Joyce Barrass's Blog, page 43

ASH-SHE - on the felling of the Beloved Ash

They came without fanfare
As Autumn gathered her gold
In keys and coppery carillons
Of trees untold.

You stood, Beloved Ash,
Fraxinus fair,
Facing unfazed their saw teeth
Till no tree was there.

When stillness swallowed blade-hum
In your shadowy wake,
The sawdust sprinkled silence
For your soundless sake.

This space still throws your shape
Above your severed root.
The elder that you sheltered
Conjures sap and shoot

In memory of your majesty,
Spring sprays unborn.
Birds circle your absence,
Wings on paths well worn.

Your stump now melts its heart
In toadstool and in moss,
Minting from Winter's promise
Wisdom, truth and loss.






[Tribute to the much-beloved Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) at the end of my garden, felled earlier this month at the request of another who lived in its sacred shadow but saw only leaf litter and blocked sky. Felt its going so deeply, it's taken me this long to say what I wanted to say in tribute to such a beautiful old friend. I could never do it full justice. RIP the Beloved Ash.]

GALAXY (or "Middle-aged contemplative Luddite gets her very first smartphone")

You snuggle in my palm
Smug in textured armour
Rippling with rhythms of cyber-synapse

I dodge your curt commands
Stacked distractions
Hide you under some foxed paperback

We sim, we circle,
Learning one another's biometrics
Agog, aghast for updates

BUTTERFLY WITH BONES - a poem for those who live with chronic illness

HEATWAVE

You are slanting like lightAcross my memoryColours undimmedTurquoise and orange of photosIn an album shut since those Seventies summersDetail gnawed thin by regrets we daren’t revisit.Thermometer cannot rise to this,Mercury shimmers, flat figures flickering.That ladybird plague, the greenfly gorged on every stemPets crawling the paths, fur full of wings,Seeking the refugee shade.You are parching my tongueWith tears uncriedYou are here, even now,Luminous, crepuscularYou are sunfast.

WE BE CREATION'S CRYING

Bonded
To this body of birds
Wheeling in freeform flock

Rooted
Radical in earthball
Tendrils tucked
Through trackless undergrowth

Voice of the heartstop hare
From her barren form,
Whisper and whicker,
Melt and bloat

Ductile seductive
Plastic at the seabird's throat,
Barnacles losing purchase
On the toxic rock

We be creation's crying
Syrinx singing
Solidarity
With rhythmic sobs
Please cope

Struggling to shine afresh
The sun slinks up,
Wandering west
To wash the waste
Pale gold
Wanhope.

SEIZE THE MOMENT

I trust in cradling clouds of cicelyIts silken spilling, mirroring the stars,I trust the hawthorn creaming into frothyAlong the margin of the sacred wood
I rest in hush, heady with damp silence,In caverns where the cliff is mossed with life,I rest in light where sky is stained with rainbow,I trust, I rest in joy.

SILENCE

LAMB

Lamb in the seething heartOf the nervy flockButted and nuzzled
Reddle-daub rainbowsOn weather-damp woolCircling soft
There the wall fallenOpens on precipiceBleats and barging
Lamb nudges hocks,Tough mutton and tenderHogget and mouflon
Upward she draws themStompers and sleepwalkersSheep of this pasture
Up the rock stairwayOf sunlight and silenceThe lamb, she leads

GYROVAGUE

Fear lurks at my gate like a gyrovague,Its begging bowl clogged with failure's bones,Lisping its warning never to change,Unstable as night mist's shifting tones.
It cries for alms in the dead of day,It tolls the hours with cowled skull bowed,Its habit frayed where the shame shows through,Mulls over misstep and untrod road.
If I turn the key, it will knock and knock,So I lend it a seat in my circle of bliss;Having seen it hollow, I now sleep safe,In the stillness of light where no dread is.

MISTER STARLING

Mister Starling soon boresOf gasps and applauseFrom the rapt and ecstaticAt his feats aerobatic
So he has a few sessionsOf skits and impressionsPretending to beWith a whistle or three
Other things he has heard,Klaxon, car horn, Blackbird,Mobile phone on vibrateTo impress his new mate.
In motley he dressesPunky bad-hair-day tresses,Sturnus vulgaris oughtBe called vulgar for short,
But without each wild antic,Balletic and franticRoof and garden no doubtWould be poorer without.