Re-Surfacing

From the depths of memory,

the wilfully forgotten:

wide suddenly, and full of light, this

window to the past, or

towards the past at least –

the past that soared, then swiftly flew.

Granite could not be harder than this

shore I’m wrecked on. Yet,

the harbour walls I thought I built,

white with age as they are, don’t conceal

sails dancing across the water; never

still, whether tossed or rocked gently.

Fly, then, sweet sails! Memory, turn

seaward at last, with the longing that is ever

seaward, ever returning to this particular shore, this

flying, with the wind behind us … remaining

unbroken after all. I can resist no more. 

Wings, spread! Wings, soar! Fly forever!

An acrostic based on TS Eliot's stirring lines from 'Ash Wednesday':

From the wide window towards the granite shore

The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying

Unbroken wings 

Written for my own prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #231: White Sails Flying, where I invite people to be inspired by those lines, and if desired use them in an acrostic. Apologies, everyone! Until I tried it myself – after setting the prompt – I hadn't realised what difficult lines they are to use that way. 

My scenario is fictional, but based vaguely on things in my life: not one specific situation or buried memory, but some loves that didn't last, and a childhood and adolescence spent near water, 'messing about in boats' – though mostly rowboats and motor-boats. (Although much in love with sailing boats always, I never did any real sailing myself except as a passenger.)

Unable Not to Keep Mourning Her Death

(‘Tells with silence the last light breaking’)

Tells –    

utters / informs / relates … and ah, 

what Katherine did was relate

with –    

alongside, in the company of … she was one 

who was never away from, always with

silence –    

absence of noise, deep quiet … she could be 

noisy, loud with laughter, yet in her presence

I found deep peace; we could be quiet together,

needing no words (though, both, workers in words)

the –    

definitive … to define her would take many words

or none; one could write pages of rapturous description,

which would have to include somewhere her laughter, 

her huge capacity for joy – yet wholly fail to capture her

last –    

at last, the end, finality … but there is nothing final about

this long friendship, sisterhood, true understanding, ever

light –    

shining, radiant, illumination, clarity, the light of knowledge 

… she shed light on the hidden; also, alight, lit up our lives

breaking –    

coming apart, fracturing, dividing into pieces … separating 

into past and future, self and other, here and gone, alive / dead

Inspired by a prompt from Laura Bloomsbury, for dVerse: Taking a Fine Line Down.

A word acrostic focusing on definitions of the words chosen. The line, 'tells with silence the last light breaking' is from Dylan Thomas's A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London. (To get the formatting to work on the blog page, I needed to put the words above each verse instead of to the left – which perhaps differentiates it from an acrostic, but I think it works as a poem.)

Bittersweet October

Because we have turn-about sun and rain

in a world where weather has gone mad

tumbling over each other too quickly,

the abundant growth of Spring exaggerated,

everything flourishing faster than ever

richly adorning the whole landscape, 

surrounding us wherever we look 

with burgeoning leaves and flowers,

every hot day and every wet one

enticing our senses, even as

the swift changes set us reeling …

Our reactions too are rapidly

changing – one day we think,

This is Summer, ahead of time,

only to wake to a sudden return,

bewildering in its rapidity, to Winter.

Even as we rejoice, we begin to expect,

reliably unreliable, constant overturning.

October in the Southern Hemisphere is officially in the middle of Spring.

Written for Magaly's prompt for Friday Writings #148: Bittersweet October, at Poets and Storytellers United.

Relief from Summer Ailments

Here it begins, my seasonal agenda,

just for myself, unknown to most of you.

It has the constancy and repetition of devout

ritual; it’s a descent from dire peak to safe plateau.

I desist from drops and medication as soon as the warm

fades, and pack away compression stockings – it’s Autumn!

Form: a ‘broken acrostic,’ with the letters of the acrostic word (the true title of the poem) appearing at ends, not beginnings of lines.

