Poems
of the weeks for Summer
Rose
Flint
How The Air Dreams Becoming
I place my breath in the wind, as you do.
Wind has a gentleness in this honeyed day
caresses as if he truly loved me,
and he does.
He collects my breath and yours
and shares them with dry greeny lizards in the dirt,
with Peach Tree down there
and with those waxen cactus flowers
that candle crocus-yellow to the sun.
Wind places my breath and yours
under the rolling wing of a floating red-tailed hawk
and in the mouth of Raven,
who speaks her curiosity and comment in a black voice
echoing echoing across all the airy spaces above us.
Wind tours the spangled canyon with our breath
strakes it upward in a spiral reaching out to spin
thunderheads and eagles,
even though my breath is far more frail
than a butterfly’s bare wing.
But it is still my breath in the blue, my saying,
as it ravels with yours and enters the world-encircling sky.
My breath and yours inspire the planet.
There are poems on our breath, love and choices,
there are histories and good becomings that are true
and the Wind mouths them into his kiss
that you will find on your lips
when you wake on the first morning of tomorrow.
Rebecca Gethin
River
Is The Plural Of Rain
Each of us is water -- Carole Satyamurti
From a mouth of soil among sedge and willow
water calls out on its journey
to all its other selves: follow, follow
us from the shallows into the deep. Below
the surface currents strain their sinews
spilling white foam over stones to follow
the earth vein where it flows,
furling and ravelling together
as stream follows after stream.
Its pulse is the undertow,
its spine is the rain,
and every drop is dreaming of sky.
June Hall
Charting The Tides
Sea thrashes the slump-backed Cobb that rounds
into the surf at Lyme, wearing away - over centuries –
its hard stone strength. We try to regulate our beaches
with flags and notices; to predict, calculate, tabulate
the tides, (high and low) and times of sunrise and sunset;
print figures in booklets (Dorset pink, a pound a throw –
No liability for exceptional weather conditions).
Life tides, uncharted, swirl and trick us, some rising on
a wave
of pills and pacemakers, washing over the old high-water mark
of three score year and ten – some falling, prematurely
scuppered.
The beach, where tides gather and turn, has evolved
into a memorial garden, blackened by tar, encrusted
with metal junk from lost cargo and ships that have died;
two red flags, lifeless and torn by unfamiliar storms;
scraps of tiny sea creatures trapped in fossil spirals;
late features of cliff, crashed and ground to grit; shells
empty of life, broken and crunched into fragments;
We strengthen our sea walls with shingle, peg the hill
with rods,
buy time – while waves falter, dissolving to a quieter rhythm,
foam absorbed into sand, footprints smoothed out by the sea.
|
Michael Newman
Love Letter
We don’t do platonic,
You and I –
Were always meant to be lovers.
And if I love you for a day,
All the world’s sonnets will flicker
Across my brain,
Set up strobe lighting.
I shall be sectioned for reciting Spenser
In the supermarket.
And if I love you for a month,
A long far calendar month,
Then every candle will be gutted
In every public place,
Unable to cope with the hurricane
Of our passion.
We don’t do platonic,
You and I –
Lovers for a circle of suns
And a cycle of seasons.
Yes, the eternity of a year.
I will have learnt your language
By then,
How your eyes say yes
When your lips do not move,
How your fingers play Chopin
Across my soul.
It will be like tongues of fire
Where the only language is silence.
Kornel
Kossuth
Evensong
Good night, my love. Let down the blinds:
Like through the membrane of the eye
The sun’s more mellow now. Its light
No longer pulls out shadows, picks
Out peaks, but is to all and
Equally. This is the hour and this
The light I wish for on my life;
I want no more, my love – good night.
Patrick Osada
Lilies Of The Valley
At four or five they gave to me
A bed of Granddad’s un-worked land
Between the shed and garden path
And end-stopped by the water butt.
The old man helped me dig and plant.
Next Spring I watched the leaves unfurl,
The buds break into tiny bells
That turned from green to arctic white.
I was excited – pleased as punch –
The day the flowers made a show,
Ready for bed, I scampered out
Bursting with pride for one last look.
A thrush sang from the lilac blooms –
I couldn’t name the bird or tree –
I only knew that beauty’s found
In birdsong, sun, sweet fragrances.
Hearing my name, I straightened up
From land I’ve planted and reclaimed;
Somehow the evening has moved on
With all the shadows lengthening...
I gather up pyjamaed son,
Wondering where the time has gone.
from
ACUMEN 61
May
2008 |