   
   woven into the beach,
   
   in a lovers’ knot
   
   of forgotten stories
   and the undersea.
   
   
    
   
   
   DAWN
   
   
   
    
   
   There are wide skies
   aflame with the coming
   of a new day.
   
   
   There are wide seas
   roseate with the dawn
   rolling waves.
   
   
   And always small and high
   is a single gull,
   just flying.
   
   
   WHAT IF...
   
   
   
    
   
   What if we could be baubles and mittens,
   snowmen and reindeer?
   What if we could be robins and yuletide trees?
   
   
   What if we could be winter birds and Christmas stockings,
   cartoon penguins and snow globes?
   What if we could be evergreen wreaths and children on sledges?
   
   
   What if we could be more moon and stars, more way-shine,
   simply remember and dance in snow?
   What if we could be more candle, and accept the dark & sweet?
   
   
   What if we could be a sparrow, or more like hot chocolate,
   more gingerbread man, more polar bear?
   What if we could be more sparkling, more tree-top singing?
   
   
   What if we could be the peaceful season, the tidings of joy,
   more giving and forgiving?
   What if we could be everyday acts of loving?
   
   
    
   
   LOVING THE STARS
   
   (AFTER SARAH WILLIAMS:
   
   THE OLD ASTRONOMER TO HIS PUPIL)
   
   
   
    
   
   I wake at three in the morning beneath the stars.
   
    
   
   Have you ever strayed from a dream into a fantasy,
   loved how the one merged into the other, the wonder,
   the unreality of all that depth of sky and
   stars close enough to touch?
   
    
   
   Too beautiful a night to waste in sleep, I remember
   fondly my father’s arms around me as he pointed
   to Orion and the Plough and Cassiopea’s Chair.
   
    
   
   Be silent, he said, and hear the song of eternity.
   
    
   
   Fearful folk have cowered before the immensity
   of our ancestral pathways through the sky, but
   the truth is written there for all to see and know.
   
    
   
   Night is when the vaults are opened.
   
   
    
   
   
   RETURNING
   
   
   
    
   
   We stood on the edge of the marsh
   and one of our voices said,
   “I wanted to be part of a flock today,
   - thank you.”
   
   
    
   
   We huddle and skein
   and all our voices rise
   to the autumn skies.
   
   
    
   
   And I know that I am home.
   
    
   
   
   LATE HARVESTS
   
   
   
    
   
   September's ending,
   
   I should be cutting back
   
   the sage, but look to wasps
   
   and bees still sipping, drinking up
   
   the last of summer's sweetness.
   
    
   
   I can wait awhile, forgetful of
   
   calendar dates on pages,
   
   while the season lives out its fulness.
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
   
   SEASONS
   
   
   
    
   
   Summer waits on the shore,
   in bright waters and the green
   of subterranean weeds, while
   Autumn floats down to meet her
   on the first fallen leaf.
   
   
    
   
   
   FERMAIN BAY
   
   (A LITTLE HAIKU TRAIL)
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   A single feather
   floats: an abandoned staysail
   catching the west wind.
   
    
   
   A snatch of seaweed,
   a mermaid’s blood-red wishbone,
   touches, swims away.
   
    
   
   Beneath the ripples,
   a blue eyed god lies waiting
   his time to be born.
   
    
   
   
   A WILD DAY ON THE BEACH
   
   
   
    
   
   Oh, I needed that! Just being on the beach
   with the sea in full fury, the noise and the hypnotic churn
   both telling me “Don’t think. Just sit. Shut up. Open up.”
   
   
   That balance between attraction and fear.
   I really wanted to go stand in those waves,
   and I am not stupid enough to do so.
   
   
   Always the sea washes through my soul,
   but when it’s wild it scours me clean.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   VISION, THROUGH A WINDOW
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   Wildflowers – ok, call them weeds,
   - and a bistro table set, rusty shades of blue,
   tattered curtains hide whatever arguments
   inside are keeping me from being out there
   on the waves, the surf, the ocean, living out
   my dream, but people pass and maybe one
   or two, will understand how it feels, the having tried and failed...
   
   
   …to ride beyond the sunset into
   a something beyond the windows,
   
   reflections and salt-wrecked patios…
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   BAYFIELD WOODS
   
   
   
    
   
   May we always have a steal-away space,
   
   where light is dappled through limes and
   
   and oak and ash,
   
    
   
   May we always have a sacred place,
   
   where ferns unfold,
   
    
   
   May we always know where the wood
   
   awaits us,
   
    
   
   And may we keep our promise
   
   to return.
   
    
   
    
   
   
   TONN A’ CHLADAICH
   
   
   
    
   
   The beach wave gentles along
   the rolling cliffs, settling souls
   stirred by crashing waters.
   
