On pacticing Yinyi

On Practicing Yinyi

Like a scholar in the bamboo grove keeping a small flame burning, while the grand courts collide.

I hold an ancient scroll and sometimes scratch on it myself when words insist.

Mainly, I enjoy the whispering when the breeze catches the leaves, the leaves and the changing light.

That rumble can only be thunder. Shall we have rain soon? That would be welcome.

The Promise

​I see the sun

Peaking tentatively over roof tops.

Oh joy, it is back!

The winter gloom lifts fleetingly.

​Life will continue.

​Deep under the earth

A small furry thing

Stirs gently in its sleep,

Feeling a low thrum;

Then sleeps deeper for a while,

Happy to know

Spring will come again.

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

As I grew up 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 the "other ranks;" called discably, common soldiers. They were the incredible women who were left with children to care for but 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 their 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.

 

Optimism

The fruit is eaten,

The commitment made.

The seed is planted

In cool earth;

A gentle womb in which

To rest the winter through.

And then, first stirrings;

Cell by cell awakening,

Slowly, but quickening,

Bursting,

Into a world unready,

Tender, fragile,

But full of optimism.

In Earth

Rock

Water

Cleansing

Corroding

Re-forming  

Light
Power

Warmth

Sunshine

Energizing

Leaf

Tree

Strength

Rooted
In earth

Scribbling on trains

How many poets are there writing on commuter trains?
Does every carriage contain someone?
Are they scribbling in a notebook?
Or tapping their phone?
Each one reflecting on their own view reality.
While the world is too busy to look.
But each one wants to share something,
And sometimes someone peers over another's shoulder.
And wonders!
Meanwhile each one adopts the rules
Specific to writing on trains,
Pretending not to want attention.

Sunlight confounds my cat

Sunlight confounds my cat.

Warm in one spot she loves
She lounges and then sleeps.
The sunbeam,
As sunbeams always must,
Moves on.
The lovely source of warmth
Has gone,
The world has turned
And Socky wakes
To stretch a leg
And lick her belly.
Then, with resignation, she adjusts,
Finds the new pool of yellow light,
And sleeps again.

Roses, roses, all the way

Thus, the rose,

Is rose red.
Not pink.
No, never pink.
I'm not a pink.
Oh, why not pink?
Is pink too girly?
Probably!
I don't do pink.
I do red, though.
The reddest red.
Passion,
Even though
All passion's spent.
A dusty red?
Perhaps,
A little like
Dried blood?
Oh, no,
More like an old red rose.
Yes, that's me.

Spring Flowers

Spring flowers trembling
In a breeze too cold.
Small beads of light
In the brief sunshine
Of a gloomy afternoon.

My heart sighs to see them,
And then it sings;
As they wield
Tiny swords of hope,
Against winter's grey despair.

I am the child of light

I am the child of light.
Tenacious child!
Always there,
Present, constant like the sea,
Ebbing and flowing,
With the breath.

I am the child of light.
The fluid child!
Forever in flux,
Dissolving and re-assembling,
Foaming and reforming,
Marking each tide.

I am the child of light.
Starburst child!
Born of the galaxy,
Closer than a heart beat,
Loud as a thunder clap,
And softer than a rose.

Spirit Music

I waited

And I'm waiting again.

And dreaming

As I did then

Long ago.

Far away I had

The same dream.

Now, it's a new day.

And, again you show me

A wisp of  reality.

But you play with my dreams

As you play with your music.

Making for me a lovely melody

That's lost on the wind

And forgotten

Solstice Chatter

"What time's the Solstice?"

"It's tomorrow;" said triumphantly.

"No, I mean the exact time."

Now, I get that look.
"Why?"

And, of course, I can't say why it matters.

But it does.

Perhaps the wheel turns faster?

No, there'd be trouble if it did.

There might be a shimmer in the air,

or, maybe, a fluttering of leaves?

Anyway, the earth does know somehow.

I'm sure of it and I'm determined.

"What time is the Solstice exactly?"

Puzzle piece

that place

between spaces

where we meet

is all there ever was

you, me and time

really?

no, 

not all

time and motion

motion and time

flow

no more or less
just flow

DRIVE TIME

Drive Time

An Afternoon,

Somewhere between autumn and winter,

And we are driving,

I don't know where.

I can't remember why.

Sometimes, we just started driving.

Was there a destination?

That piece of road,

Seen through the filtered sunlight,

Stays with me,

And I don't know why