O Autumn
O autumn, come again
in all her finery.
Rose hips like flame tips
burn bright, a torch to summer
a flame upon the green.
And everywhere I look
Fragrant flame bouquets.
A buoyant boudelia waving
her lilac blooms like pom noms on parade.
Yellow bright sparks quicken in the ragweed
as blood red globes, red berries – heart medicine,
adorn the spikes amid hawthorn‘s fury;
love‘s crucifixion.
Carefree dappled colours
simmering
as buxom blackberries colour my lips
and stain my fingers.
Here all is abundance, generosity, expression;
a gift!
Amid gentle
dreams of love
in tears or ecstasy.
Before the great levelling concrete catastrophe that wrenches roots and levels ground,
such that this gracious hum-cacophony of life,
falls silent ; a testimony to mankind‘s own
dumbness. Blindness. Senselessness.
Before the council plans enact:
The rising of metal fences.
The arrival of diggers.
The righteous vision of a clinical “running track“.
Where already many ran rugged and wild,
not yet tamed.
The wisdom of nature‘s fancy – a treasure trove of nature‘s riches.
Cascading abundance of medicinal herbs, of fruit, of wildflowers.
Before this wilderness patch of freedom
in our cosseted-in-concrete city
becomes yet another dull and neglected
strain of “progress“-
empty and wan.
Grief stricken – I turn away.
Let not this blindness of
a cold boardroom logic
exert another blow upon our wild fields of innocence,
our true source of lasting wealth and abundance.
O autumn come again
that I may walk once more
under a pink wattled sky
and the elegant modesty of
this new virgin moon
timid
as a cup, a sail, a bow.
Faintly blushing at this fruiting, feasting carnival of life,
amid the hum of summer‘s bounty
of that wild meadow where once my dreams unfurled.
September 2nd 2019, Dublin.
NOTES:
The words of this poem arrived as I stood in the so called ‘waste ground’ in Cherry tree park in Dublin where I used to walk every morning after dropping Lughnasa to school. I was working on editing magazines and writing articles then and the morning walks were an important time to work out my thoughts before sitting to write. The following experience was very intense. The moon was full. I was in love and very much feeling connected with all of the nature. I realised later that this beauty was crying out to me reaching out beyond the veil of the visible from that which was soon to be destroyed. My disappointment and vain anger at the very functional stupidity and myopia of officialdom are an enduring mark of my own feelings of impotence. Perhaps it is the visceral shock and disbelief.
This was a rare thing in the city. A place where nature was allowed to simply be. There were mature elder trees where I collected berries in autumn and glorious flowers in spring to make medicines. There I found happy hawthorns, yarrow, blackthorn, wild roses, rare wild flowers and the red clover that is so valuable as medicine for us women. I found joy and a place of spacious peace and that was priceless to me. Today, this wild space has been converted to the pious cause of mute tarmacadam – a flat running track. Ironic, as studies have shown that the benefit from exercising in nature far outweigh those paltry benefits of a so called ‘flat’ ground. in fact, now the council has created a problem and a measure of disharmony thorugh the homogenising impetus of so called ‘progress’. So, perhaps, this poem is a voice of that place at the peak of its powers and beauty and fullness, under the full moon. The dream and the freedom that one finds in “letting be” – with all the attendant virtues of trust, faith, tenderness, sensitivity and love; was eclipsed by the forces of fierce dysfunction, of disconnection and once again, as Joni Mitchell once sang .. “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot”.
Where are your precious wild spaces?
The more we destroy the wildness in the world around us – the poorer we are, the more bereft : for the wildness around us is also that beauty and nature reflected in our own souls. The loss of habitat is also a loss of ourselves.
May all those whose decisions will affect generations come to sit in humble acknowledgement of this fact : how will seven generations forth consider your act?
I Am
May 19th 2020
Sovereign
I am the song of earth and fire,
The song of seed and child unborn,
I am the sound of every sunrise, calling to a world unknown.
I am the wind, I am the river, I am the spark, I am the stone.
I am the rising heat of summer, I am the biting cold and snow.
I am the space between the Lovers, and in All hearts. Together. Alone.
I am that which never hungers.
Wordless. Deathless. Endless. One.
This was made into a Song..
************
May 2019
@Herbfest Dewy Morning
1.
This mystery sings endlessly
Through bird and branch and flow
That aching world of earth below
This world we know.
Ascension unto rhyme
This Life divine.
Is also YOU,
And I.
2.
Would that I knew
Then.
This eventual when
all being call
as one and unto All
A life proscribed
So lived in lies
The peace I seek it lies beneath, such subterfuge.
Dig Deep!
Whenever Mind rides wild
Anchor unto shore
In thine own heart‘s Core.
3.
Butterfly feelings heavenwards
This pulse of ‘yes , it is right‘
a solid and unerring glow
That guides us home.
2016
1.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM TREES
You grow from seed
One sprout to Heaven, a central Sun
Another Root into the Earth, to find your place, and Nourishment.
An anchor to the ground of being You.
A silent alchemy, birthed into life.
You lengthen up your spine
Always reaching – up, up, up,
Spreading out your branches.
If we could film your growth
Over hundreds of years and fast forward through the images
Your form is that of a Dance.
