Gracious Spring Tide

Aside

Horizons open out behind and before my eyes

Where once closed lids were anointed by the sky

A feast of coloured feathered wings adorn the quiet street

Where once a common sparrow was admired

Sprigs of white blossoms litter the greenway edges

Where once the swarm of pests had devoured

A window bush explodes in yellow flowers and vivid green

Where once the worm had eaten all bud and leaf

 

The Springing Sun adorns my bedroom mirror and wall

Where once the light was blinding and the shades my coverall

Pale green new leaves float dreamily on the warm soft breeze

Where once apologies for the diseased tree next door

A drone of bees parade along the front blooming tower

Where once a drone of ghostly voices furled my brow

Little boy lambs bleat delight in hands and friends

Where once they fended alone as eagle descends

 

The tower clock is bypassed for the bustling doctor’s street

Where once the sanctity of pillowed pews was sweet

Hopeful conversations in the sun and houses meet

Where once mere imaginings of popular masses to greet

How ready as we’d ever been to step into Unknown

Where once control had reigned and error was shown

Faces, I daily pray and long to see an Image old

Where once their living wisdom was untold

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Street Art, Konstance, Germany. By ‘Nilko and Rusl’

Nothing but the Blood

I gave away my feathers to a wounded bird, mid-flight

She fondled in her fingers and gazed at colours bright.

Both of us now cold, I wandered down the pale pink hall

Warmed by hands and hearts – reciting heaven, gold, gems and all.

With bravery I wore a cross-shaped medal I didn’t earn

A signed and sealed commission of men has joined the funeral burn.

Though many think the flow of blood is death, despair and strife

I know for sure it’s freedom from guilt and our eternal life.

The darkness that I wear will not do for wedding ball

Patiently, I changed the feathers for a pure white shawl.

 

 

Image credit

Story Bones

story bones

flesh full tales of woe

clenched between lips and teeth

willing foes pull to throw

growling low

tighter till we had our fill

of sinewy knuckle-down

marrow of will

no contest met

nor tissue left

parade around the outside wall

to paddock graves of earthen domes

in quiet of night the remains give way

the story flowers grow tall

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

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Photo credit:

Warren Wong

Here Freedom lies

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I’d lost the people I loved. In the midst of the daily decisions and jaw-clenching nightly invocation, all the notable ones were scarce and silent.  Anger, sadness, and pain rolled around my vital organs and stuttered my speech meditating on thoughts of misdeeds and words misspoken that persisted in my mind. Here lies life, the new day begets another. This solemn song is sung in chorus in palliative waiting rooms, tall stories forgotten and oft-loved ones replaced by diagnostic faces – with wry, stale smiles. A hand lies upon them, hemmed in front and behind, an eye for an ego, release in freedom lie.

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Terra Firma

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twig-bench-lavendar

Down well-trodden trail
a chasm opens beneath
gazing down dreamily
the worlds of ancients meet
look down at all the hours and days
the rhymes, signs and verses
words and tokens exchanged
between us
The earth envelopes it
cast down to what lies beneath
all those endless numbered days
those staunch and bending ways
Now only soft firm ground lies
sighs gingerly between my feet
abundance of life groans
all around me
but yet I am still and quiet
longing for tomorrow once more

 

Featured image: Twig Bench by Alexia Wedding on Pinterest

gnosco

I know all that I need

to manage my pain.

You have the cure.

Would you knowingly

keep it from me?

To be part of something

bigger than the pain

to show our people

refrain to say ‘no’

To laugh, sing, cry,

to bring relief is

  • to know.

knowledge-graph-brain-ss-1920

 

 

Hidden deep

While brothers and sisters were engaged

in a turf war on a global scale

A cold front, hardened, caught adrift

Floats away without mainsail

 

The emptiness perturbed them

As far as the eye could see

But watchful for horizon

Warmer shores come expectantly

 

But, little do they know how

a hot sea current can act

Upon their frozen precipice

They have escaped the simple fact

 

For underneath the narrow tip

the sea sick clambering, cling

A hull full of dangerous cargo

in the underbelly bring

 

All baggage, loot and baffles-full

of stowaways, bilge and gas

No room for living passengers

Just a burly lump of mass

 

The lot on top think handsomely

of their talent at nautical stuff

But from Captain down to Seamen

They’re playing blind man’s bluff

 

While many heard their tale

of floating like sea birds

Many passing ships do fear

The invisible iceberg.

Iceberg

 

True life

“Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings and feel it near,
And just within our reach? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret,
And now live idle in vain regret;
But still our place is kept, and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
Since good, tho’ only thought, has life and breath,
God’s life – can always be redeemed from death;
And evil, in its nature, is decay,
And any hour can blot it all away;
The hopes that, lost, in some far distance seem,
May be the truer life, and this the dream.”

The Ghost in the Picture Room by Adelaide Anne Proctor, in “The Haunted House” by Charles Dickens.