For Friday Writings #119: Strange Springs at Poets and Storytellers United, Magaly invites us to write on strange Spring rituals. But it’s Autumn in Australia, and I’m currently most interested in my own personal, very welcome ways of marking the change of season. (Actually I can’t do either just yet, still too early – but soon!) 

October

 

Octogenarian now, yet I still carry within me

Child, teenager, and all those younger women

That make up the layers and the fusion of myself.

On this day in early October, it seems well-timed –

Being at a place where the year slows before

Ending, yet also where the season renews – to

Recall all that I have been, I have become, I am.

Written for Magaly's prompt, October, for Friday Writings #97 at Poets and Storytellers United.

Glimmers

‘A glimmer is the exact opposite of a trigger–it is some kind of cue, either internal or external, that brings one back to a sense of joy or safety.’

Gold light radiating from that orb in the sky just before sunset.

Looking into the face of a beloved friend – here now, or pictured.

Immense trees filling the sky; or really, any trees. Truly, all trees.

My best-loved books: just a glimpse of one's cover and I want to hug it.

Memories, of large and little joyous moments, filling my long life.

Everyone I ever loved / all those who loved me (cats and dogs too).

Reconnecting often with poetry, flowing into or from me.

Sunshine; sparkling silver rivers; soaring mountains; sweetness in the mouth;

sudden storms with swift, searing lightning; stillness; the suchness of the this.

Inspired by Rommy’s prompt for Friday Writings #86 at Poets and Storytellers United. I decided to do this as an acrostic. Then I decided to make each line an American Sentence (17 syllables). Then I realised the letter S needed two lines. Note: They wouldn't work as stand-alone American Sentences, however, as each line depends on the mental inclusion of the word 'Glimmers' which it is defining. I'd need to rewrite them. I'm happy to leave them as they are, to make one whole poem together.

Fairy Floss

 Fairy Floss

… feathered my childhood. 

Americans call it cotton candy.

I know better: it’s magical.

Revellers in that realm craft it.

Young forever, they fill it with light.

Fluffy, clingy sweetness melts.

Loveliness fills the delighted mouth.

Oh, the zing that follows the airy touch!

Soft hints of fairyland linger.

Somehow, they never quite fade. 

In Australia we really do call it Fairy Floss.

For Weekly Scribblings #87 at Poets and Storytellers United, Rommy asked us to write on anything we might find at a fair.

Image: By Valerie Elash at Unsplash.

“War is over! If you want it.”

“War is over! If you want it.”

– John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Who doesn’t want war to be over?

All of us dream of peace, don’t we?

Remembering John and Yoko, we imagine …

Instead of distant heaven, a paradise on earth, 

Simply living as one, sharing our wealth.

Or so he sang. As they built their world of love.

Violence, they tried to say, is not the answer

Ever. Yet violence was the full stop to his song.

Remember John and Yoko, their peace shattered.

If you want it, war is over. We swear we want it.

Funny how war persists, through all our history.

You don’t want war. I don’t. We don’t. Yet we empower

Our Governments – ours – which always find reasons.

Under our veneer, we are still squabbling on playgrounds.

We are still fighting for possession of the best toys

And to stand on top of the fort. Girls as well as boys.

Not all girls, but too many of the few in power: 

Thatcher springs first to mind. Not all boys either, but….

It’s a case of who profits, isn’t it? Somehow there are still 

Too many who want power and possession more.

For Weekly Scribblings #82 at Poets and Storytellers United, Magaly invites us to be inspired by the quotation I've used as my title (and as an acrostic).

Meanwhile (and because I am committed to not staying silent in the face of injustice) this is not at all unrelated – especially the opening bit:

The Conversation

 The Conversation
(Concerning a certain death)

When necessary I have enormous patience.

As when I waited years for one to be free to meet me

I knew would tell me truthfully all the details.

That night, when finally — we had to get drunk.

In vino veritas, but it wasn’t that. We knew: 

No bearing it otherwise, that diving naked into

Grief’s most terrible depths. We knew also we must.

