We hear what we want to hear

For dverse.

We hear what we want to hear

I hear their paper-voices in the wind,
entangled with an ocean swell of tears,
the rustle of the sedge, a child’s soft plea,
the jangled torrent of her mother’s fears.

Within the rubble, I hear dying cries,
some choose to trust more palatable lies.

At the end of the night

For the dverse quadrille prompt.

Painting by Edvard Munch

At the end of the night

At the end of the night, pale light streams
from silver mists, the setting moon,
on star-filled waves moon-echo gleams.

As earth rolls into the new day growing,
the wind that blows the shadows away
is the clean salt wind from the ocean blowing.

Night, no moon

For the dverse prompt. A double wayra quadrille.

Night, no moon

Night enveloped
in the darkness of no moon,
slumbering, the fields return
to the wild folk, foxes
and timorous deer, leaf-grazing.

When no one watches
the hedge-paths, the meadow-paths,
the tracks made by furtive steps,
badger digs, deer nibble
lusciousness, springing just for them.

A musing

For dverse.

A musing

Strange,
for the Greeks, the Muses were women,
when women produced nothing but children,
had no voice but to sing lullabies.

Strange,
men pay such them homage,
for inspiring superior intellects,
to produce what simple women never could.

Strange,
but then again,
perhaps not.

Estincelle

For the dverse prompt

Estincelle

that spark from a feu de joie,
scintillating string of stelle in night skies,

étincelle that blazed from tree to tree
in the deep midwinter,
leaving frozen strands of ice-fire

jingling on shivering boughs, silvered
in tinsel-bedecked holly-halls,
glittering in the fire-crackling festive dark.

Of all

A second quadrille for dverse. (It was husband’s birthday yesterday).

Of all

Of all the times, the cities wide,
with all the places you could hide,
I found you, met your eyes that night.

Of all the ones who might have been,
the rivers crossed, the mountains seen,
you wear the crown, my life, my light.

First and last

For dverse.

First and last

Night comes last to the crown of the hill,
first to the shadows below,
a ring of stars shines in the dark sky,
wedding midnight and dawn with its glow.

Fox sniffs the dark, earth-scented and cold,
hears vixen bark, this night’s growing old.

White ship

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

• 

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.

• 

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.