The Little Death

photo by Marnie Creamer

Death says to Night,
"I do not always come at two a.m., you know.
Sometimes it's 11:15 in the morning.
Just depends on when the moving hand has writ*."

Night replies, "Every midnight,

when they close their eyes

and enter the little death* of sleep,

they are practising

for the moment

you arrive."

* "The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on." Omar Khayyam.
* the little death ascribed to Arthur Schopenhauer. I next went to read the other poems and discovered that jabblog and I had the same idea and even a shared quote. Synchronicity.

For the Sunday Mini Challenge at Real Toads: The Sisters - Death and Night. (Formidable sisters!) Do check it out. There are some wonderful responses to this prompt.

REFLECTIONS FROM A PORCH SWING

This poem is a woman on a porch swing.

This poem is hummingbirds at the feeder,

dogs on the deck and horses in the field.

This poem is a blue-sky puffy-cloud 

afternoon in the country.

This poem is a woman on a porch swing,

rocking and swinging as her mind roves back

through the memories of all the shambling years.

This poem is a summer’s day:

hummingbirds buzzing and darting, 

dogs lazily thumping their tails,

and horses munching grass under tall cedar.

This poem has early summertime bees in it,

and flowers, and the sound of the sprinkler

swoosh-swoosh-swooshing across the yard,

to grow lush grass for the horses’ evening meal.

This poem is stillness, slowness, 

reverie, and contentment.

This poem – and this woman – know how to

see the glass half-full; sometimes brimming,

but always, stripped down to the essentials,

quenching thirst.

This poem is a summer-blue sky, 

and puffy white storybook clouds.

This poem remembers the whole story, but also is

its Right-Now story, even when the woman 

forgets to remember that,

and even though she knows 

the pages remaining are slim, 

compared to the bulk 

of the chapters gone before.

It is still the same story.

When she remembers that, 

she raises her eyes up, and up,

tracks a bird in flight, 

scans the horizon – the her-izon –

and finds much satisfaction

in sky, in dogs, in horses, in trees,

in that true blue dream of sky

she fell in love with in her childhood,

that has kept her Looking Up

(-head back, grinning at the azure vault -)

all these years.

A variation of a Boomerang Poem, created by Hannah Gosselin, and a great leaping-off place for poems.

FAIRY TALE TREASURES

When I was young,

I couldn’t imagine being brave enough

to climb a beanstalk into the sky.

But, in life, that is exactly what I did,

stepping off into the abyss,

a bemused Ms Magoo,

somehow managing to land 

more or less upright.

There were times I felt

the giant’s hot breath on my neck,

but I was nimble,

I was quick,

and hopped fast away.

The goose that lay the golden egg

eluded me.

My treasure was found

in the forest,

by the sea,

in golden friendships,

in music and the love of words,

in dogs, and all wild creatures.

My journey taught me things

I have been happy to pass along,

- not that anyone wants to listen -

they are all too busy leaping off

their own precipices.

I now sit in my counting-house,

counting golden memories.

My treasure still lies

in the heart-lift to be found

in that vault of blue fairy-tale sky,

the sheen of that

shimmering rainbow,
in windsong and the sight of
birds on the wing,

and the memories of so much love,

                        the memories of so much love……….

Inspired by Elizabeth Crawford and shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

Archetype

The big bad wolf was standing by my bed.
Through slitted eyes, I saw him,
then shut my eyes, fast.
If I couldn’t see him, he wasn’t there.
I was three.

He was tall, had a long bushy tail
and sharp, dangerous teeth.

In the morning, I told my mother
I had seen him by my bed.
“That was your father,” she scoffed.
But I knew it was The Wolf.

I wanted a safe house,
one with no danger in the night,
no smiles with sharp, pointy, biting teeth,
a house that could not be blown down.

I turned left, and kept on turning:
past the oppressive, stifling marriage,
the heart-numbing traumatic relationship.
With my ducklings following me,
I found my little home at last,
stood at the door, arms crossed,
to defend its peace,
let no man in.

In time, a real wolf took his place beside me
as companion and protector.
He loved me well.
He led the way, his bushy tail
ahead of me down every forest trail,
his big paws lolloping before me
along miles of sandy beaches
stretching to forever.
Our joy was the song of the wild surf
crashing on the shore.

Our favourite time was
just before twilight,
when the sun spilled amber glow,
setting the trees aflame,
painting the mountainsides rosy pink -
eventide, when day was done,
and hearts turned homeward
towards that time of welcoming.

An Ill Wind

credit: AntiMartina

"it's an ill wind that blows no good"

Wiktionary states the saying is based on the premise that, when something is bad, someone else will usually benefit. However, it must be very bad, when nobody at all benefits.

His lizard eyes peep out

above puffy cheeks.

His words blow hot and hateful,

like a wildfire that torches

everything in its path

to scorched earth.

He is an angry wind indeed,

blowing.....

               inflaming........

Nothing good rides the currents

of this ill wind.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: wind power

I love the thought of wind power - a free source of clean energy, as is water and solar. But, right now, all I can think of is Mr T's cheeks, huffing and puffing. And those slitted little eyes.  Argh.      

Then and Now

Then, there was beauty so astounding,
even a poet could find no words:
sitting on a log in witness:
vista of sand, ocean and birds.
As the sun slowly sank behind the sea,
the entire sky grew pink and fluffy
with clouds so perfect and puffy,
whose colour deepened from palest sheen
to deepest primrose, and all between.
I felt I was gazing at Heaven's floor,
as if my soul was perched
and knocking on its door,
somewhere between the earth and sky,
breath and time suspended
to behold the beauty by.

Now, in this green river valley,
when it comes that time of day,
I stay alert for any colour
that the skies might bring my way,
stand on tiptoe, as if to see
beyond the mountains, where they hide,
beach sunsets on the other side,
celestial beauty, flying free.

JOURNEY HOME

photo art created for me by

The Unknown Gnome

My life was a long search for home,

an escape from the things that go 

bump in the night,

an odyssey towards peace,

autonomy and freedom,

and a nest

to keep me safe.

Nature held me by the hand,

and the blue sky pointed my compass

diligently towards hope.

The middle of the journey required trust

and a mighty leap,

from inland desert to siren shores,

like a murrelet drawn unerringly to its nest,

or a migrant whale to its feeding ground.

Then there was joy; ten years of beauty,

my soul having found its wilderness home,

a big black laughing wolf dancing by my side.

Journeys, until they end,

tend to continue,

so once again I find myself

a distance from my beloved waves,

having lost homeland and wolf companion,

spirit ever attuned to the call of the sea

beyond the mountains,

heart still tethered to a black spirit-wolf,

whose paws pad forever across my heart.

The lesson: to be happy in this unexpected place,

heart suspended, and listening,

still trusting the universal plan;

to honour the place for loss and grief

within; to carry it along, and keep on walking

towards that final destination

somewhere between earth and sky.