“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.” John Muir, Travels in Alaska
Phew! At last we are up and running again and much appreciation for everyone’s patience, especially those who so spiritedly and generously participated in the last prompt, which was inspired by California’s Redwood Forests and John Muir (1838 – 1914), the Scottish-American naturalist, activist, and environmentalist.
Featured this week: Paul Brookes, Deb y Felio (Debby Felio), Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Carol Mikoda, Tamam Tracy Moncur, Marta Pombo Sallés, and Susan St. Pierre. These poets talents are not limited to poetry. They also work variously in crafts, art, photography, essay and short-story writing. Special thanks this week to Marta and Susan for sharing their illustrative photographs.
The responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, The Unfettered Canticle of Trees, August 22 are filled with movement, color, texture, keen observation, a tad of humor and more than a soupçon of wisdom and grace.
I hope you’ll visit participating poets and get to know them. It’s important for us to support and encourage one another in our art and in our solidarity around concerns for the social and ethical issues we care about, even if we disagree. Respectful discussion is a healthy thing. I’ve linked in blogs for each poet and for your convenience. If the poet doesn’t have a blog, it’s likely you can catch up with her/him on Facebook.
Read on and be with us later today for the next (however belated) Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome – encouraged – to join in: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising our imagination and our writing muscle, showcasing our efforts and getting to know other poets. This is a safe discerning place to share.
Thorns
pale and too weak to move
cough your guts over
edge of your bed
in faint light from the door
two trees
walk towards you
one black, the other white
black tree becomes a pair of eyes
you inhale smoke drifting up from a fire
sharp fruit fragrance
spiky, dark, sinewy, stiff bark,
oval leaves with a serrated margin
move
quickly over your body
touches points here and there,
painful thorns nick out bubbles
of your blood
it mutters strange
under its breath
with a low, crackling voice.
The night grows old,
dawn approaches
dissolves into
the white tree
with long bright hair,
lays a cool gentle hand on your brow,
mutters with a sweet bell-like voice
your sight sharpens
until the white tree,
becomes a woman,
your pain eases. She sweeps
brown-grey, knotted
and fissured skin,
slender and brown limbs
covered in thorns
that do not hurt
up and down
your body, touches same places
as the black tree
pain vanishes
refreshed
into easy, restful sleep
From The Headpoke And Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017)
© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Oaksong
oaksongs
How can you be in two places
at once? I asked. A Christian
friend replied ” You can have
one foot inside the door
and the other foot outside.”
You would be forever
on the threshold, neither
one nor the other, or both.
A fence sitter, neither
Summer or Winter
God or Man.
Would you sacrifice the other
to be wholly another? To step
in and close the door
shut out the weather
from the other side.
Are you coming in or what?
Your letting in a right breeze?
Put wood in the hole.
Decide whether your in or out!
*******
I watch the traffic lights
consider a walk this way or
a green man allows me
to avoid bloodied bone
my mouth and ears
thresholds and doors
full of oaklimbs and leaves
reborn I stretch down
to deep dark moist
I stretch up to cloudlight
barkskin palmtouched
I let others breathe
shelter and endure
*******
moors were once forests
national parks heavy industrial
this oak headland a pitsite
lads snap off livelimbs
anarchic coppicing
black dogshitbags sway
on limbs left alone
don’t visit in a storm
oaks are lightningtrees
people can be oaks
oakgroves of druids
duir means a door
exit and entrance
raw open wounds of sacrifice
still bleed sap
this hand has molded
a garden out of wildlife
words out of nonsense
she used to say “when
one door closes
another opens”
From Stubborn Sod , forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press, 2018)
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
This Brash and Burn
1. To Burn Brash
Sat back barked.
Small insects crawl
down tree stretched above
inhabit hair
worn gloves
bruised brashed branches
Breathe wet peat,
damp soil, leaf decay,
autumn dead leaf dance,
spring bluebell wend
summer sacred stainglass
canopy sunshaft play
winter heavesnow clear paths
Sat back barked
canopy leaf horizon
floats shimmers
Calm
2. Our Wombwell Boxed
Lift small boxes wooden lid smell
broadleaved woodland
before rail/road
Press plastic button hear
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Woodpeckers,
before rail/road.
Press plastic button watch
Videowalk ancient Beech, Oak, Birch
before rail/road.
Electronic ringtone.
We would like to advise all visitors
The museum is closing soon.
Please exit through main door.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Please come again.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Extracts from “Woodbrains, woodbrides, woodwives”
Grovemind, groovemind
synaptic branches
neuron tipped limbs
sacred grove recovery
oakbrain opens doors in my head
ashbrain spears my ideas
elmbrain plays the fey
electric gust moves limbs
inside my head
barkskin neural net
circumnavigates damage
fruited hemispheres
replenish, restore, reimagine
senses water roots
grove in my head
grooves in my head
between oaklimbs
between ashlimbs…
…Whispering forest
walk among us, as us
known as oakman
known as birchwoman
known as elmlad
known as ashlass
Each one gentle,
one is strong
one elegant
all older than they look
their voices not listened to
“I talk to the tree”
“Hug a tree”
“I am a tree”
seen as signs of waywardness
to be laughed at,
pilloried and scorned.
later they will scream
when cut down
or have a limb amputated
we ought to listen.
