For My Inspirations

For day 30 of April Poems at 'imaginary garden with real toads, we are invited to write a poem of praise to a source of inspiration, in 30-60 words. (Mine is 60.)  

For My Inspirations

This is Samhain,

the night when my most dear dead 

come close, 

and the honoured ancestors too.

The love we shared in life,

the character traits passed down,

all shape me

and shape and inform

the lines I write.

Bless me now with your wisdom

and be welcome at my feast.

The lantern is lit, and the fire.

Come, sit!

(Some of you may be thinking, 'What's she on about? This is Beltane'. But no – I live in the Southern Hemisphere.)

Why is the wind?

For the 29th day of Poems in April, the prompt is Asking Questions: 'quite simply, write a poem consisting only of questions. If you want to take it to the next level, why not write your own answer to the question(s) in the form of a response to your own questions?'

This emerged from somewhere in the Unconscious. No, I don't know what it means. I 'heard' it as two voices, the first female, the second male.

Why is the wind?

Why is the wind singing sadly

even though there is light in the sky?

Will you accompany me

along this path by the river? 

Or are you too afraid?

How far do you think we must go

in the descending darkness,

before we stop hearing that wind?

And what will be there when we arrive?

                      ************

I hope to find the face of God

when I come to the end of darkness;

I hope to hear the voice of God,

mightier by far than any wind.

Of course I am afraid. But still

I will walk with you by this river,

holding your hand all the way.

The song you hear is your own,

borne bravely in fading light.

Watching

Watching the Watcher

What is she looking at, down there 

on the street? It's not good. Her hand,

clapped to her forehead, tells me that,

but her still, intent gaze speaks of

worry rather than horror, or suggests

she is not personally involved in

whatever debacle she's viewing.

The cat, though, is picking up 

something. How uncomfortable

it looks, clasped to her side, not

itself looking out but eyeing

the photographer warily; almost

ready to squirm and run. Only

she's gripping it close, perhaps

not consciously tightening her fingers,

digging them in. The look in her eyes

tells me that the bad thing happening

down there outside her house is inevitable,

and she's not sorry. 'Had it coming,' 

that cool-eyed, firm-lipped look says.

The prompt for day 28 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' was to write about one of several pictures offered. I had thoughts of writing for either of two different ones, but this one was surprisingly insistent.

Photo: Unidentified Woman ca. 1950's - Walter Silver Photographs (freely available to download and use)

An image of sheets

An Image of Sheets

My bunched-up sheets drying across adjoining chairs:
the peaks of the snowy Himalayas.

(I have been in Nepal and seen the Himalayas up close, from a small plane.)


For day 27 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are asked for a two-sentence poem like Pound's famous 

In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

I always think of that as the ultimate Imagist poem, which explains my title.

Sharing Our Living Quarters

Sharing Our Living Quarters

I can't be bothered killing you, Cockroach –

big old bush cocky all on your own in my kitchen.

Must have thought you had the place to yourself

after dark, and fair enough – only I couldn't sleep 

and came out to make some soothing cocoa.

You're not one of those nasty little foreign ones

who appear in swarms and are tiny enough

to get into the wiring and wreck the whole house

in a few generations. Once they get in, they're hard

to get rid of. For them I'd bring the big guns out.

But you're a native, relatively harmless. You tried 

to move fast and hide when I barged in and made it all

light. Instead, not quick enough, you kept very still 

in the shadowy corner where your brown shell 

was less conspicuous ... and I turned a blind eye.

You were here first, after all. I don't dislike you, 

even if I did jump and scream when I first saw you. 

I'm happy to co-exist – just so long as you don't turn up 

in the space when I want to use it; so long as you stay 

hidden around the outskirts, and don't upset anyone.

It's always a bit risky posting a poem like this. What if everyone thinks it's about a cockroach? Well, it is. But there's a sub-text. What if people who get the sub-text think it's me speaking? Well, it is – but satirically. So I suppose I'll write a note and give the game away, to save being misunderstood ... hopefully.

Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #478

I Scarcely Realised

I Scarcely Realised

I hid my grief. Out and about

I was normal, bright, busy.

At home I was weeping 

suddenly, unplanned,

unanticipated even, all over 

my days and bereft nights

in abrupt, startling moments.

She was so absent! My other 

beloved cats all came visiting 

in spirit soon after leaving

– often – and still do. But she

felt utterly gone. Not a sign.

Just memories, I thought –

going about my life as before,

only that she who had been

so very present, wasn’t. Oh,

I could see her in my mind

everywhere she’d ever been,

little creature of habit and routine,

and that made me cry more.

Finally, I don’t know what shifted

(but I’d done some energy work 

of course) anyway I just realised:

that’s how she’s visiting. She’s here!

She’s reminding me, comforting me,

doing the same as always – 
gazing intently as always, with those
purposeful, speaking eyes: ever
the telepathic cat. That understanding
must have made everything possible.
I lay down today for an afternoon rest.
(She always loved when I did that.)
I didn’t sleep but relaxed, eyes closed.
Soon I felt the familiar warm weight
on my thighs, where she’d always settle.

I scarcely realised she wasn’t still alive.

For day 26 of April Poems at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are asked to write about 'those moments of re-charging, rebooting, re-winding, re-birthing'. With perfect

synchronicity, today I experienced this moment.

Caldera View

Caldera View

From high in Hidden Valley
sitting on my friend's lookout
I gaze across the mountain.
The trees in the landscape beyond 
merge to become a sea, a blue-green sea 
that rolls to a horizon white with cloud.
The clouds become banks of foam
as the wave of the sky rises high.
We gaze up into the curl of the wave
that pauses before toppling over us
and stays, poised and aloft
unfalling for as long as we watch,
while the peaks of the mountain,
down there, are shoreline rocks.