   
    
   
   Dusky hued cliff clover,
   clambers along the edge,
   muting tumult.
   
   
    
   
   Heugh daisies cushioning
   ladies, surviving on the wild
   edge of unstable land.
   
   
    
   
   Thrifting, thriving, being
   wild in quiet ways,
   heads held high,
   
   
    
   
   strong spined,
   
   
    
   
   and silent,
   
   
    
   
   unassuming.
   
   
    
   
   
   WOODLAND WEDDING
   
   
   
    
   
   Sapphire and diamonds
   
   are traditional promissary rings
   
   but I don't need gemstones.
   
   Weave me instead a coronet
   
   of bluebell and stitchwort
   
   and emerald leaves of oak.
   
    
   
   I will wear a veil of Queen Anne's
   
   lace and bear a spring of hawthorn
   
   for a poesy.
   
    
   
   We will walk the old drovers way
   
   to the hidden stream, and there
   
   yellow iris will bear witness
   
   to our vows, and cups of butter
   
   will drink our health, and water
   
   lights will dance our dream.
   
    
   
   The ferns will soften us to our rest,
   
   and the stars will send their brightest
   
   merriest jest, and we will sleep where
   
   cattle breath once blessed the
   
   newly-wed.
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
   The artwork is by Gertrude Abercromie & my thanks to Sue Burge's "Poetry Gym"
   for the prompt.
   
   
   MARSH VOICES
   
   
   
    
   
   I can yield no more;
   all my inner ghosts drowned at Arwen’s Ford.
   
   
   They’re always singing,
   always such a deafening, a wrangling, and a ringing.
   
   Your clouds, are they Cirrus?
   Or cumulus tumbled and flown from wedlock?
   
   
   Taffeta, glass, and truth gone by.
   I am enough of silver, all day blue, and defenders do not win.
   
   
   Nothing worth the stating
   in this world, where newly murdered lie in the marram,
   
   
   and greater sins
   offer the sun excuses from this newly smelted morning.
    
   
     CATTLE WISDOM
   
   
   
    
   
   Contentment is a quiet sky,
   and greenery, and the water
   that flows along the field;
   
   
   it is knowing where the grass
   grows at its most lush and how
   to rest easily to chew the cud.
   
   
   Contentment is accepting the field
   with all its weeds, and finding our
   own way to the river’s edge.
   
   
    
   
   DEW DROPS
   
   
   
   She sits quietly and smiles, and
   
   hides the constant pain she refuses
   
   to talk about, but is there behind her eyes
   when she nods a silent yes.
   
   
   She laughs about her penguin-waddle
   which means, something else is going
   oddly wrong, and that too is pushed aside
   
   to speak of my week or my day on the marsh and how the rainbows rise and
   larks sing,
   
   and geese come and go.
   
   
   She would rather share how much
   she loves the way dew alights on grass
   on summer mornings. She would rather
   laugh through her memories of romance
   with the man still by her side, and let the
   candles dance where she can no longer.
   
   
   She loves a lantern, sparkles, and living
   light. She loves green things.
   
   
   She buys me elephants.
   
   
   And lays fires in the room where I will
   sleep and watch the moon cross the sky.
   
   
   
    SETTING
   
   
   
    
   
   I am all the red-gold colours, white-hearted
   with the heat of every love there ever was.
   
   
   I welcome the rest of evening, the sinking into to the molten leaden sea at
   nightfall.
   
   
   The clouds that veil my undressing soften
   and pull my shades, stretching evanescence,
   allowing me fingers, tendrils to paint a path
   across tide, and harvest fields in the sky,
   and spin mysteries that reach toward
   you on the shore.
   
   
   
   TOWARDS TOMORROW
   
   
   
    
   
   Above the dark waters,
   above the fiery phoenix feathers,
   a simple gull flies towards morning.
   
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
   
   
    
   
   IMBOLC 2023
   
   
   
    
   
   You may find the promise of spring
   in hedgerows, snowdrops, crocus,
   in budding leaves and birdsong,
   but I know that winter’s tiring
   when first the beach bows
   to an arching sky and sea
   calls for discarded shoes
   and brave toes to be
   caressed by cold. 
   
    
   
   CONSERVATION OPTIONS
   
   
   
    
   
   Talking
   about all the
   xenophobia
   in our
   destructive
   existence,
   reminds
   me of all that
   is still here,
   still to pray for,
   to be reprieved.
   
   
   
    
   
   
   SECRET GARDENS
   
   
   
    
   
   Where do we go in the dead of night;
   what lights shine in secret gardens?
   
    
   
   Waking leaves green and soften
   the place where rain has fallen
   and candles are not lit and
   interloping paths are strange
   un-wild ways,
   
    
   
   and the door is ever open to
   the darkness, the deepness
   of un-tamed dream-space.
   