Ever so graceful, dedicated, Slow.
Life comes to You.
Birds Sing in your Branches.
Joy in the living altitude of You.
And in turn you hold the earth below in place;
Binding together, deepening your contact.
One so still knows where they are.
Your greatness is grown out of Stillness.
A guide to others.
Many seek refuge in your cover and your shade.
Younger trees grow in your furrows, you are mentor and friend.
Seeds brought on the wing, the air that breathes out from your heart
To nourish ours.
Standing tall through every storm.
You sway in gales
Yet we can trust in one so steadfast,
You are always – There.
Stood fast upon the root that binds your form between heaven and earth.
The greater you become
The deeper so your roots must grow;
Ever reaching up to heaven
Ever deepening your connection into Earth;
Into the dirt that was your first Cradle-
And Now,
You Blossom into Seed
And wear your Crown.
2.
O to be a tree
Let fall our words like your leaves, upon the ground- sustaining Others.
Let our skins be as thick and resilient- protecting our hearts’ core.
Your heart runs through you- heart wood- Let our hearts also be our central channel,
Guiding us, keeping us whole.
Your flowers bloom, your scent an invitation-
“Come drink of my nectar”- Let us also be as sweet and appealing
That we may serve our gifts to share our seeds to grow.
Let our fruit be a juicy legacy,
Our highest good be replicated
Thought children- our Intentions.
So we are Light
the Sun lives in us
Yet when we forget our roots
We loose our capacity to grow heavenwards.
Forgetting who we are;
Walking around – living Rainbows.
Hiding our Light.
But if I was a tree,
I ‘d have no choice but to be me.
O, if I was a tree.
3.
Stillness
The Stillness of a little seed, waiting for the Spring.
Prior to any thought, or form or emotion or presence…
May I find – that which is not:
Formlessness and Stillness
Black and Empty
as the vast and mysterious Universe
of which we are a part.
I write with unsightly tear stained face,
Sore achy heart and tired fed up ness:
For all the answers, consolation and solutions
to the human condition,
I appear to embody.
Coming to stillness ,
terrifying in it’s apparant finality.
What attitudes can serve this stillness?
Perhaps of a coiled Spring awaiting release?
Potential energy:
A warrior well equipped in weaponry surveying the landscape,
weighing up the opposition.
Ready.
A peace that comes with being ready.
All the work is done …
Now you may be still.
Yes, I like that.
A lot of work of energy has been expended in order to get to this Still place-
And I am Still here.
I AM.
To acknowledge and mark this achievement – having lived through it all.
A bit of gold – a crown.
It has been a challenge for me to be still.
Letting go and giving things away to create space and a sparseness
within which one can simply be.
Loosing trappings of identity- of story, of something I can be.
For I simply AM.
There is a humility in this sense of a greatness
the vastness of creation,
manifest and unmanifest,
to which I may bow.
And in so doing
bow to that which dwells within myself
of Eternity.
That which is/was pre-existing:
Unharmed untouched by the busy-ness of this lifetime.
A stillness that allows
All else to be- just as it is
So to accept ourselves, as we are.
Here is permission to Stop. To rest.
Be Still.
4.
Prayer
May I return
To love and harmony
Inner peace
At One with All
May I know
that I am Loved
and hear the call
within my heart
of others who
shall nourish me
In Spirit
May I never Fear
For fear is a great loss
of warmth and trust
and Peace
and a great wedge between
May I strive for
Understanding
And in my asking
Know that it is not my will alone
I seek for I am but one drop in the ocean:
Of life seeking Life
To be one with the Creator
In being a Creator
And to celebrate in this
Simple fact of breathing together
on this planet
So many colours
To seek the Highest Good of All
Is to always know the ground that is shared
And that infinite horizon.
To know ourselves as children
Innocent, original, playful and free of the tyranny of mind.
Let me rather Listen,
For Guidance and the Courage
To take the next step on..
5.
I am Still
I sing
Bottomless and wide Open
a lake I am
of thought reflecting sunlight
dazzled into awestruck wonder
For myself I ask nothing
but to remain thus
open to the ever expanding vastness
of a consciously growing universe
that through myself also finds expression.
O God let me be of service
to the beauty
beyond words
pure action
beyond form
unseen
wholly
infinite
even in the darkness:
Light .
These poems:sbeloved visitors 2013-4
The Soul
We are infinite
Yet all that we see crowds our infinity into tiny boxes,
Into cells,
In prisons of perception
We fear and yet, an ancient dance – of life‘s first brave daring
Courage enlivens every atom
In the expansive nothingness that calls forth all creation.
And fears no longer.
We fill and crave
Gather and weigh
And yet in the end not a thing can travel with us.
Forsake that long corridor of narrowing perceptions
And the long goodbye.
Embrace the open skies
The mountains high
The rhythm of waters dancing in moon glow
Embrace every breath
Carried through birdsong from early morning breezes
Embrace the sound between your ears
Of silence
That craves no antidote
Boast not of having found the answers
Seek instead those life giving waters
That flow from so deep a source
That we may drink and dine with our beloved One Creator
And Be.
At one with all creation
As creatures reborn to Life.
ANAM: 