No need to ask

No need to ask the meaning of
the whispers blowing on the lake,
black as stormy days, and nights
of restless tongues.

They cry death,
and even in our dreams,
the red ship casts its shadow
on the waves.

All about, above, beneath,
and through the spaces in-between,
the light that leaks is grey
as sea spray, cold as bitter rain.

We watch the pictures form in blood
and weeping, and pretend we walk
light-footed, cloaked in blue
soft as summer seas.

Yet in the cool and damp of forest leaves,
I hear the purple voice of mother-mist,
singing the sweet sun, not lost,
but sleeping with the fallen rose.

Woke

My first time participating in @TopTweetTuesday with this poem.

Dreams are boats, white-sailed
on seas flowered with sun-spangles.

We watch, you and I, the way
the spray sifts seagulls

between cloud and wave crest,
until the thread flutters out of our grasp,

dark clouds of waking gather
their gloomy skirts and credits roll

on that lost horizon, white with wings
and the yelling of gulls.

Finding the words

Always
is in the breeze that carries away the swallows
and brings them back again
the rhythm of the waves
trembling leaves foam-hissing
and the blush of red in the sunset.

If
is in the morning
that hangs heavy with last night’s rain
clouds snagged in branches
and night doubts when the wind howls
through empty rooms.

What
is the haunting of memory
the fleeting fish-flicker in a deep pool
the look and listen when the tree shadow shifts
and a deer leaps
the voice that calls from far away.

Who
the one, the only is in the morning smell of coffee
eternity in a kiss repeated over and over
the peace that fills and overflows
so one heart is not enough
the hand that parts the clouds so I can see the stars.

Why blue?

I asked the Oracle, why so much blue? This is what she replied.

 

Joy is in colour,

the red of mornings,

the slow glint of silver fish scales in the stream,

ice dazzle, and the cool steel glitter of stars,

in the milky coffee of storm clouds

tinged with flame at sunset,

 

~but blue is day and night~

 

at the earth’s heart,

veining watercourses and dead marble,

filling the sky, pooling in cupped flowers;

it is the wild voices of the birds,

the colour of oceans, and, when we sleep,

of sailboats full of dreams.

The slow rush of the comet

Poem written early this morning. Later, in Blue and blue and blue the Oracle picked up the same images and gave them a slightly different interpretation. And again, a painting by Odilon Redon illustrates it.

These long, languid days of relentless blue,

slow moving as the sluggish stream,

that flow one into another seamlessly

stitched with the hot breath of invisible night,

 

hurtle into oblivion,

a morass of dead moments,

molten and merging into gold,

slipping like quicksilver from the tightest grasp.

 

Time pours silently over the edge

with the places we never visited,

the unknown cloaked in the mists of intrigue,

the pebble dropped into the bottomless pool,

 

comet-rushing, the slow days that seem to drag,

dead march, strike sparks from our flying heels.

Blue and blue and blue

I wrote a poem this morning, something that came to me shortly after I woke, and visited the Oracle a few hours later. What she gave me was the same decor, different interpretation. This is the Oracle’s poem.

Languid nights of no moon

no wind among the peach trees

just dreams of

blue and blue and blue.

 

No red and purple sunsets,

spilt blood

across a tranquil landscape

of hilly waves,

 

but whispered music

from the roses,

rising in salt spray,

pearl pale, dull silver,

 

that hails the ship of sleep

to sail a sky

shot through with stars,

to carry us where diamonds grow.

 

 

Fireflowers

As Merril suggested, I tried out the ‘love’ set of magnets. Not a fan. The Archbishop of Canterbury would probably like it. After serious pruning I got this though. The youngest is finally making it home in about an hour, so I think the Oracle was speaking through the faith, God and angels stuff. As is often the case, Odilon Redon painted a beautiful illustration for me.

Am I mother

the strong star

or the dew dropping

coaxing small lives?

 

The night blossoms with questions

fireflowers

carried on owl wings

soft as silence.

Dreaming

Above below and through the dream,

the song of the moon,

wild cry of the owl calling her mate,

hoofbeats on dry earth,

the tidal hiss of wind in the leaves.

 

Death grows next to life,

in the rose-honey garden,

in the shadows beneath the hedge,

in symphonic sea pictures,

the sleep of a thousand years of deep earth.

 

Yet the blue always soars above the grey,

white-winged and endless,

storm spends itself on summer hills,

sweetly meadowed

in a whis s s s per of running water,

 

and you, I, we, together

sing the dark away

from forest floor,

the ship from the black rocks,

watching spring swell in the soft rain,

 

nights of running hares in the moon-mad light,

the wash of sky water across the field,

and peace falling slow as ripening plums

and the fledging of chicks

in their swaying treetop nests.

Transformation

Transfer—

 

how the gloom of rain sky drips

from pale flower faces and from leaves

in a monotonous whisper,

seeps, sinks or swims,

clings to the spirit and drags it

into the wet weeds,

 

until the sun

 

transforms

 

the sullen, sunless mood of gloom

and dull, dripping melancholy,

rippling in pools rain-stippled,

to a forest, emerald-treed, glimpsed ruby petalled

among subtle pastels,

with a slash of light,

 

brush of butterfly-gold powder.

Could it be blue?

Could it be blue

the answer to the question this time

or a blow crushing the head

the tearing of hair

like rags of mist rising from the lake?

 

We tongue words

who when what

but life is no less purple-red

the sky still glows brazen bold and

you you you

beneath it still gaze at your feet

making shadows that scream at the light.

 

I I I

peer through distant rain to the sea where blue blows

longing to soar on sail-wings over diamond-spray

and curling wave water.

I

toss you a rose

urging asking willing

you to raise your face to the sun

to smell the wind full of salt and flowers.

 

Take my hand and we will go there

into the blue

together.