The Afterlife I Wish

I would come back here, to contemplate trees;

to gaze again, when I’m bodiless, on

mountains, rivers, clouds and stars, skies and seas.

Could Paradise hold such treasures as these?

Missing them, how could I ever move on?

I would come back here to contemplate trees,

their deliberate glory. Yes, they'll please

others who will love them, after I’ve gone –

also mountains, rivers, clouds, stars, skies, seas –

yet why should that mean my own joy must cease?

I don’t see the need for my being gone!

I would return here to stare long at trees.

I would enter unseen, light as a breeze,

not to disturb you, but just look upon

dear mountains, rivers, clouds, stars, skies and seas.

I would be transparent, taking my ease

on airy cloud-pillows. Death, you see, frees.

So I’d come back, to keep drinking in trees,

mountains, rivers, clouds, stars, vast skies, deep seas. 

(Photo mine.)

Written for Friday Writings #111 at Poets and Storytellers United: What would your ghost come back for? It's a bit of a riposte to the poem mentioned there, Fare Well by Walter de la Mare.

The form is a villanelle.

April,

April,

and the year began dying 

slowly into darkness out of the light, 

its warmth going cold. I’m crying

recalling our summer: lying

entwined, unaware on that balmy night

how the year began dying

already – time (as they tell us) flying.

Though we set the night alight,

our warmth would go cold. I’m crying

to realise that all of our trying

could never stop time in its flight

nor the year in its dying,

the love we could not hold defying

only so briefly what the world held right,

its warmth going cold despite our crying.

Summer turned autumn; our denying

as useless as arms clutching tight.

The year went on dying,

its warmth going cold. I’m crying.



Note: April is mid-Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, but in March the Summer tends to linger.

Written for April Poetry Month 2019 to the prompt April Come She Will at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Also submitted to dVerse's Forms for all – the Villanelle. (This poem demanded to be another villanelle, as I have been practising them with increasing delight for the last few days.)

An Address to God

An Address to God

The weeds in the corner are flowering, blue

against the canopy of thick dark green: such

bright dots. Who put them there? You?

Mister God (or, as I prefer, Ms God) who

if not you? You can do the little as well as the much –

even those weeds in the corner, flowering blue.

But I think of the Nature Sprits too,

whom we sometimes glimpse but can never touch:

bright dots! Who put THEM there? You?

Are they the ones who sprinkle the dew

on your behalf, and create that lush

growth of weeds, that flowering, that blue?

In my tiny garden, where there once grew

orderly plantings, now the wild blooms thrust

their bright dots. Who put them there? Who?

I was sad, and I think the Nature Spirits knew 

and decided to surprise me sweetly (hush!)

with weeds in the corner flowering blue.

But who put me here to enjoy them? You!

Second piece submitted to dVerse Forms for all – the Villanelle

The Hankering

The Hankering

He offered me a tempting, pretty ring:

star sapphire, he said (black marked with white)

but I couldn't meet the cost of such a thing.

A line of white like the edge of a wing,

and deep inside the stone a tiny light,

he offered me – a tempting, pretty ring.

Just as well, perhaps, it didn't fit my fing-

er, no matter how I tried to get it right,

as I couldn't have met the cost of such a thing.

Yet the desire, I find, is lingering

for that sapphire lit within, though dark as night,

which he offered me: that tempting, pretty ring.

Surely, I think, it would have made my heart sing

to own a stone formed of both dark and bright.

But I could not meet the cost of such a thing.

No matter; I have seen! Imagining

will help me hold it in my inner sight

and keep that offered, tempting, pretty ring

priceless, beyond the cost of a mere thing.

Submitting to dVerse Forms for all – The Villanelle