Shooting stars and daffodils

Shooting stars and daffodils

Cold still bites these hesitant spring days,
shooting with gold, uncontained,
unafraid of frosty nights,
while I, behind closed window, watch the stars,

shooting with gold uncontained,
falling to fill dark pools with light.
We count them shimmering,

unafraid of frosty nights,
for daffodil days will spring with the thrush,
singing the sun awake,

while I, behind closed window, watch the stars
fading, first east then west, and last,
the ice-caught orphans in frozen well water.

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Cold ice-silver night

A quadrille for dverse.

Cold ice-silver night

In the black-blind of midnight,
silent swoop of owl-flight,
night blinks with star-light.

Well-water still beneath ice-breath,
winter cold fingers of frost-death,
songbirds lament the sun’s half-death,

and I watch the dark river,
the moon a shade, pale sliver,
feel this icescape’s bones shiver.

Musing on a cold night

Musing on a cold night

So much cold in this winter light,
swathes of stars in a winter night,
I hold my breath.

For nights are long and short the days
of swirling mist not summer haze,
small feathered death.

I pluck a star, a white-rimed leaf,
that fell to earth from velvet sky,
I feel its grief

for all that’s lost and nothing found
and time’s a thief, we watch it fly
without a sound.

Seven in the evening

Wishing everyone a peaceful and happy day/afternoon/evening.

Seven in the evening

Christmas moonset
a pale golden crescent boat
rocking on dark seas
spangled with stars
air mild as promises
we intend to keep
perhaps a shiver
of an eastern night
shadow-patterns
on cooling sand.

Melancholy

A quadrille for dverse.

Melancholy

We follow paths that wind about
the woods where jays and blackbirds shout,
and fox tails tall

bend dappled shade with feather-fronds,
that gather round the shallow ponds
where red leaves fall.

Our footprints track the summer sand,
autumn tears dried with your hand,

Another night

Another night

Another night
after the rain
has doused the sun

stars
like raindrops
dimple the celestial puddle.

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.

gogyohka for a scarecrow

A gogyohka sequence for Frank Tassone’s weekly challenge

in the field

a tattered man

of sticks and rags

silent stands beneath a sky

heavy with crows

 

heavy clay the orange earth

and sky grey

slicked with orange light

furrowed field full of crows

no bundle of sticks will scare

 

I watch you

with your helpless hands

and sightless face

that feels neither sun nor rain

scorned even by the birds

The ways to love

These two quadrilles are for the Secret Keeper’s writing prompt. This week’s words are:

ABOVE | ANCIENT | PART | DEVIL | POOR

This is where they part,

the head and the heart,

old demons give way

to dreams’ new day.

For poorer are we

if we only see

the rocky path before,

above the tangled shore,

and never raise our eyes

to the bright, star-speckled skies.

*

Ancient are the ways,

he says,

to love,

ask the stars above,

the watchful moon beaming,

sunlight streaming.

Listen not to your fears,

or give in to tears,

but take my hand, start

to heed your beating heart

or we will the poorer part.

Did I say?

A cascade poem for Paul’s dverse prompt—community. Maybe slightly off prompt, but it’s what came to mind.

Did I say I needed more than this,

Than your strong arms to hold me through the night

Than your heart’s pulse that beats in time with mine?

 

Did I say I wanted piles of gold,

Or palaces and easy summer days?

Did I say I needed more than this?

 

The moon and stars that light the darkest hours,

Too far their fire, I need no other warmth,

Than your strong arms to hold me through the night.

 

Of all the treasures heaped in earth’s broad lap,

None makes my blood leap more with purest joy,

Than your heart’s pulse that beats in time with mine.