Day Six

Summer, Belatedly

Were I upright,

Beloved,

I would assign you to Hades

Then follow you

Weeping a river

For all mad with love,

To bathe within

And find their cure.

 

But I am not!

So, I slip beneath you

And find my summer,

Belatedly,

And full,of flowers.

Day Five

Death And Emily Dickinson

Pale, this lover climbs the stairs.

Cold-expectant –

She pulls back the coverlet –

And turns her face

To a chill embrace

Death covers her her moans with a kiss – to the lips

From icy fingertips.

Suddenly – as he come –

She goes.

 

 

 

 

Dying Of Duty

 

I first encountered Sarah Morley on a School trip in 1961.

She died in 1789 whilst returning from Bombay to England with her children. Her memorial is in Gloucester Cathedral.

I am ten years old.

I have not known death

Or childbirth.

Imperial brides, stoic women wedded to the Civil Service, are

Beyond my imagining.

“Bombay” rolled over my tongue, wreathed in mystery.

Arrested by pathos, drawn in by the pillar of cloud

Entranced by the nearness of God in the presence of his angels,

I came face to face with mortality.

“How can it be,” I wondered, then, and now, that

A woman could embark on a sea voyage

Close to her time, and die of doing her duty.

 

 

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The Cherry Tree NaPoWriMo Day Three

In the beginning,

Yesterday,

The sun gazed somewhat magnificently, from a bright blue sky, and

My gaze fixed tightly on the cherry tree in the garden next door.

I am certain, as I gaze in wonder, that the day is perfect.

There have been warmer days. Oh yes. On those, I would not leave the coolcave

That is the thick inner room of my English cottage, until the sun had passed over.

There have been days in more exotic places. Forgive me.

If I am, right now, standing besides a cascade in a rain forest, near Oahu

Or leaning over the Tsitsa Falls, near Mtata, with my Xhosa friends.

I am moving now to the frontier town, Talkeetna, Alaska, listening to the

Shrill Klaxon of the lumber train, from the security of the town library.

Oh yes, I have other lives to bring, and have lived them in superb gratitude.

But yesterday, I spoke God’s language, on a frighteningly warm March Day when the sun shone brazenly from a bright sky.

And in that moment, the cherry tree was perfection, and my Self rose, delighted, in thanksgiving.

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Sonnet

OK, Look. This was As Far As I Got: … Sorry.

Appear

Embark

Shakespeare

Plutarch

 

Bemused

Imposed

Refused

Disposed

 

Berate

Pursue

I’ll-fate

Undo

 

Defied

Died

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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First You Take A …

First you take a twinkle in God’s eye.

I don’t know, perhaps being the Only One was

Too lonely, even for a Deity. So …

In an explosion of imagination, it all kicked off.

 

Did She have to think about , for, like,

Eons? Imagining the juxtaposition of quarks

The spin of electrons and

The mass of a boson?

I doubt it.

I’m alert to the possibility that

God thought, one day, of Me.

“Now THERE’S a thing!” He pondered, “Let’s do this!”

And out it came!

The firmament –

The waters above and below –

Stars, bears, whales and flowers –

(I am especially fond of flowers)

!

I don’t expect that God had to gather, chop and stir

I’m Old School. I think They said,

“Let there be Light,”

And there was light.

And at the end of it all,

There

Was

Me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This …

 

This is how a poet looks …

Calm, reflective, no angel

Carrying sixty-odd years with a certain

Panache … 

And this is how a poet feels –

This one, anyway –

Glad to be alive

(I think you can see that  by

The look in my eyes)

I have children and adventures

Evidently

This is what a poet has to say:

“I’m no better than you, and I

Know I will like you, because

You have looked at me

And smiled, perhaps,

And are STILL

Here!”