From The Headpoke And Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017)
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Paul’s Amazon Page U.S.
Paul’s Amazon Page U.K.
Whose
Once again
we lay a claim
on land
not ours
chop down
build up
less natural
habitation
wildlife wanders in
refusing to give up
its native lands
to secluded cabins
in awe filled
fairy forests
bears feast on
chokecherries
and bird feeders
share trashed
leftovers
with foxes,
raccoons
toms, hens and chicks
claim grasses
and trees
for homes
deer leave
calling cards
thank you for
the flowers
mountain lions
prowling
remind all
who is king
I am grateful,
they share the space.
© 2018, Deb y Felio
To the river
This is where we came, here, to the river
for the first time, along the rutted path,
cowslips, bluebells crowding at its edge; past
the dandelion meadow, its pale-white
quilt of puffballs waiting to be blown and cast.
Together to the river to explore
vigorous and sinuous, limpid rills
and ripples,the glistening flow of water.
Beneath the cobalt sky, each moment
folding into itself the heat,intense
upon our faces, the stones’ cool splash and spray,
shouts and birdsong; each uplifted stone setting
free the grains of memory,where we were
one time held, entranced, imagination’s
captives in the bubble of our dreams.
© 2018, Frank McMahan
..wild wood..
photograph the trees. notice the wild wood
early while walking, imagine it may
be mine. to care for , to let be. it could.
it is for sale. new sign on the gate, today
the charcoal burner . he is a woods man
smoke rises grey. price is mentioned . plenty.
I think on his words, the idea, owning land,
crashing back into the wild wood. empty
headed. it is good to be quiet, alone
away from their thickening throng , the dread .
soft voices. smoke rises slow, ashes. old bone.
dust and dust , by dust we bury the dead.
he will split the wood. they may come and buy,
yet in my head the wild wood will be mine.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
.the wild wood again.
when the fog clears we creep back into the wild wood watch birds eat wettened crumbs. softly rain falls each year falls an anniversary
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
.the new arrival.
hear that, crashing in the old wood, trees fall and die.
seems time stands still, nothing moves . happening.
older times are done, quiet now, seamlessly it will start
again.
one word, one sound, then blindly we will crash into the wild woods
again.
i met a man who did not know, had just arrived.
we may learn in time.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
There’s much to enjoy in Sonja’s art and you can view much of it on her sites and she shares are generous amount on her Facebook Page. So multitalented.
Cathedral of trees,
where I worship every day;
Where I go to breathe in peace;
Where I go to be restored;
Where I go to bring back faith:
persevere in drought;
sustain my weak soul;
grow beyond eons.
© 2018, Carol Mikoda (At the Yellow Table, We Are Stardust: Change Is What It’s All About)
Patricia’s Garden
The tall oak tree…a sentinel
Standing guard over the small yard
Wards off invasions of mayhem
Keeping peace in the inner sanctum
Painted rocks surround pathways
Leading to artistic creativity
While small tables and chairs
In camaraderie congregate together
The mums sing colors across the garden
Yellow and lavender tones harmonize
Brilliant red petals bellow magnificence
In a perennial summer performance
Peace and compassion frolic in fun
Chasing joy between the evergreens
The sun’s reflection shimmers off the muraled wall
As happiness dances slowly towards the impending fall.
The tall oak tree…a sentinel
Standing guard over the small yard
Wards off invasions of mayhem
Keeping peace in the inner sanctum
© 2018, Tamam Tracy Moncur (The Road of Impossibilities)
English
That Evening
That evening I sat
on a stone bench
gazing at the evening sun
over the peaceful ocean.
Birds flew across the sky
sun reflected on the water.
I sensed everything.
Closed my eyes
felt the breeze
filling my soul.
Gazed at the sun again
and hoped one day
it would dry my open wounds.
The sun set magestic
the sky slowly turned red
like the wounds you inflicted
on me.
Unwantedly.
There was no other way.
It was meant to be.
I shall stare at the sun
and thus hope
my still open wounds
will heal with the passing
of time.
Catalá
Aquell vespre
Aquell vespre em vaig asseure
en un banc de pedra
contemplant el sol de la tarda
sobre l’oceà pacífic.
Els ocells volaven pel cel,
el sol reflectit a l’aigua.
Vaig sentir-ho tot.
Amb els ulls tancats
sentia la brisa
omplint la meva ànima.
Vaig contemplar de nou el sol
i vaig esperar que un dia
m’assecaria les ferides obertes.
El sol es va pondre, magestuós,
el cel es tornà vermell
com les ferides que vas infligir
en mi.
Sense voler.
No hi havia altra opció.
Havia de ser així.
Contemplaré el sol
i d’aquesta manera esperaré
que les meves ferides encara obertes
es curin amb el pas
del temps.
© 2018, poems and photograph, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)
Born on the Wind
Uniform saplings compete
-inspired with-
expectations of touching the sky.
Days, more days
-purposed on –
expectations of touching the sky.
Aged survival earns
-scarring from-
expectations of touching the sky.
Resigned and rooted
-seeds fly-
born on the wind … from the sky.
© 2018, Susan St. Pierre (Sillyfrong’s Blog – “Once a pond a time …” )
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
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