I Know Yellow and Blue

 

I have heard it said that purple and mauve

stand for  memory,  nostalgia, or loss.

Lavender scented cupboards spring to mind.

 

I know that purple is yellow and blue,

mixed by an artist’s brush

 

Summer skies, cornflowers, sunflowers,

sunshine and bluebells in spring,

daffodils, delphiniums,

bunting across the street,

blue doors in white walls

under an awning that flapped in the wind,

a boat on a tossing sea breeze,

blue ripples across the bay,

a beach ball of summer stripes thrown up to the sun,

the bucket and spade we left behind

on that glowing yellow day

 

Our memories shine in full colour

or age to a lesser thing

 

 

 

The Sacrificial Rite

naked and bound at the foot of a tree

hands lashed to feet and kneeling

an embryo, a seed curled in submission

without resistance, i saw,

in the sacrificial rite

as time released me

 

in the woods the oak grows tall

the acorn falls to dark earth, maternal

stripped from the shell, the sapling springs

in the labyrinth of time, the wheel eternal,

in the vernal equinox, the turn,

up from the seed, limbs stretching

reaching to light, no death is here

take heart in the strength of oak

 

daffodils, toadstools, the bluebell

nothing of worth is ever lost

time gives life to the tender seed

to be reborn

you first must die