    
   
    
   
   
   WHO ARE THEY NOW?
   
   
   
    
   
   Who are they now, the Elders?
   
   
   Where have they gone, the wise ones,
   who held all that was sacred?
   
    
   
   How long is it since the pure-in-heart
   and ancient-in-wisdom, looked upon
   the path ahead and turned aside?
   
    
   
   And will they return?
   
    
   
   It is hard to live in the world of man, and yet
   
    
   
   the oaks still stand
    
   
   gnarled and twisted and bark-stripped
   and deep-grooved, and branch-shed,
   and leaning over the road,
   
   and wounded and
   
   open-hearted.
   
    
   
   Where are they now, the elders?
   
    
   
   They wait in quiet lanes
   and by the woodland paths.
   
    
   
   And you will know them
   by the silence of their beckoning.
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   ABSTRACT
   
   
   
    
   
   What is wild, or life?
   Not only that which breathes, but
   stones and fallen leaves.
   
    
   
   LILY
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   Is there anything more wild and free
   than sunlight?
   
    
   
   And are we ever more arrested
   by the natural world, than when
   it makes us stop…
   
    
   
   …and see.
   
   
    
   
   REALITY
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   It lay there, still bloodied and gnawed. I foot-dragged shingle over it and
   tamped it down to feed the earth-living things
   
   and hoped it would rot and disappear,
   but truth is it was too near the door, and I would tread upon its grave too
   often to rest easy.
   
    
   
   I let it resurface and was surprised
   at the humanity in its paws, how hand-like
   they are holding that single pebble
   like a holy book, and the flowing nature
   of its gown, a rain-drenched shroud.
   
    
   
   So what do I do now?
   
   
   TREE
   
   
   
    
   
   Don’t drape me with plastic, or flowers,
   nor tie me with ribbons and string,
   clothe me only warm sphagnum blankets,
   and birds stopping by to sing.
   
    
   
   For pearls give me mushrooms that gleam,
   for diamonds string dewdrops on webs,
   cloak me in gossamer mists of a morning
   and crown me with a ruby at sunset.
   
   
   
    
   
   
   WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
   
   
   
    
   
   If you were tiny, and your rapid
   heart, outraced the minute
   a thousand to one;
   
    
   
   if you’d become a poster-boy
   for some strange cult, purely
   because of the colour
   of your skin;
   
    
   
   If you woke too early and slept
   too late, and were harried to
   live the frozen months on
   scraps, and ice;
   
    
   
   would you still climb the highest
   tree, and sing?
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   WE ARE ALL SOMETIMES GULL
   
   
   
    
   
   We do what we need to do,
   not what others want of us,
   yet while we’re slamming down
   head-first after soggy bread
   on Christmas day, we don’t
   know just how beautiful
   are the wings that
   hold us.
   
   
   
    
   
   
   LAST LIGHT
   
   
   
    
   
   Longest night steals in;
   trees spread their black
   fingers into the sky and
   across the waters.
   
    
   
   Darkness does not fall,
   but waits for daylight shades
   to fade to grey and outlasts
   that flash of white,
   
    
   
   while blackness oozes
   from the banks.
   
    
   
    
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   WINTERING
   
   
   
    
   
   I do not wish my old life back
   nor the people from it
   
   but how I miss…
   
   the way they made me feel
   and how I feel the sadness
   of this new world.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   A WISH GRANTED
   
   
   
    
   
   I woke to a world of fairy-dust
   and glitter,
   
    
   
   not true snow-fall, more
   
   a sugar-coating,
   
    
   
   an end-of-Autumn shimmer,
   
   winter’s coming.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   WET WOOD (CLOSE-UP)
   
   
   
    
   
   Translucence rises from logs and leaves,
   pearlescent, alabaster, sepia memories of
   the aging and the birthing, the quietude
   of autumn: woodland decaying into life.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   AUTUMN FALLING
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   If I should fall in Autumn, then let me lie
   where golden leaves will be my coverlet.
   
    
   
   Let the gentle mists sing me to my rest,
   and early evenings welcome me to home.
   
    
   
   Instead of swan-song let me hear the honk
   of returning geese and believe that I will fly
   
   in a shimmer of golden wings rising
   into the morning Autumn sky.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   HIEROGLYPHS
   
   
   
    
   
   We look to the stars for the alien life,
   which already lives beneath our feet, and writes to us, in hieroglyphs
   trying to find a way to speak,
   
    
   
   while we look far beyond the place
   we live and do not yet understand.
   
