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that was then, this is now

in vain I dotted eye’s, crossed t(oe)’s
kneeling at pews, reciting crisp evening prayers
I mouthed resolutions to be good, be better

soul dormant, half willing god to reel me in
like any other fish, I feared to rise to bait,
to surface, to make a spectacle of frag-
(de-)mented self

…but that was then, this is now

I spend my days in contemplating nature,
take my cues from her broad spectrum’s
living-life examples; you’ll see me (if

you see me) walking on a pebbly beach,
hiking old-growth forest, or standing
still to drink in wisdom some pond’s
depth-reflection sounds me

…and by that time the winter
pond showed fresh green

unfurling

___

for the Sunday Whirl: Wordle 39 (words drawn from Thoreau’s Walden: Pond in Winter)

and for dVerse OpenLinkNight – Week 27

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aurora dances

1 early days…
behind our silent house
vast prairie night sky visible,
heaven hosts a distant stage
for children – temporary statues
naming northern constellations:
ursa major’n minor, cepheus,
draco, cassiopeia, and

suddenly that scene’s eclipsed –
backdrop abandoned or, redimensioned
but painted over by some nouveau artist
in fluorescent pastels… and the colours jump
right off the flats as north’s bold dancers
flood the stage, all whirling and twirling
and wild pirouettes around a maypole
only they or gods can see

2 1973 Saskatchewan, MayDay:
ripping through midwest’s night scene
to home, they started up again, leaping,
furling, crayola-hurling — random geometric
patterns forming and dispersing, a fluid chaos
playing catch me if you can: there and there
and flares like 4th (or 1st) of July in Taurus,
halfway between my Ram | your Gemini

I ached for us to stop so we could watch
together, this wonder we’d known
in separate childhoods

but you clutched hard the wheel,
eyes only for that stretch of road
two headlamps unfurled mile by mile

I didn’t get why they unsettled you, those lights,
as later in the cabin I didn’t see why Sirius’s
mournful sighing soaked your skin…
though it wasn’t long before I did

get it

3 looking back I note
how impossible it is to number stars, or break
apart the pas de deux of Boreas and Aurora’s dance;
how hopelessly and long I sought to understand
the outcome of that borning season; when
you sprang into the afterlife, I fell into
the underworld and struggled
to survive

before I saw the light again
I’d moved away from north wind’s wintry breath
and north sky’s wilder shows

4 and dawn dances differently for me now
I rise with daybreak, worship returning sun
I tremble at the beauty of this calmer dance

…and I never see them here
but when I think of northern lights
I think of you and smile, remembering seasons
that we shared… and viewing night sky’s stellar cast
I think of hearts where you still live, like hers and theirs

and mine

—

aurora borealis, lit. northern dawn (aurora goddess of dawn, boreal northern from Greek boreas north wind from Boreas god of the north wind)

Sirius (here a dog) is a star in the Canis Major constellation

___

for dVerse FormForAll – Odes

also linked to Real Toads: Open Link Monday

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idyllic dreams

a thatched hut beside
a bubbling stream

a solitary gate forgotten
by the crowd

large rocks to sit on yogi-style
or dangle legs in air or water

small stones I gather in my hand
and finger like a rosary that slows

my breathing

shorebirds by the fluttering thousands
swoop, grope sand for evening’s meal

a flash of sunset etches glass
where in the hut a fire crackling
in the hearth, cradles me to sleep
and dreams that help rebuild

serenity

___

a response to Margo Roby’s Tuesday Tryouts: Idyllic Thoughts

using (all twelve) words from the Sunday Whirl: Wordle 38

also linked to dVerse OpenLinkNight – Week 26

and to Theme Thursday: View

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journey into now

and I remember how
she gathered rose petals
from the brown burial ground,
small hands carrying them gently
to their new resting place to lay them
with a mother’s care on the grassy verge
between their individual beds

