Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 39

Yorkshire November

The painter, John Atkinson Grimshaw was from Leeds and painted scenes from the area round about. Although the setting looks slightly more urban, this one reminds me of Oakwell Hall, an old house next to my primary school and close to the house I grew up in. Atkinson Grimshaw could well have painted it. The setting is splendid, high, looking across at the Pennines.

For the dverse prompt.

Yorkshire November

We’d walk up the lane beneath old trees,
between millstone grit walls,
past low, millstone grit houses,
fields of thin green and dirty sheep,
to the manor house from Elizabeth’s time.

The skies were high there, and the air
sharp with winter on the way,
and November was a time
of frosted leaves and empty gardens.

I remember the colours,
the mossy greens and stone greys,
mullioned windows subsided
with the years, old as cathedrals,
old enough for ghosts of a world
not gone, just waiting behind thick
clouded window glass.

There were rooks in every tree,
and we trod acorn carpets and skies
that stretched for a thousand years.

Cloudshapes day 29

Penultimate day of Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the cloud photographs that inspired this poem here.

Heavy sky

How can we bear to raise our eyes
to the oceans and icefields above our heads,
knowing the immensity of blue and white
worlds washing from horizon to horizon,
where winds blow with feathers in their wings?

Knowing, we watch instead the ground
and where we tread, fixed on self,
the sky too heavy, pregnant with import,
omens, reflected wisdoms to heed.

We tread on broken shells,
content in our bliss.

I remember

A quadrille for dverse.

I remember

I remember
sun-dapples on the grass,
glitter on stream-water,
face raised to the sky
and spring clouds scudding
in warm west winds,
sky throbbing blue,
heat haze on the lane,
a mirage held in my hand.

I wish I had not let it go.

Random word poetry

The Random word Oracle gave me an odd poem. Maybe odd is the new normal. This is an old photo. The stream is still barely trickling.

The stream

The stream is troubled,
close to bursting banks,
new green shoots.

Such a muddy crowd
of broken things rush by,
driven by the engine
that drives the water,
its pulleys and cords.

Beneath an ill-formed sky,
the flood flashes back
with dull glints, between clouds
and dirty foam.

It shouts in a dark tongue,
tales of parched trees
and stony drought,
tales of floods
and unheeded warnings.

Cloudshapes day 28

My poem is inspired by all three cloud photographs. You can see them on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Sands

Walking the sands of the sky,
treading the blue and the white,
we peer through the glassy glare
of this reflected light,
to see the stars of space,
their five-pointed glitter, fill
our dim-deep earthy pools.

Random word generator

Late, but I have an excuse. Please use if the words suggest something.

Cloudshapes day 27

A birthday, so all the clouds went into this poem. You can see them on Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Your day

It’s your day, so all this earth,
the places where I put my feet,
among new shoots pushing through old leaves,
paths, tracks and highways,
are yours,

the way trees loom through the mist,
the sweep of a jay’s flight,
red kite, wing-beating slow,
the glint of morning sun on the pond,

the way the dew silvers the meadow,
the shadows beneath the oaks,
the flocks of unknown birds
that hurry first north then south,
a cloud of indecision,

and the sky is yours with its cargo
of white ships, the wind in their sails,
on their way to Byzantium, Carthage
or Rome, or just home,
into the sweep of these arms.

Cloudshapes day 26

Very late with this one for Paul Brookes’ challenge. The inspiration is Gaynor Kane’s photo. You can see all the photos here.

Some things

There are words,
Firenze, Brunelleschi, Duomo,
Palazzo, Uffizi, Arno,
Medici, Buonarroti, azzurro,
like waves of the sea that lap
the edge of memory, ring bright
as bells and drift from then to now,
almost tangible, not lost,
but insubstantial as cloud wisps.

I wish, I dream, I will
go back one day,
just to hear the sounds,
smell the scents and feel
another sun upon my face.

Ask

The Oracle gave me a cadralor that I condensed into a different type of rhythmed poem.

Ask the wind where the light has gone
the green of spring.
I see it only in prismed hues
of rain-shot arcs,

in purple cloud of sunsets, gold
that briefly breaks
through storm-dark then is swallowed up,
so none remains.

The rocks that dream in red and black
could ask the sea,
the waves that washed away the rose,
pale petals lost.

But ask her, in the pearling mist,
she’ll tell you why
blue is grey and only lake birds call—
cold winter’s here.

Cloudshapes day 25

This poem was inspired by Paul Brookes’ photo. You can see all the inspirational photography on Paul’s blog here.

The once and forever dragon

Dragon-spine sinks softly into
the still waters of the lake, so old,
who would know bones from stones?

Black vertebrae settle back
into the cradle of first things,

and above, in the bright blue
and gold of now,

the reflection of what was,
glides with spread wings,
pale and elusive as swansdown.