A sudden hare, across the field,
Swerves and shifts, avoids the breath of death,
In shadowed cloud and sunlight leaping.
Against the light, dark wings revealed,
Downward sweeps, a shifting hawk,
A breath held tight in frozen time.
The hare escapes the talons keeping.
This life, this shifted breath, this joy, is mine.
death
The Circle II
Though we see their faces no more
those who have left us speak to us still
and always will. We hear their wise words,
when we are left far behind on the shore.
Recalled by the friends and family
and all who love them before
we can hear their voices speak in our hearts.
We do not part. They speak from our Ancestors halls.
Where one season ends another begins
as nature shows us again and again.
We pass through our spring and our summer
and the golden gathering time of the Fall.
Winter is not an endless cold season.
There is a journey ahead. No end at all.
Empty Houses
I leaned by a wall in the hallway
dressed in a hat and a coat
with a place to go I cared nothing for
when after his death we moved out
the thought of the way an empty house echoes
after the packing cases are gone
never fails to move me or bring tears
it reminds me only of death
a hollow sound and an empty heart
if we had settled down after that
I might have gained more trust in the world
where only death is sure
it was after that I started to sleep walk
I have been sleep walking around that house
for years, in a world where I always move on
until death and the final box
where does love reside?
they say love dwells in the heart
that red mysterious chamber
that pumps three billion times
if you are blessed to remain
for your three score year and ten
it’s so good to hear it beat
again and again and again
that reassuring thud in your chest
until the day comes
when you know that your heart
might need an operation
or a little adjustment
or even a replacement
and one thing i guarantee
it will stop in the end
it’s a fickle friend indeed
if love resides in the heart
how can we ever say
that it out lives death and stays?
i want my true love
to dwell in a safer haven
to be carried life to life
if such a thing is possible
i don’t want to forget
i want to be able to find
those people i loved
by some imbedded instinct
the next time around
and hope i may find them sooner
to not waste a single heart beat
so pump away little heart
while you are healthy and whole
but don’t expect me to trust you
to look after love everlasting
or control my deepest feelings
i will keep my love
wrapped round my soul
entwined with my deeper being
soaked into my essence
my ethereal whole
and all that’s essential
to be existential
in some other future world
my soul is always with me
Me and my Shadow
thoughts of Peter Pan
his shadow shut inside a drawer
poor fellow, incomplete
no old companion at his feet
and what if all the shadows went
not just your own
imagine a wooded glade
no contrasts there at all
sun shafts and no shade
no place to hide alone
in sweet repose and rest
and in a darkened room by firelight
no shadows dancing on the wall
by shadows we are blessed
where would imagination go
with no escape from endless bright
and crystal clear illumination
I recall a walk long ago
at full moon with my love
as my shadow played with hers
crossing and blending in our path
I wondered if my shadow
was as happy then as I
a childhood friend to play with
my shadow made me think
and wonder at the world
it’s a link to see ourselves
it shrinks and stretches, grows,
depending where we go
my shadow makes me
more aware of light
it connects me to the ground
when the sun is bright
I never see it in my dreams
I wonder what that means
leaving me to sleep
it disappears at night
I wonder where it goes
no-one knows that truth
I only know that when I die
my shadow wont exist
nor me, not I
perhaps we vanish into light
A writing prompt
A Letter
Write a letter to the world as if you will die tomorrow – then take some lines from the letter and turn it into a poem
You can see more prompts on the Writing Prompts page on top menu bar
my father
it was not until i found myself swimming alone
that i realised he was my rock
taken for granted always there
though i had watched the life source dim
with regret and compassion
there is no other rock out there
in the endless sea
now i see why he tried to teach me
to float to dry land, each time i swam off
flailing my arms about
Reunion
after seven years
I still can’t believe
I wont ever see my father again
I still can’t believe
I wont see him again
this thought repeats and repeats
rolling circuits around in my brain
until it looses momentum
and comes to rest
like a roulette ball
in an unpredictable place
why am i even trying to imagine
I wont see him again
when all of my elders
as they grew older
told me we would
not one of us knows
until we go
I can think as I like
until then
The Death of my Blood
I died out on these moors, my bones are here.
I feel them in the pooled reflections in mud,
the wind in the bare gorse and the crows’ flight.
Later, in the mines, under weight of rock
darkness enfolded around me. No hope.
I knew I would die when the lamp guttered out.
The next time I was spared the mines labour.
Instead they sent me off to their war in France.
No grave when a shell blows flesh apart.
Many times I have died at my fireside.
I once burned in flames for heresy.
Never have I died in the sea.
The death I would wish for is the pure one
with the mist and the crow on the moor,
to rest in my own land forever at home
Scorched Grass
the grass my father cut that day
was parched and scorched
by burning sun
his ashes rest
beneath the roses now
the rain pours down
and bounces on the lawn
bending down the peony heads
and flattening the fern
the grass has grown again
will he?
The Dreaming Path 