Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 36

Sunlight through the trees on the hill

Sunlight through the trees on the hill

Light
caught in golden leaves
a moment of magic glimpsed
between rain-dark tree trunks
spindle-fingered
letting their own raiment slip away

~while one shrubby tree-bush blazes~

magic
this single sapling garbed in gold
sunburst-bright
and hung with silent coins
defying the gloom
glorious.

Haiku sonnet

I still haven’t caught up with myself. The form Paul Brookes chose for last week’s challenge was the haiku sonnet. I had two attempts at it. This is the first one.

Haiku sonnet for mid-winter

Winter sun struggles
too thin too pale birds shiver
peck at ice crystals

veil of frozen mist
that filters gold and silver
deposits hoarfrost.

Feathers ruffle in
silence songs saved for next spring
I hear a leaf fall

the only other
sounds sharp as ice-crack twig-snap
hunting dogs’ hot breath

bleak mid-winter’s talon-grip
the shriek of sudden small deaths.

Re-mundaning the wild day 14

Here is today’s poem for Paul Brookes’ December challenge

Eels

Elegance of streamlining,
elongated, electric sometimes,
eels slip from Sargasso
to Severn and Seine,
sleek and serpentine,
silver-green,
keeping to dim shallow-shadows,
ever moving on and back,
birth to death
and the long voyage in-between.

Transparent infant cleaners
of marine snowdrifts,
then silver-sleek and tubular,
they hunt the teeming mud
and sand for bottom-dwellers,
upriver and down,
drawn ineluctably back
to Sargasso weed
and the calm of tideless,
tidy waters.

Solstice

For the dverse prompt.

Solstice

The dark half of the year is well begun ,
burning leaves wind-stripped from every tree,
when clouded sky is shot with skeins of geese,
arrow-headed flocks, all homing south.

Night shadows grow, we watch the waning sky,
no moon no stars, but echoes of the cry
of hunting owls to tell the hours off
till dawn, the breaking of the day, frost-crisp.

Among cold stones, the memories are warm,
though silent as the flight of hunting owls,
among the echoes of the passage way,
earth magic waxes, drawing back the sun.

Re-mundaning the wild day 13

For Paul Brookes’ December challenge. I wrote a short poem in French and followed it with an English version.

Faucon crécerelle

Il fait le Saint-Esprit
en éventail
être de plumes et légèreté

qui balance entre ciel et terre
yeux rivés sur les battements
de rouge-sang

chaud comme toute vie
un pincement de cœur

il fond
un cri
et c’est fini.

Kestrel

Wings deployed
a Holy Spirit
thing of feather-fan and lightness

balancing sky and earth
eyes fixed on heart-pulse
blood red and hot as life

a twinge
though not of pity
and he stoops

a cry
and a life ends.

Cadralor in Gleam magazine

You might know that Gleam is the magazine that showcases the cadralor form of poetry. It was devised by the Gleam editors, so they know what they’re talking about. I’ve had poems in several Gleam issues, and I’m pleased to announce that I have one in Issue 5 too.

I’d like to thank the editors for their encouragement. The cadralor is a form I have taken to like a duck to water.

You can read the magazine online here.

Interior in C

Quadrille for the dverse prompt.

Interior in C

Outside,
cold crisp-crackles underfoot,

inside,
the ticking stove cat-purrs,

shadows dance tangos
with the taste of Christmas,

orange, cinnamon, candied peel,
fruits confits, raisins de Smyrne, de Corinthe.

Beneath beams,
licked by centuries of candlelight,

we clasp hands, waiting
for the snow’s cold comfort.

Rewilding the mundane days 10, 11 and 12

This is a poem inspired by the last three rewilding suggestions of Paul Brookes’ December challenge. You can see them on Paul’s blog here.

Sacred circles

Curled about her cubs,
every furred mother-sun
radiates love-warmth,

lake water gathers up in gentle hands,
broad wings, long necks, flecked and flocked
with bird-drift, gives them back to the sky,

worm tunnels clear through earth-mould,
the composted death of years past,
breathing air and life into the passage graves

of leaves, field maple, oak,
and the sifted bones and shells
of wild ossuaries.

All things curl, bow, bend,
the cycle re-cycled, reforming and recurring,
sun, moon, stars reflecting lifetimes.

The woman-peach says

Been too busy to compute for the last few days. I grabbed a short ‘hello’ from the Oracle and will get back to reading catching up later this afternoon.

The woman-peach says

this garden is full of life-juice,
though the wind howls,
the days swell with winter cloud,
and our hearts ache
for the careless days of summer warm.

Though hoarfrost coats dark branches
thick as rust on wrought iron,
the ship is there, riding soft billows,
laden with roses.

Re-mundaning the wild day 9

For Paul Brookes’ challenge, still thinking in iambs. A sonnet with erratic rhyme (non)scheme.

Bee-dreaming

When winter settles cold across the fields,
and even roses fail to open buds,
when petals pink and blue are long since brown
and damp-dead, jays hop now where once they bloomed.
When sky is hid behind grey mists of cloud
and falling rain, its patter dull on leaves,
a sodden carpet specked with acorn cups,
the house seems sad despite the glowing stove,
and even mouse scratch, ash sigh echo loud,
I watch the pheasants in their gaudy plumes,
uncaring of the rain, the lack of light,
knowing only that the cage was sprung,
the broad day full of life and dark the night.
I listen for the ghosts of summer done,
bee-hum that fills these rooms with scents of sun.