July 4th

It’s our wedding anniversary today and the weather is finally starting to settle down. We took a picnic out, all the way to… the plum tree.

and we had our first pan bagnat of the year

Finbar was tied up just in case he decided to run off, but I think those days are over. He’s getting very sensible in his old age.

Trixie didn’t move from the chair she’s appropriated.

Ninnie got as far as the doormat.

It’s a good thing we don’t crave excitement.

Diamond days

The Oracle sent me anniversary wishes. Not the diamond one yet, but our wedding anniversary nonetheless. Happy us 🙂

 

This diamond day glitters with new sun

exploding in dew drops

to the chanting of the birds

dreams dreamed by moonlight

love in the rain

and songs in the shadows

swell like storms of joy

 

you whisper

come with me the ship is waiting

 

sailing through nights and days

(like Mad Max)

fast and blue with light and life

yet no rocks loom to rip and tear

only the majestic sun

that plays on moving water

with silver tongue.

Poem in the Ekphrastic Review

This is the painting by Congo that was used for the last Ekphrastic challenge. One of my poems was accepted, and you can read it here. It’s the last one. Thanks again to Lorette C. Luzajic for selecting Congo dreams.

Undecided gogyohka

 

hard to start a day

that seems to have already decided

it has ended

and the sky refusing

to put off night-grey

 

A day of dull light

cool wind

decisions hanging in the air

and the only voices

in my head

 

like an end of autumn

with wind skirmish

bemused birds silenced

listening for their cue

from the rain

 

silence fills the spaces

beneath the trees

and in the exposed homes

in the bare meadow

rain-washed

 

evening spreads red skirts

melancholy dances

in the lengthening shadows

where only the thrush

still sings

Coming home

Coming home,

returning to the calm

of a mother’s arms,

the smiling face,

sun on pale walls,

the smell of new-mown hay,

the song of a thrush.

 

Coming home,

treading known paths,

touching the breath of the breeze,

sunbeams streaming

through foliage, glitter on water,

and saying this is mine,

nowhere else does this light fall.

From dusk to morning

 

Deer are barking

across the setting sun

a world apart

 

through the long grass

snake glides

climbs the fig tree biblically

taking the slender boughway

over the hedge top

 

in the path

yellow feathers strewn

midnight feast

 

oriole flutes an elegy

for lost kindred

in the gold of morning

 

small corpses

cat-kill

laid by the path

an offering to the night fox

are gone by morning

 

A bird in the setting sun

A bird is singing in the setting sun,

warbler, robin? A small musician,

while Mozart plays and turtle doves call.

 

Is this happiness, the balance between

the imperatives of existence

and the quiet bliss of golden light,

 

when nothing sours the blue

or disturbs the drifting music

of birdthroat or tree whisper?

 

Light spreads like water, silver

and still as moonlight, the tide

rising, and all I can think of

 

is the magic of old tales and how

they tie us with gossamer threads

to small birds and the stars.

The sun came back today

I have another poem in Pendemic, ‘Not a literary magazine for ordinary times, but a journal for an exceptional one. Writing the pandemic, together.’

You can read it here and catch up with the flow of writing that this project has produced.

This is the announcement  that all of the poems are to be preserved by Irish Poetry Reading Archive at UCD library. I’m proud to be a part of it.

 

Haiku for wild irises

For Frank Tassone’s challenge.

 

around the well

the shooting spears

of untamed irises

 

ephemeral

born in spring rains

beetle bright

 

in spring damp

cool green water blue a world

in a flower

Ripe peaches

The Oracle’s message is melancholic (as it often is) and completely appropriate.

 

Beneath the crushing heat

of torpid walled nights

far from the forest languor of pooled shade

moon-petaled lakes mirror smooth

dreams whisper of rain from skies

pale blue washed sweetly

of clinging clouds of sweat

 

~I beat grey wings~

 

soar light as pigeon feathers

as morning mist on a southern sea

woman of water wading

treading distant air with phantom steps

girl quick and eager as memories

shining like the ripe peach

just out of reach.