On the night of Christmas past

Fearful storm of lightning
unaccompanied
by rain or thunder
Flashes
singularly vivid
showing plainly
rugged outline
Wild landscape
from rocky fortress
witnessed
Hot weather parched
herbage of plain
to perfect dryness
A flash
more tremendous
suddenly set it
a blaze
Alarmed
in the tenement
occupied
Shortly relieved
from apprehensions
copious shower
extinguishing the flame

Erasure poem – ‘On Christmas Rock, 1840’ – from JE Calder, 1849, Some account of the country lying between Lake St Clair and Macquarie Harbour, Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, 3:415-429.

The Place of Repose

The feathered bird flips lightly on the low bough and peers

Suspiciously at fronds of smoke waving past his ears

Roundly Red and pale Peach bellies, proudly hide and seek

Circling hoard of humans who visit once a week

Curiously they walk below, felling trunks, digging peat

Bouncing round the fire waving sticks with things to eat

Harmlessly they shape our wood into a tiny home

A private nest, motionless, watching while Red roams.

The Deep

Even deep disappointments cannot be drowned;

They will rise and inflate and infect and abound.

Happy are those who suffer no ill;

For all the rest, choose – sweet or bitter pill?


 

the deep ice

Photo credit: Chip Phillips image from an article: ‘The Explosive potential of methane frozen beneath Abraham Lake’ (Canada)

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’

Here Freedom lies

Image

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

Image

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

Season of singing

I love all the unseen things about you

I wait for them to make themselves known

a word, a look, a gesture, a smile

a gift of Love – one treasure I own.

 

When I stand before the body, in the flesh

I am confused. It’s You that I miss.

I respond in words I don’t understand

I lose part of myself in this.

 

Waiting for the unseen,

the centre of our being

to come forward again

In the Spring.

 

When you play, your work, your dream

it is there – the unseen

making music in my ears

as sweet as a song of songs.

 

Sweet fruit. Spring flush

Eat, dear friends, and drink your fill of love¹

The days were Made for this.

The season of singing has come.²

 

Love stronger than death

burns like a Mighty fire

Many waters cannot quench

Nor rivers sweep it away.³

 

By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life. –Psalm 42:8

buds over the stream


¹Song of Songs 5:1

²Song of Songs 2:12

³Song of Songs 8:6-7

Image source: ‘Looking through the trees to the stream’ by John Groves

Iron clad blood red

Image

 

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Ashes in lashes,
Dust becomes rust
Enter this Temple,
in You I trust

.
Three stones at the altar
Five moors to the creek
Seven days for hunting
Nine chains that peak

Ironclad crosses
the blood that seeps,
red through this armour,
wounds what weeps…

Enter this Temple,
enter it full,
From the grove, the forest —
my Lord, my Rule

(C) Christine Ueri