Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 9

Dandelions

I think this more or less fitted the NaPoWriMo prompt. Almost anyway.

Dandelions

Proximity is relative
when we stand so far apart,
shadows gather in the sun,
but light still finds a way through,

when we stand so far apart,
united by unseen bonds,
strong as gossamer.

Shadows gather in the sun
with the strength of thousands,
deer-drifting among the trees,

but light still finds a way through
come hell, high water or the turning year,
like dandelions biding their time.

National poetry month day 17

To see the artwork and read the poems they have inspired, please visit Paul Brookes’ blog here.

Human mysteries

The lines we set are straight, right-angled.
We clip short, neat, and brook no deviation from the plan.

We plough straight and even, sow,
spray with benign toxins,
and we build our fantasy of plenty
in a world screaming with want.

Somewhere, farmers are at war for the right to destroy,
and somewhere our neatly clipped spaces are nibbled
by those with nowhere else to go.

How can a deer understand
what we cannot explain to ourselves?

Family gathering

It’s been a good few days since I’ve been inspired by the NaPoWriMo prompt and today was no exception, so here is poem about what it was, what is wasn’t and what it could have been.

Family gathering

There are days like this, with laughter and memories,
children and children’s children, the light so blue
and bright, trees leafing and golden-buttoned meadows,
river racing deep blue-green, herons standing,
corn stalk-still and solemn.

There are moments of good food and wine,
and baby-babble, dog-romp and cat-snooze,
gathering dandelion clocks and news, plans and dreams.

But there are no days without their shadow,
the empty chair, the sigh when the cloud passes
across the sun, when thoughts scatter far,
to where another shadow turns, half into the sun,
then sinks out of sight, a hand almost reaching out
to catch a wind-blown seed.

National poetry month day 16

Here is my poem for Paul Brookes’ ekphrastic challenge. Artwork and poetry is here, on Paul’s blog.

Jackdaw

Who knows what the jackdaw sees,
a world shot with brilliance, jewels in the grass,
the quick flash of fish in an ornamental pool,
or is it beetled black and scuttling
between awkward grass stalks?

Jackdaw’s eye is round and unblinking,
what it sees is what is there.
No unicorns toss pink and flowing manes
in Jackdaw Land, no cloud-dragons
spit sunset fire across the sky.

Because eggs is eggs to Jackdaw,
life begins and ends in the round,
of a twig and sheep’s wool nest,
of a blue-speckled egg,
of a blue sea-changing eye.

Water, day and night

Water, day and night

Obverse of night,
the medal turns, shines gold,
and silver where water runs

from frozen summits in leaping cascades
or slow, green, blue a broad ribbon of sky,
rushy banks hiding herons.

There are no shadows
on the skin of this summer river,
barely a ripple between sandbanks,

and the sun reaches through
the shallows to where fish hover,
fins fluttering like fans,

dreaming of the ocean,
swell thick as black oil, a night of water,
the rise and fall of a titan’s chest,

where the light is slick and pewter pale,
some nights, others,
the black is dense as evil intent,

robbing the sky of stars,
the day of sunlight,
the sweetness of the roses.

National poetry month day 15

For Paul Brookes’ ekphrastic challenge. Please visit his blog to see the artwork and the poetry it inspired.

Tree Phoenix

Winds will come when the birds have flown into a far blue,
winds too wild to speak a tongue we understand,
their fiery breath uprisen from the tormented core.

Black roots will unclench, and birdless boughs will lift,
spread, leaf-fledged with pinion memories, wild and fiery.

We may watch in awe, the last trees rising in Phoenix flames,
but the ash will blow cold in the wild wind, and we may never follow.

Hare in the meadow

1.

In the meadow,
green, yellow-studded,
beneath a dark sky,
a hare sits washing raindrops
from bright brown fur.

Suddenly everything,
the dull day, the cares crowding,
is in its place.

2.

Meadow grass
buttercups
grown tall in the light rain
tall enough to hide a grazing hare,

only the ears stand proud
long and narrow
as last year’s dried stalks.

National poetry month day 14

The artwork for today is posted on Paul Brookes’ blog here, along with all the poetry it inspired.

Parents

Their house was low, thick with stone mullioned windows
that defended against the scarce light, cold and pale.

Fires blazed in the grate well into spring,
started again before summer was truly over.

She baked and cooked and painted, created with silks
and oils and watercolours, painted her garden with flowers.

He read and wrote and papered the inside of his melancholy head
with longings and regrets that stretched back centuries.

She dug and coaxed colour and life from the nut-shells
of seeds, looked always ahead to their flowering.

He sailed his paper boats backwards, into the wind
over the hills, the curling waves, cliffs black beneath the gorse.

They’re both gone now. I hope she tied him tight enough
with woodbine, so he could haul them both home.

Dreamless sleep

For the dverse prompt.

Dreamless sleep

Sleep is the limbo between cares,
too brief to be savoured,
the darkness deep as oceans
in the gulf where light never falls.

Sleep, the longed for respite,
is the oblivion before day breaks open
the cask of cares again.
I pull the fleeting shadows around me.

There are chasms in the ocean floor,
as dark as dreams where fish swim
into the maw where a false beacon dangles,
moths to a flame,

and while I sleep, the stars watch,
too distant to care, their fire too far to warm,
until they fall into the rising light,
consumed by a false dawn.

National poetry month day 13

This is my poem for Paul Brookes’ ekphrastic challenge. Please visit his blog to see the artworks that inspired it, and to read the other contributions.

Myths

Isle of Apples and life never-ending,
desert land of unicorns and manticores,
that send red-raging sands, hoof-trod, flying.

Land of plenty, salmon-wise in its dripping juice,
and wasteland of thirst, blooming in brilliace
humming with bright birds where water falls,

abundance of sweet honey, and deer
caught with the west wind in our hair,
and pressed fruit, sorbets and the slick fire of mead,

we walk in myth, dream in legends,
our feet rooted in clay, arms spread,
winged, we feel our feathers fledge.