The hand that shakes

A butterfly cinquain that doesn’t quite fit the remit for Colleen’s challenge as I have only used a synonym for one of the words.

 

The hand

that shakes the trees

is the wind’s, the voice that

calls in the night and stirs your dreams.

Listen

to its wild song woven with threads

of moon silver and the

gentle questions

of owls.

Blue wind

This wind full of sheets of rain

pounds the house

as waves pound a cliff face,

and the air fills with the red roar of sea horses,

bucking blue and green as the deeps,

always too elusive to catch

in these sodden meadows

even with the eye of longing.

November

days of wind and lashing boughs

rain slanting from shifting sky

colour of winter half-dark

filling the ditches with running cold

where frost needles will grow

 

light the stove

and listen to the flames

singing of old tree days

and green springs

filled with bird-flutter

 

chimney-wind echoes hollow

among the bricks

tree-wind rattles rain from wet boughs

and the solemn tweeting

of chaffinches

Fierce summer

I wrote this gogyohka this morning and discovered that Paul Miltaru had posted a photograph to accompany it. Thank you, Paul for letting me borrow it.

the wind blows hot and fierce

bringing only dry-leaf rain

to this parched land

fissures gape—listen

you can hear the earth gasp

Wind-rushy

I’ve been working on this poem for a few days. Seems like a good moment to post it. For the NaPoWriMo pastoral prompt.

We walk in the dark of the wind-rushy trees,

listening to their wind-rushy voices,

solemn and wise and old as the earth,

silencing birdsong and furtive rustlings

from woods, hedges, field edges

and sleeping gardens.

Hands touch, but can they hold it back,

the something, pale blue and shimmering,

that seemed to fade in the dusk?

Wind rushes, rolling the perfume of lilac along the lane,

playing the woodwind of rose and oriole,

bowling garlic flower notes against the dark.

Wind ruffles flowerheads with gentle hand,

my face, sharper, imperious—listen, feel—

then suddenly the stream,

banked in heavy scents of wet earth,

edged in elm and elder,

alder and willow boughs sweeping low,

calls in the pure ringing voice

of spring water running

and the notes, a seamless weave,

leave no space for sadness.

Not pollen

 

the air gold-streaked

rain-grey full of poplar seeds

silk-soft birdlings

migrating west determined

to reach the setting sun

Listen

I’m not sure about this dverse prompt—punctuating silence in poetry. To me, words are indissociable from the silences between them. I have used this as an excercise in emphasising silences rather than marking them. I hope I’ve got the right end of the stick…

 

Listen—

 

the wind speaks,

and in its voice raindrops drum on fallen leaves.

 

Listen—

 

earth hums to the beat of rain and wind,

leaves fall and cup the falling drops.

 

Silent drift—

 

birds, buffeted and bent-winged, blow

across the field of vision, criss-crossed by the rain.

 

Listen—

 

storm air sings, plucks the strings

that hold the bent-winged birds

in balance with this blast

 

of silence.

 

Listen.