    
   
   The scarab first caught my eye, emerging crablike on the Cromer sands,
   
    
   
   then the overflowing horn of plenty,
   its silver shimmering creator coiled
   
    
   
   and dived leaving all the cryptic faces,
   goggled, helmeted, spaced out and
   
    
   
   planned for me to wonder at, puzzle out to find the four-ribbed
   tube-breathing prototype of man.
   
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   LANDMARKS
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   We think of famous places,
   natural untainted spaces, or those
   magnificent castles and country piles
   of bricks, and gentry lives, but whose
   landmarks are those?
   
    
   
   What relevance to your growth
   and being who you are becoming
   registers in that earth, or those walls?
   
    
   
   Make your own marks on the land!
   Create your true points of reference, and
   raise the smallest statues to your beliefs.
   
   Or plant – or maybe save – a tree, to
   shine golden in the evening against
   life’s stormy sky.
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   AUTUMN ENCROACHING
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   As we edge towards the darkening,
   lanes are lit by summer’s lingering.
   Fairy-sconces of toadflax torches,
   shine by the hacked-back hedges,
   while beyond the rusting gates,
   and long-forgotten fences,
   bright green fields stretch
   out their aching sinews,
   refreshed by autumn
   drenches, and then
   relax their greens
   into fading sage
   and brownish
   beige, as all
   summer
   colour
   fades
   away.
    
   
   
   IF I COULD ONLY PHOTOGRAPH ONE THING
   
   
   
    
   
   I would sit and weep for being
   made to choose, between the paling
   of the sky at dawn, and the fading
   of the earth at dusk.
   
    
   
   And in my tears I would find the
   answer, if I could only photograph
   one thing, I would choose
   “reflections”.
   
    
   
   I would picture the distorted world,
   rounded in a raindrop, gilded
   in an office window, impressionist
   river paintings.
   
    
   
   Low tide would gift me light,
   clouds and cliffs in the shimmers
   of the still-wet sands, and gulls
   upside-down.
   
    
   
   In puddles I would find the autumn
   leaves, the wellington joy of children,
   and in the dark of the mountain tarn,
   I’d find the echo of miracles.
   
   
   TREAD NOT SO SOFTLY
   
   (After W.B. Yeats)
   
   
   
    
   
   Though my dreams are scattered
   at your feet, run wildly on.
   
    
   
   My hopes are as firm as the
   dunes where the marram grows,
   as the quicksilver of the evening seas;
   
   they have all the fragility
   of the moon at dawn,
   
    
   
   but fear not your treading
   across my heart, run free,
   run wildly on.
   
   
   THE SEEDS OF MEMORY
   
   
   
   Soft ice cream and the pointless drive
   along country lanes, which you haven’t yet
   figured out is one of my favourite things, idle
   rides on roads to somewhere, or nowhere,
   just looking at the places in between.
   
    
   
   The gentleness of cygnets on the river,
   in their end-of-summer grey, thunder clouds
   fallen down without rainfall, soft feathers
   on the water, and beyond the tree-lined
   bend: the skipping light.
   
    
   
   Reed-streams below the surface, and
   why I wouldn’t swim where such fickle
   greenery lies waiting to entangle the
   unwary; ramshackle boats and one
   sleek beauty of polished wood that I
   held back from stroking.
   
    
   
   Old flint walls and hidden park-land
   beyond its old-money rusting fences,
   tree-tunnels, and macho fools who jump
   from the stone bridge into the weir,
   impressing no-one.
   
    
   
    
   
   POPPY
   
   
   
    
   
   Be still blood red heart
   of paper whispers, there is
   bee-work to be done.
    
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   WEED BUG
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   Lonely seven-spot,
   forages in the shade of
   a ragwort sunburst
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   THE GATEKEEPER
   
   
   
    
   
    
   
   Hearts of burnished bronze,
   and silken fawn, held in the
   palm of lime green leaves.
   
    
   
    
   
   WATER ON WHITE CAMPION
   
   
   
   Flaming June is doused,
   and sopping, sobbing still.
   
   
   Night-scents are wasted
   when moths cannot fly,
   wet-winged, grounded,
   hungry for the sweetness
   hidden in that pale blind
   eye.
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   MARSH MOMENT
   22.6.22
   
   
   
    
   
   Heat on the river path has me slowing
   to the pace of swans, languid and diving
   beneath the water, seeking shade; has
   me retreating to the few trees
   and the breath of leaves.
   
    
   
   A swing has been strung on a branch,
   seemingly grown specifically horizontal
   for that purpose
   
    
   
   and looking as though it has been
   there forever,
   
    
   
   waiting for childhood to return.
   
    
   
   I regret just walking on.
   
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   ORANGE TIP SETTLING
   
   
   
    
   
   Impatience flutters,
   alights on the perfect bloom,
   folds wings, disappears.
   
   
   
    




© 2017








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