White ship

For dverse.
Painting by Odilon Redon
First line borrowing from Michael Drayton.

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White ship

Fair stood the wind
for the ship that sailed
on sunlit waters, sheets pale
as the white-breasted gull,

and in her hold a cargo of dreams,
a cargo of lilies and all the scents
of the world we have lost
in her white-feathered wake.

Samhain sailing

For dverse.

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The dark time has come to this shore,
sunlight gone, there’ll be no more,
not this side of the darkest door.

Our ship’s sail’s set, gull-breast white,
her hull careened and painted bright,
ready to sail us through the night—

Lugh bring us light.

Ash tree

A quadrille for dverse

Ash tree

The ash marks the path
that leads to the house
caught in its boughs
are scraps of blue sky
robin-egg blue
a pigeon or two
where white-wispy cloud’s
a-dangle with jays
chattering, joyous
garrulous gang
and all through the bright spring
a nightingale sang.

The weight of stone

A cadralor quadrille for dverse, to celebrate two poem acceptances and getting back into the swing of things.

The weight of stone

1.
Wading through meadow grass,
we walk on buttresses of stone.

2.
Above the weighted earth,
kestrel hangs, feather-light.

3.
That time I cried, before you turned away,
your eyes were stones.

4.
Children collecting beach pebbles,
collecting memories.

5.
Written in the stars,
incandescent rocks, past and future.

Having faith

For dverse, another excuse to listen to the new Abba songs.

They said they were stuck in a groove
predictable, kitsch,

those times were past,
like youth, a place of memories.

They said they’d never have it in them,
but they showed us we remain

the children we once were,
and our music never dies

Where skylark trills

For the dverse prompt.

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Where skylark trills,

beneath the grass, on bare stone hills,
in sky that soars on swallows’ wings,
there is a beating heart that sings.

Where blackbird sings, the hedges fills,
the stream’s bright source in silver springs,
earth’s pulse, her beating heart still sings.

Streaming

Light ribbon
ancient streams
of lost-star memories.

Down the pane
rain streams—beyond
the world’s a water-blur.

Beneath the poplars
the only sound
stream-babble

They tumble-stream the words
a river flowing
ni queue ni tête

After the fête
littered happiness lies
in streamered joy.

For the dverse prompt.

Throwing darts in lovers’ eyes

Once there were rainbows seagulls
and storm clouds that strung up the sky
once we would live like the wind
and we’d never say die
now there is darkness
and colour has seeped into night—
howl with the moon
the juke’s thin and white.

I didn’t think of this one until this afternoon. In response to the dverse prompt, a quadrille using the word juke.

The lane

we loved that wound about the hill is still,
though we have gone and left the silent house,
the woods and hedges left untended, till
the quiet ones return, the hare and mouse,
reclaim their night land home. I hope they will.

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A quadrille for the dverse prompt.

Was seed

now spreads broad-leafed branches,

unfolds, scented,
in a complex origami
of curl-petaled bloom,

gallops the hillside,
a russet-red leaper,

pads the night paths,
a russet-tailed chancer,

and you,
milky-soft, pink and unfocused,
learning by the moment,
gallop-growing, unfurling beauty,

were once a microscopic
seed.

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A quadrille for EJ and the dverse prompt.