Category: Poetry

The mourning chant of the Islands

An excerpt from the prose/poem The Seer to be found
here on Kindle Books.

The Seer speaks the mourning chant of the Islands
with the congregation repeating the last line.

Life is brief, love is deep, the soul sings,
As the seasons come, the seasons go,
What are we but passing travellers,
Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the sea wave breaks on the rock,
As the clouds flee across the sky,
So we traverse this land, and are gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the eagle swoops and soars,
So the deer come and go, the salmon spawn,
Child turns to adult, and is gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Land of sorrow, land of joy, land of blessing, land of toil,
From your bosom we are born,
To your bosom we return,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Each day is precious, each hour passed,
is an hour fled, never to return.
Love, know what you have, be grateful
Praise the Gods for the gifts that come from land and sea.

Praise to the Gods!

Inkwork (5)
Skara Brey, the remains of an ancient village on the Orkneys. Did its inhabitants help build Maes Howe or the Ring of Brodgar?

Wharram Percy*

In distance, ten, twenty miles. In time, five, six centuries.
Here, a roofless church looks out across a fish pond.
Once, it would have supplied food for the winter, water for the mill.
Now, it provides, peace, tranquility, a place of rest and reflection.

Long, long ago the village of Wharram Percy would have been bustling,
busy with the affairs of the day. No longer.
Small hummocks speak of what was,
Houses, a manor even, now long gone, almost hid from sight.

A track, grass covered, runs through the mounds.
A whole village once stood here. Forty, fifty or more houses.
Vanished, gone. The Voices that once echoed from house to house.
Are stilled, long forgotten. Except in the graveyard.

A small bench provides a seat, a place to sit and ponder what was,
and to enjoy what is. The sound of birds, wind rustling leaves,
Sunlight, white clouds, green hills and woodland. The movement of,
Ripples crossing the pond, a sense of peace, a place of beauty.

Soon it will be time to return, back, back,
To the roar of traffic, the noise of people.
But not yet. Stay, stay a little longer,
For where else is found such serenity?

 

*  It is hard to believe but there 3,000 or so known deserted medieval villages. The village of Wharram Percy was continuously occupied for six centuries before being abandoned in the 1500s. Now it stands deserted on the side of a remote and beautiful valley deep in the Yorkshire Wolds.

 

A Cosmic Joke

I know nothing. I understand less than nothing.
A whole lifetime spent searching, seeking,
Reading, practising, listening to the guru.
And for what? For what purpose, to answer what question?

Ah yes, the question, wait, I dimly recall, the question was “Why?”
Why, why, yes that was it. And the answer, well at times if felt close by,
Yet, whenever I reached out my hand to it, it moved away, vanished.
And now I laugh, for I know the cosmic joke. You are the answer you seek!

Hunting by Moonlight

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It is the midnight hour.
The full moon stalks the clouds
That hide her silvery light,
For you to hunt.

A gap in the cloudy veil
Moon bright
Floods the night,
Now, now stalk your prey

For you are man.
Strong, powerful,
Creature of the night,
Dominant, let all fear you.

A rustle of leaves
Alerted. Alarmed
Your prey turns, flees
In terror

For you are man,
None can face you
All powerful. All conquering
Flee they must.

Wait. What is that shadow you see?
Did it move? A trick of the light?
Where is that moonlight when you need it?
What glows red in the dark? Eyes? Can it be?

Now you too know fear. Perhaps there are things of the night
Never spoken of, that hunt and stalk
Seek their prey, creep ever nearer, waiting to pounce.
Now taste fear, in the horror of being – the prey.

A dream after seeing a sculpture

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A creation by Tony Cragg

The words of the song speak the thoughts of the dawn.
Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,
like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind,
Questions to be explored, layers concealing layers, perceptions dimly sensed.

Structured as if in a Tony Cragg creation,
The outer layer speaks, yet conceals what lies within,
Layer concealing layer, strata with its own timeline,
it’s own meaning, making a concealed contribution to the Whole.

What is it I fail to grasp? What moves just beyond my perception?
When I reach out to touch, what is it that moves away?
Elusive as a butterfly darting in the mind, one moment illuminated,
The next hidden, only the question remains, what lies below?

