Leading Us to Wonder

I watch the beautiful and boyish

Professor Brian Cox with his rich voice

explore, for us, the Universe – deep space.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra trace

the swirling images with music: vast,

towering, lifting … as the first and last 

edges of creation float before us

onscreen, 'til the crescendoing chorus

leaves us – with the triumphant scientist 

and the awed conductor – freed from the mist

of ignorant speculation now, to 

thrill and wonder. But questioning how to

alert the short-sighted fools in power:

evolved life’s all here – its final hour?

Form: Clarian sonnet 

Notes:

As far as can be discovered and deduced, ours appears to be the only planet in this universe where life has evolved beyond a single cell.

The concert ‘Symphonic Horizons’ had four performances from 30 Nov to 2 Dec 2023. You can Google it for details of the music chosen.  I watched a TV recording of a rehearsal, aired in Jan 2024.

Brian Cox was a musician before becoming a scientist.

Sharing  many months later with Poets and Storytellers United for FridayWritings #184: Let's Go Formal.

Reluctance

 

It keeps going out of my mind: to light

a candle, with a prayer for the friend

who died yesterday. It doesn’t seem right

that he, younger than me, comes to this end

sooner. I want to forget, to pretend.

But he told me – soon after he knew – so

I can’t remove it from fact, can’t not know

he who was all grace and kindness has gone.

His hand clasped mine in goodbye, then let go.

Now I must bless and farewell, and move on.

Form: dizain

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #108: Beginning. (Where I make the point that beginnings are entwined with endings.)

For the back story on this, if desired – a longish post, please be advised – see here.

Storm and Aftermath

 

The wild thunder rolls,

the wind gusts all over the place.

Texting a sister witch, I raise

protection over our houses and cars

and hope it will be enough. 

It’s worked countless times before,

but I never take it for granted. 

(That’s not the same as not trusting.)

And all the time, in another 

part of my mind, I’m tallying up

the list of my new dead this year – 

as the year draws to an end. Four

old friends. Two sister goddesses

who spread their light and danced

in the circle; two men I met in prison, 

poets, who gave the rest of their lives, 

in freedom, to supporting people in need. 

Love has many faces, many forms. 

I’m living long, so far. It happens

that some people go. I always want

that they stay forever. But they have

their own roads, their own journeys.

Sometimes they know they’ll go

and so we can say our goodbyes. 

Sometimes they visit afterwards,

or in the very moment of death. All

loving messages are gratefully received.

Morning comes. The thunder is over.

Great harm in some places, but not just here

– although it was dramatic, frightening.

Meanwhile, I’m still absorbing the news

another friend messaged, just as the storm 

began. He hadn't suspected. His oncologist

tells him it won’t be long. There are some 

events for which I can’t raise protection.

Yet I’m glad he reached out and told me.

I am so blessed in my friendships! Each

unique and special. This one’s always been

easy and sweet. Younger, I thought he’d be 

left mourning me, some years from now, 

which I’d selfishly have preferred. The poems,

the artworks, enjoyed, are not what I dread

to be without. That’s the quiet understanding,

quietly relied on. My turn now, to give that back.

My old friend (and fellow-poet) Rob messaged me on Christmas Day to tell me he had just been diagnosed with 'very aggressive cancers of lung and liver ... all spreading super fast. Operating is not possible. I am in very good hands. It probably won't be very long, my oncologist says.'

And it wasn't long. I have just learned he died at 8.30 tonight (New Year's Day) and that he was surrounded with love.

We exchanged a few messages on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, while he was still up to it. I told him: 'As a psychic medium I do know beyond any doubt that death is not the end, and hope our souls may connect in friendship again in some future.'  In answer he sent me a smiley face, a pair of praying or 'namaste' hands, a sunflower, and a heart; he told me that, having got the news so very recently, he was busy processing everything. 

'I bet!' I said  (still doing that too, though from a rather better position).

Later I asked him, 'Can you cope with a poem?' and sent this one, which I had just written, telling him it was 'Not terribly morbid, and I'd better say it now while I have the chance.' He replied,  'A delightful poem. Comforting love. Thank you, dearest Rosemary.'A

He said he would reach out when and if he could. I told him, 'If ever there was a time to put your own needs first, this is it!'

He responded with a shiny big red heart emoji. And that was our goodbye. I'm grateful to him that we had one.

Poetic form: nonce (in this case a pattern of lines per verse).

.' 

I

Futility

all around the world

we scream out against war crimes 

but who’s listening?

*

an island man stands

up to his waist in water

above his drowned house

*

most people can see

what's wrong with war and greed

yet governments still ...

The Choice

In a world

of so much hatred,

how to continue

to be of love?

How to resist

being frozen in horror?

Or burning 

with rage and blame?

But those

are not the ways.

Only peace

can beget peace.

If only 

we could each

become an oasis

of light.

I imagine

each small circle of light 

spreading,

merging.

I can’t make it so

for others. 

Each can only 

choose it ourselves.

And why – in the face 

of pain and injustice?

So as not to be 

that which I abhor.

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #107. The prompt is to write about a time when we weren't sure if we could (or wanted to) do something but ended up doing it anyway. What I've written is a little bit different  – more about something I want to do but (being human) often end up falling short.

Visiting the Dead

Patti Smith, in 'A Book of Days,' includes a photo of an angel in a cemetery. She says, 'Visiting the grave of Bertholt Brecht, I always pause to touch her wings.' 

That 'always' makes me wonder about the frequency of her visits … her pilgrimage, one might deduce.

I suppose it's convenient for people to have somewhere to go, to remember and reflect on those who have passed on before us, whether family members and friends or those great figures we have revered. 

I don't much hold with visiting graves, myself. I also don't have much tolerance for funerals. The body, no matter how wonderful it was in life (and they are all wonderful, bodies) is a mere empty shell after the soul has flown. Funerals and graves and urns full of ashes, it seems to me, are really for the living who are  left behind.

I would rather remember my family members by their photos taken when they were warm with life; my friends by their words and actions; the 'towering dead' (as Dylan Thomas called them) by their works which remain to move and inspire us.

your living face 

the timbre of your voice 

indelible –

even after being gone

for years of memories

Note: The Dylan Thomas reference is to his poem, 'In my Craft or Sullen Art.'

In Friday Writings #106, Magaly asks us to include in a piece of writing the full title of a book we're reading or planning to read this December. I have been reading Patti Smith's 'A Book of Days' all year, one day at a time, and am continuing to do so during December.