Hunting the Perfect Book for Today

 

A cloudy day with bouts of rain,

a public holiday long weekend.

I decide to stay in my PJs all day,

eat easy-cook comfort food, 

and look through my bookshelves

for something equally delicious

to savour – or to add more sweet.

My home is full of bookshelves!

The biggest ones won’t fit the unit

so they’re out in the garage, lining

the long, high walls. They hold

my huge poetry collection (I’ll have to

donate it to some institution in my will);

my art books, from Old Masters to Banksy; 

a big shelf of those novels I must frequently 

re-read (some I’ve loved since childhood, 

others discovered over all the rest of my life);

another shelf detailing a range of spiritual

and energy healing manuals, plus wisdom 

for the soul, including the King James version 

of the Bible (the one that’s written in poetry);

and a shelf full of books on magic – not

the stage kind, but witchcraft, Druidry, 

shamanism, ceremonial magicianship and

the Qabala. Then, inside the house, the tall

bedroom bookshelf houses my several translations

of the I Ching, a number of other oracles, and

my many tomes on theTarot. Plus all my cards.

The lounge-room shelves are for overflow:

my favourite books for writers; some biographies;

feminist classics; encyclopaedias; books I wrote;

books my late husband wrote; folders full of my 

early poems (before I stored them on computer);

and old journals (ditto). But, hooray! I finally find

what I want on the virtual shelf, my beloved e-reader.

Written for FridayWritings #225 at Poets and Storytellers United, which invites us to find inspiration on our bookshelves.

Uninherited

I remember my father digging, 

foot on the spade’s top edge

pushing the blade further in,

Grandma twisting her trowel 

into the roots of weeds, 

breaking their tentacle holds,

and tiny me screaming, running

from a thick gelatinous earthworm –

never to be a gardener!

Written for Quadrille #246 at dVerse: a poem of exactly 44 words excluding title, which must contain some form of the word 'dig'.

From the Sky

(Zuihitsu)

From the sky is rising delirious music – light and sound together, singing and dancing. I look to the clouds; they swirl and disperse and re-integrate. They move constantly, but gentle and slow.

Unless storm comes, then they agitate and deepen, they seem to scowl.

But the sky does not scowl at me, I won’t believe it. From the sky has always come my help, my source of wisdom. Those eyes in the sky that see me clear and watch over me. Those voices that make new sentences in my soul, which I then hear as wisdom, as protective advice. 

Obey the voice of the sky! Then watch the clouds, and move like they. Don’t cower; they’re only going dancing.

I make of my dreams a cloud. I make of my cloud a veil. I drop it over me. It hides me. It conceals me from the world. It keeps me safe. Inside that veil I can soar, I can sing.

I walk out into the world. I am wrapped, invisibly to other people but not to me, in a cloak like fine-spun silk, a cloak of sky.

People don’t see this, but trees do … and birds, and dogs and cats … 

Some young children see it too, I know as our eyes briefly meet.

Written for dVerse Meeting the Bar: Zuihitsu. (Does this meet the form? I'm not sure. It's my first attempt. 'Follow the brush,' we are told. So I followed my random thoughts.  Is zuihitsu the same as stream of consciousness? I'm not a fan of  James Joyce, nor even Jack Kerouac ... but I do love Kimiko Hahn, who has done much to introduce zuihitsu to the Western world.)