For day 25 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are asked for an imagist poem.

Photo of Mt Warning from Public Domain, photographer unknown. (Same view as from my friend's lookout.)

Capturing This

Capturing This



TWO MONKEYS by BRUEGHEL (1562)


Why, I wondered, would Breughel,
that artist of rich colour –
those deep, throbbing reds,
those eerie greens 
and light-filled blues –
choose to paint this dim-lit scene
of brown and murky yellow?

Perhaps one should allow
for the passage of time 
and human dirt
encrusting ancient works of art
with a darkening veneer ...
but even so, his others
are not like that.

Yet the curved shapes
of window frame and beasts
arrest and satisfy my eye;
and the sails and towers
in the pale light beyond,
pointing up to the clouded sky.
So I start to see.

I start to see 
that there is much to see,
further and further
in those tiny, misty details:
a world out there. Then the eyes
of one monkey keep catching
my reluctant gaze.

I come back to 
those forefront monkeys 
I've been trying to ignore.
The other who does not look 
anywhere but at the ground,
is hunched uncomfortably.
Finally, I see the chain.

Once seen, it stands out.
I look at the narrowness 
of that stone sill, from side 
to side, although it comes 
some way back into the room,
and imagine them held there
looking out through the thick pane.

But they are not looking out.
They are avoiding that.
How they must miss the trees!
Nothing here to get a grip on,
nothing to swing from, even if
they had space and were unchained.
And only Breughel to perceive.


Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: An Ekphrastic Poem.

Note: Looking more closely, I think it's a wooden sill, but 'stone' works better for the poem than anything else I can come up with yet.

The Wonderful

For day 24 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are invited to write of natural wonders, great or small – or to 'Go bigger: tell us how all of its breathtaking design makes you catch your breath in awe.'

The Wonderful

In the soft light of morning,

the Wonderful wakes –

the sunrise filling

the lower slopes of the sky,

the tune of a magpie 

just down the road, 

carolling sweetly

with a fresh sound,

trees appearing to stretch

in the radiant air,

the edges of the mountains

in crisp outline

and in spite of all grief,

all pain or despair,

all the horrors I know exist

and proliferate …

in spite of all that,

my heart lifts, the song

pours like a blessing

across my arising,

I take a new breath

and rejoice to see this world 

wake up around me, again,

over and over, and the sun shine.

Horror

It's day 23 of April Poems at 'imaginary garden with real toads' and we are asked to write a horror poem. They mean fantasy horror, but ....

Horror

Horror is not a spooky movie

with ghosts, werewolves, 

or giant spiders. No.

Horror is over two hundred people 

bombed to death in Sri Lanka 

and five hundred wounded.

Cold horror is the fact it was planned

by a whole group. Carefully. Thoroughly. 

Horror is thirty-six thousand 
people every night sleeping rough, 

homeless – thirty-six thousand,
just in Western Sydney.

Horror is lovely Dove Lake 

at the foot of Cradle Mountain

(in Tasmania where I grew up)

clear and blue on the surface

but its sediment toxic,

thick with heavy metal.

Must I go on? You know I've only 

just  got started. The world 

is full of horrors. I haven't yet

mentioned child abuse, rape,

domestic violence. I haven't

listed wars, disease, fatal 

car crashes. You have your own 
examples. You don't need me

to tell you about the polar ice-caps.

Horror, tonight, is very personal –

my generous-hearted friend 
dying fast of cancer,

his voice on the phone already

weaker and more slurred

than it was four days ago.

Horror is contemplating

his pain, his vertebrae crumbling.

Items in My Closet

For day 22 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are asked to write on one of several pictures offered from Shay's Word Garden. This one appealed to me:

Items In My Closet

A blotted page of arcane symbols (discarded) as shelf lining –

advanced mathematics: one kind of magic, yes, but not mine.

Pens from the schoolroom: bare nibs, for dipping in 

magic inks to inscribe my preferred symbols: letters.

An old fob watch my Grandpa left me, on which 

when I was young he taught me the magic of time.

(The typewriter he also left me for writing my poetry –

my magic – was much too big to be kept in the closet.)

Before I cast a magic circle, I clear the energy of the space

with a bundle of smoking sage, wafted by this feathered fan.

Oh and those red petals? From a bunch of roses

a lover gave me on a magical night; for infusions.

Willow Girl

For Tree Mythology, day 21 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are asked to rewrite a myth or legend about a tree, or perhaps make up one of our own. Instead, I give you a true story.

Willow Girl

She plays on the swing 

her father made,

big thick ropes

and a seat of wood.

Inside a circle

of fronds, pale green,

she drifts and dreams,

curtained, unseen.

When her father

made the swing,

Willow Girl

was very young.

As she grows,

it remains her place,

her safe and private

magical space.

How could she 

or her father know

the mystery

of the sacred willow?

They never guess

the ancient secret:

in every willow

lives a spirit.

And if you spend

a lot of time

beneath a willow,

your words will rhyme.

You will become 

a poet, if you stay

long in that green light –

so they say.

Willow Girl's old

when she finds this out,

but she knows it's true:

she is a poet.

All her life

the words have been,

as once the tree,

her true companion.

To be a poet

makes her glad.

She thanks the willow 

and her Dad.

Willow Tree by Geaugagrrl (released to public domain CC0)
(You have to imagine the swing, hanging from the lowest bough.)