Below my ordinary perception, below the superficiality that surrounds,
Layer below layer, atom forming structure, concealing the quantum mystery,
Mystery wrapped within enigma. Is perception possible? Is it all an illusion?
Or instead, tantalising glimpses of the layers below?

Myth and legend swirl, concealing tradition and history,
One generation follows another, some forgetting, a few retaining,
Knowledge, understanding, but fast diminishing, leaving only distorted echoes,
Of what was once crystal clear. Now lost, only the faintest echo, sounds in the void.

What was there at the edge of my perception? In the dreaming swirl that comes,
As morning dawns, when the mind hovers between the clarity of the day and the dreamy mists of the night.
A glimpse perhaps of the hidden seams concealed within the mind? The magicians who move amongst the unseen layers?
Who make, form, breathes life into the mystery that is hidden? Come the dawn, the vision fades, grows faint, and only a diminishing echo remains.

 

ScuptureCreation.
I was fascinated by the way that Tony Cragg fashioned his sculptures. Beneath each layer, he places another layer, sometimes apparently unconnected with what went before, sometimes crafted by one of Tony’s assistants.

A different set of hands, eyes, meaning. Without seeing the creation from beginning to end in some kind of god-like way, how can anyone know the layers beneath the layers?

Know, let alone understand, what lies below? What is intended even? Just as we view a tree, not seeing the roots, the flow of the sap, the earth and air connections, and beneath all, the swirling movement of the Universe that embrace it and us.

(Tony Cragg is a British born sculptor who now lives in Germany. He is known for his exploration of unconventional materials, including plastic, fibreglass, bronze, and Kevlar. According to Art World, Craggs’ sculptures embody a frozen moment of movement, resulting in swirling abstractions.

The Land of Faerie

 

There, there, quickly. Ah, too late,
The door opens, closes and is gone.
You sit, wait and watch,
But tonight, the land of faerie is closed.

Sometimes though, when the time is right,
The veil lifts, parts, and reveals all.
Another world, embracing this one,
Glowing, glowing with the magic of the night.

Tiny figures move and dance, music fills the air,
And the sweet heady scent of magic draws you near.
Come, come join us, tiny voices cry, fear not,
Breathe deep, let your feet tap, now dance.

The music swirls, mists of the night enclose you,
But you care not, carried on the musical embrace,
That flings your soul to the stars and back,
Gladdens the strings of the heart and overwhelms the senses.

Wait, wait you cry, do not leave me, where go you?
It is you who leave us, the voices sing,
With the coming of the dawn, the two worlds, slip, slide, and
Part, the door closes, the veil shifts back, falls into place and the land of faerie is gone.

Left forlorn, the fading moon and the rising sun,
Look down on you, laughing at your plight.
What right have you to enter the land of faerie? They cry,
What right, what right, earthbound mortal?

But you care not. One drop of that elixir on the tongue,
One chord of that sweet music heard, one touch of the magic air,
And you are transported, enchanted, into the land of faerie,
Where the dance is all, lifting, lifting the soul to the stars.

Stop! Danger, danger a part of you cries,
Legend speaks of lost souls, doomed to wander,
Searching, seeking, but never finding their way back to this world.
Who cares, you sing, one minute there is worth a thousand years here.

Wait! What is that? Laughter, you hear their voices carried on the wind,
Let me back in, you cry, desperate to feel the magic,
To embrace the rhythm of the dance,
But, too, late, you are left forlorn, one last laugh, and they are gone.

Night Journies

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Night
I went to bed full of love and mystery and journeyed on the wings of Morpheus. Far , far beyond the towers of Avalon and the walls of Babylon. Then down I plunged into the layers of reality that lie beneath our perception, concealed strata that sometimes boil and ripple, but more often are quiet and just whisper to the soul, Look, and you will see me, listen and you will hear me.

Nightfall
Night falls, moon rises,
Owl wakes, fox stirs,
Tiny prey, fearfully forage,
All feed, some survive.

Comes the day, departs the dark,
Sun’s warming rays, banish fears of the night,
On green meadows, flocks safely graze,
Protected by the light, yet fearful of the night.

Dusk comes, darkness looms,
Feared hunters, fearful prey,
Night stirrings, dark destruction,
The pattern, repeats, repeats.