I remember she fashioned them then
into a great huge heart, alive with colour…
and how the wind’s heart played with her and them
as together they lifted and rearranged those fallen
petals to suit some pattern not even they knew…

and I remember the teachings of child and wind
and an endless circling of seasons and seeing
the way of nature with loss and renewal, and
how all that beamed me out of past griefs
and thoughts of future pain into this

no-man’s-land of Now, which truly has no sense of place
or time or ownership, taboos or thoughts of right or wrong,
no should’s or wont’s, no cants, but only scents of rivers
that converge, tides ebbing into flow till neither push
nor pull is felt

here time’s illusion may look on
but holds no sway; here old year rings
no differently than new; here then and when
speak softly of a mind gone visiting in caves of time

but Now never did have time to dwell in past or future,
nor dirge to keen, nor fear to quell — just joyous bells to
ring and ring, with ne’er an end to presence that they bring
in now now now now now…

___

for dVerse OpenLinkNight – Week 25

and Theme Thursday: Change

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connecting dots

an image bedded in my consciousness:
a long wall reaching far as I can see,
electrical receptacles near either end
at child’s knee height, a life-long stretch
of cord between, pre-plugged at left
and as I watch, right plugs in too,
effortless, as if by invisible hand

my eyes pop open to morning sun,
mind mumbles connecting dots and
jumbled memories of children’s books
and puzzled looks and movie stills,
frame-by-frames of disconnects,
of having got IT wrong again,
without a hint of what IT is

a distant view of ancient doors I closed at ten,
Pandora’d decades later and how many times since then
slammed shut
cracked
open
slam
bolt
creak…
a lifetime of denial, rejection in a hundred forms…
and now this

brand new morning, glorious
sun and the last door standing
wide
mage-like there I AM bold, ready
to confront each demon shunned before
and…
the room’s completely bare,
its walls redemption white
with not a single stain

I think wow and forgiveness and other thoughts:
that suddenly the monster’s gone,
done disappeared and taken
long dark night with it
leaving me this

glory of a morning
contemplating rebirth,
wrong made right and…
other senseless phrases trying
to explain what can’t be fathomed…

and like a snake crawled free of last year’s skin
or butterfly trembling in clean morning air I
emerge free at last of past, free to BE
-come just who I’ve always BE
-en…

and pinch me please
I need to know if I’ve gone RAVE
-ing mad on ECSTASY
OR is this REAL

___

for Real Toads’ Word with Laurie: Ecstasy

and dVerse OpenLinkNight ~ Week 24

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aubade

the thought of solstice nudged me out of bed
with hours to spare before the dawn yawned,
cracking open heavy shutters of the night

at hint of light a solitary gull’s cry sped
across the sky and wintering sparrows
sang sweet te deum’s to their waker

entranced, I hummed along (a Haydn version)
then dressing warm against the morning cold
I walk-slid to the harbour (roads were iced)

I got there just in time to see dawn’s sun
reborn and kicking this year’s longest night
clean into the eve of next year’s Christmas

___

for dVerse Meeting the Bar – Contrast

Real Toads: Aubade

Poetry Jam: Solitary

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ghosts of future past

ghost figures discoursing in the square
did you read the news today, see
that poster hanging there…
it’s time we had a care
for our kids’ future

they stand there still, but
shiver now in winter winds
that robbed the elm – this
huddled mass of branches
bare of life

two doors from the corner
a pallid face watches open-mouthed
still spewing words that never will be heard

and in a battered brick facade four
windows gape at what’s become
of that which might have been

___

for We Write Poems Prompt #85; image from WWP

also linked to Real Toads: Open Link Monday

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dreams of purple

In dream states I revisit
Christmas past, still troubled
by your unexplained
departure

No longer citizen, no longer
hindered by earth’s stringent
bonds, no longer prisoner
you fly

(or do you? I lag behind
in knowing, not knowing quite
what happened or why your luck
turned sour…

or is not knowing just a ruse,
like childhood games we played
pretending we were safe
and loved)

Last night, unsleeping
I saw purple welling up behind
my tight-shut lids, vaguely
streetlit

Each year purple splashes barefoot
through springtime’s puddles… but now
is just another Christmas, winter
looming

___

inspired by the Sunday Whirl’s Wordle 35

also linked to dVerse OpenLinkNight ~ Week 23