The Sentient Quest

"Sentience" - the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively

Figures across an expanse of snow,
Others, far down and hovering in the deep.
And on they go, Scanning screens for stars.

All hearing the ancient echo,

Perhaps.
All on a quest that
Started with sentience.

Somewhere out there?
Above, beneath 

Or just a just a little further on?
Maybe it's deep inside.
We will seek forever 

If we can

Are we questing for truth 

Or just carrying it?
Outside, inside 

Perhaps hovering deep,
And awaiting the scanning,
Is that really a good cosmic echo?
So we shall quest on,
Perhaps, long passed  our sentience.

Sunshine on a winter's afternoon

Sunshine on a winter's afternoon 

Is always special.

There is a quality to

in its chilliness

Which confuses the senses

And its briefness

Followed by a dark

And frosty evening

Or perhaps mist.

So different and short lived.

Time for tea

It is by the singing of my heart

It is by the singing of my heart that I know you

And that my heart beats to your rhythm now.

That frightens me a little..

I am not used to it,

And the sharing of my bed with all that means

And that it feels as if it was always so

And you know it wasn't

I shouldn't feel used to it.

Your face has been a part of me so long

You were always there with us, caring

Though reluctantly at first.

You didn't make the choice

Nor I.

It was reluctantly at first

And no, I shouldn't feel used to it.

Remembrance

I grew up in the 50s and 60s and I heard many stories of women who lost their men in the first World War and how they suffered.  My aunt lost her "young man".  She never spoke of it and she never married.  There was no one to marry; a generation had been lost.  But the women who had it hardest were the widows of "other ranks" who were left with children to care for and little or no support.  This poem is for them.

And we the women left
Make lives for ourselves.
Brave women we,
The women left.
Like flotsam on a stony shore,
We shouldn't be here.
Discarded parts!
Our seasoned wood
Has gone beyond its season.
But still we scrub and clean
And make our knuckles raw
With all your dirty laundry.
If not, who'll feed our kids?
Brave women, we
The women left.

Fleet footed to ecstatic wings

The wolf solitary,
Alpha and Omega, 

Strength in the shoulder,
Fur that absorbs,
Journeying
Across vast plains
To meet mountains,
Green with trees,
Then scrub,
To rocky summit.
Breathless
Above the clouds,
Glistening in light,
An endless exchange,
Of colours,
Noon through to dusk,
And on to scented night.
Losing the comfort
Of warm fur
For wings,
Beyond colour,
Beyond description.

Estuary Thoughts

There was the wolf

Sitting beside me,
My fingers warm
In the fur at his neck.
We sat in silence
On the estuary bank.
The teasing smell of seaweed,
And sweet mud, in our nostrils.
With water moving
Gently below us.
And all the pain,
All the fear,
All the loneliness,
Went drifting on the breeze,
As the tide turned.
And the river,
That mighty father/mother
Of the valley,
Carried water
Of the Welsh hills,
Down to a forgiving sea.

Shadow Land

A wolf walked with me once.

Or did I walk with him?
I know he set the pace.
We padded softly
Through a shadow land.
He knew me then,
Watching with gentle eyes.
And when we heard the drum,
We'd dance.
And we would run,
My heart beating fast,
Me, gasping for breath.
Until we came one day
Into a glade of light.
And there he left me.