The Poetic Asides prompt #17 in the April Poem A Day challenge (2021) is to write about waiting. Knowing my subject matter but not how to tackle it, I tried an acrostic. I like the way it turned out to be about the immediate situation, with no real background.

Sharing with Writers' Pantry #66 at Poets and Storytellers United: A Bat and a Haiku Walk into a Bar.

Hello Earth #28

Hello again, Earth!

Here we are, on the last day of June 2020, for the last of these daily letters to you. It’s been fun! But now it stops. It’s not you, it’s me. 

   Wisecracks aside, it’s been an amazing four weeks. Doing this daily has taken me to unexpected realisations. And it has been good to conjure you, Earth, as a present, listening companion.

Earth, you are so much bigger than that. I inhabit one small, relatively green and unpolluted part of you. I’m aware of the rest, have travelled some of it, lived in other places than here ... but I let this region stand for the all. Still, it’s you I speak to, that whole greater than the sum of the parts, which at the same time infuses every part — as an arm is to the body, or any one life form is to God.

Leaning in, I blow you a kiss, dear Earth. I’m not going to keep doing this daily, but l’m thinking of doing something similar from time to time. Maybe weekly? We’ll see. But I won’t leave it vague. This exercise has shown me the value of discipline. I’m a freedom-freak – but it’s like writing poetry: formal constraints can provide more depth, more focus, more intensity. Putting in place a structure paradoxically allows greater freedom to move, the expression supported by that structure. (I think.) Anyway, a regular commitment to communing with you, Earth, being mindfully in the present moment with you, would support me in receiving all that's valuable in this practice. So I’ll think about it, decide how often to talk to you in future, and make a schedule — not a chore; a treat to look forward to.

Listing gratitudes: I’m grateful to me for taking on these communications with you, Satya for offering the opportunity, and the readers who tell me they value these musings. (I was afraid they'd see them as boring or self-indulgent.) Above all I’m grateful to you, dear Earth, for the amazing fact of your existence in a form that not only supports life but nurtures it ... nurtures, enriches and blesses my life — and challenges me too. I’m grateful for being here now; for all the present moments I’ve enjoyed or endured. 

Offering grateful appreciation, I promise to love you every second of my life. An easy promise to make: I can’t not love you.  I’ll say cheerio for now, while knowing you are really still here with me every moment. Talk to you again soon!
   ... A nice breezy  finish. But then I rethink. I can’t not love you, I say, believing it to be true. But ‘actions speak louder than words’, in love as in everything else. How I express my love is crucial, now that my species is altering you so rapidly, in ever more harmful ways. How can I love you helpfully, protectively? Let that be the lasting exploration I take from this.

Hello Earth #27

Hello dear Earth, dear Earth hello —

Here it’s sunny today, and I feel glorious. The tiny few clouds in the sky are feathering the rim of the mountains over the way, leaving the vast expanse clear. My plants have been steadily rained on, and now are lifting their faces to drink the sun.

Earth, I marvel at your weathers which result in such real, visible effects. Nature is indeed a Goddess, all-knowing, all-wise, all-nurturing. (OK, for now we’ll conveniently ignore floods, hailstorms, cyclones ... no doubt they too have their uses.)

Leaning in, I reflect how this pandemic has had its uses, as we have been forced to confront different ways of living, and we have been shown the good effects of our reduced ‘footprints’ on the landscape. These lessons come at horrendous cost. Here in Australia, where the danger has been handled fairly well, it’s hard to imagine what it must be like In countries where thousands are dying daily. It must seem as if no object lessons could be worth it ... and yet, isn’t it the very conditions we’re being shown ways to correct which led to the pandemic in the first place? The overcrowding, notably. 

Listing gratitudes, I just know I am grateful for my life, and for spending it on this beautiful, amazing planet. I have always felt that, all my life — and even if my life had been cut short early, I would still have thought myself lucky to be here for any time vouchsafed. 

Offering you my gratitude and delight, dear Earth, I offer also everything I am, your humble servant.


Submitted (a couple of months later) to Poets and Storytellers United's Writers' Pantry #34: Writing Is Easy.