White Days

White days of rain and cloud
make this a strange autumn.

Sometimes they warm
suddenly in the afternoon.

Then we remember what autumn is,
the most beautiful season.

Always the most beautiful,
I would have said, until now.

Where are the mellow, golden days,
the blue, spreading heavens?

Even the sea is pale, greyed,
and the drab river less than silver.

At night the storms come, loud
with thunderous downpours.

We move into April
as if into a strange landscape.

The trees and hills become
unrecognisable, distorted by water.


April PAD Challenge 2 
Prompt: a water poem

It's Good Friday

It’s Good Friday
and on the telly
people — Christian people —
reveal their ways
of coming closer to God.

‘In the gentle breeze,’
says one pilgrim.
‘In silence, reading,
and hospitality,’
says the monk.

I think we are not
different. I too, Pagan,
think those places good
for finding God.
It may be so for all.

Dropping deeper

I notice
those are doorways
to the actual place:
my heart.


NaPoWriMo Day 2

April PAD Challenge / Lonely Poem

Oh dammit, can't resist doing this one too - the April Poem-A-Day Challenge at Poetic Asides.
(Prompts can be fun too.)


The first prompt is to write a lonely poem, so here it is:

Lonely

she walks the road of sleep
through an emptiness

looking for others
finds no-one

the whole landscape
is flat gray

why is her old dog
not in this dream?


April PAD Challenge #1

Choosing What to Wear

Flo, 18 months,
knows what she wants.
Doesn’t speak, says it clearly
with an insistent look.

Every morning she reaches
for the rainbow headband,
slings it around her torso
from shoulder to hip.

She looks you
straight in the eye,
swathed in the confidence
of chakra colours.


NaPoWriMo Day 1

I see the fairies dancing: March Tanka 2010

I work this Tuesday
in The Little Shop of Love
as psychic reader
my one client weeps and heals
I see the fairies dancing

2/3/10


today at tai chi
the sylphs were dancing en masse
small angular lights
joined in a floating circle
silent but so distracting

3/3/10


the peach-coloured rose
you left for me yesterday
still wet with raindrops
blooms into its fullness now
and the scent draws me closer

9/3/10


she failed to notice
the blooming rose wither
its petals contract
losing their light and falling
her attention was elsewhere

-------------------------------------

the boy with the dreads
wooden beads and surfboard shorts
comes to buy rose quartz
says yes he needs healing but
this is a gift for his girl

16/3/10


it’s warm on the hill
new vines swarming up the fence
after all that rain
but I move away from you
down into the cold city

23/3/10


Morning light.
The neighbour's tiled roof
solid red
against leaves and sky:
the view from our bed.

30/3/10

Early morning damp: haiku for March 2010

early morning damp
a statue with dismal face
alone in the grass

5/3/10


overcast morning
a small moth cruises the weeds
by the draggled rose

12/3/10


the sun breaking through
lights up my small walled garden
just as I look out

19/3/10


the sunlight picks out
among the leaves a bright bird
startled eye glaring

20/3/10


the wind is dancing
through his fingers on guitar
moaning through his voice

26/3/10

Birds

A crow called, once, unseen
messenger.

I saw white ibis flying,
wings

outstretched, spelling
protection.

And this morning
outside

a sweet chortling at first
light.

In these mountains, we recover
them.

After the storm: February Tanka 2010

wet sand gets kicked up
as the dog runs towards me
where I stand my ground
it circles and skirmishes
then dashes back down the beach

*************

Did it happen? No,
I dreamed it. Then I wrote it
as a tanka. What
does it all mean? Whatever
you may choose to make of it!

2/2/10


his yearly heart check
I drive the rainy highway
drop him off then search
half an hour to park in mud
his check-up my stress

9/2/10


after the storm
the morning air is fresh
we open wide
the doors to the garden
a soft breeze for breakfast

16/2/10


shadows fall
and the light on the grass
starts to shrink

it is the clouds massing
behind your departure

23/2/10

Streetlamp and moonlight: haiku for February 2010

the long drive home
lit by the long dusk
of deep summer

*************

cat-shrieks outside
then my girl on the top step
calmly alone

*************

streetlamp and moonlight
palm trees clear against the dark
the neighbours asleep

5/2/10


the whole street sleeps
except me up late
writing haiku

*************

'The streets are water'
they always said of Venice,
but I walked the lanes.

12/2/10


rain leaves us humid
wet with perspiration
needing a shower

*************

cool evening
after the humid day
stinging insects

14/2/10


it plays in my mind
all day, that lonely music
I heard in a dream

19/2/10


the cats are quiet
the man sleeps and I’m restless
in the white noise hush

26/2/10

High Driving

Lake one side
sea on the other
I’m driving
into cloud
those towering white mountains
along the high ridge.

The First

She is dead.
He remembers loving her,
finds photos from her youth
(I mistake one for their daughter)
wants to go to her funeral
‘I think I should’
would hitch-hike for days
to get there, until
I remind him he’s 81
and married to me now.