Bees
This year, we mark them by their absence.
There is a stillness in the bee’s balm,
a withering of early blossoms and still no bees:
will they ever come back? The bee-keepers
don’t seem to know as they scratch their heads
and search dry colonies only to find
dead and dusty hives, with cells devoid
of the lust and life of their former inmates.
Each day we watch over the flowers,
and hum as we wait for the bees to buzz:
“will ye no come back again …”
Monet at Giverny
1
his lily pond
a mirror shattering
shards of clouds
flames beneath the lilies
fractured fish
2
the executioner stripes evening
a cross the sacrificed horizon
in blood we were born
in earth will we rest
our flesh turned to bread
empurpled this imperial wine
streaming with day’s death
these troubled waters
3
green footprints the lily pads
a halo
this drowned man’s beard
liquescent
like the gods
he dreamed
he walked dry over water
flowering goldfish
this thin line of cloud
4
maples flash ruby thoughts
ripples flowing outwards
as heavy as a stone at Stonehenge
this altar tumbling downwards
through a liquid sky
5
wisteria and his curly blue locks
Narcissus clad in an abyss of lilies
imperial his reflection and perilous
slowly he slides to sleep
merging into his imaged dream
a vaulted cathedral
his earthbound ribs
the blood space immaculate
6
night and day and sun and clouds
leapfrogging over water
something survives
sepia tints
dreaming on and on
exotic this sudden movement
Carassius auratus flowering
7
Clos Normand and the Grande Allée
closed to him now
folded his flowers
their petals tight at his nightfall
dark their colours
mourning for his mornings of light
fled far from him now
8
can we soften this sunstroke of brightness
le roi soleil threatening to blind us?
rey de oros
the sun glow braiding itself
an aureate palette
a susurration of leaves
9
the lady of the lake
holding out her hand
handing him an apple
l’offrande du coeur
a scarlet heart of flame
monochromatic this island
brown earth in a crimson lake
the world reborn in tulips
10
especially
when the dying sun
molten fire spreading
a limpid light
sky brimming over into pond
trapped in low clouds
a slash of colour here
and there a tree
a fountain of gold
the sun an apple
blushing
on a setting branch
11
silver-white the money plant
moonlight between fine-tuned fingers
its rattle of seeds
blunt the moon’s bite
raked from water
gaunt its gesture
matched ripples
face to face
with the moon
12
upside down these clouds
bright in their winter boats
the night wind blows
clean dry bones
across the sky
13
fish aloft like birds
skimming wet sunshine
spring’s first swallow
rising from the depths
to snatch a golden note
quivering in the air
14
thunder raises dark ripples
lightning a forked tongue
insinuated into paradise
an apple tossed away
caution thrown over the shoulder
as sharp as salt
15
winds of change
that first bite
too bitter to remember
16
timeless this tide
this ebb and flow
oh great pond-serpent
biting your own tail
forever
Comment:
A real Golden Oldie and going back a long way. I just re-discovered it. Funny how these things become lost and abandoned. Then they resurface. This is from Though Lovers Be Lost, available online should you wish to continue with its poetry!
Click on the link below to purchase the book
Rage, Rage, 25
A carton of eggs,
milk left behind,
a walking stick
abandoned on a cart,
discovered
in the lost and found
in the supermarket.
My cousin’s face,
her daughter’s name,
the parking spot
where I left my car.
Time and place
wave goodbye
and are quickly gone.
So much has become
ephemeral.
“What day is it today?”
I check my watch
for the third or fourth time.
I forget phone numbers.
I look at photos
but they are blank spaces,
gaps in the photo album.
Scenes on the tv screen –
“I recognize those faces,” I mutter,
“who are they?
Where did I see them before.”
Comment:
Ephemeral – “Something that is fleeting or short-lived is ephemeral, like a fly that lives for one day or text messages flitting from cellphone to cellphone.” Heraclitus says we can never step in the same stream twice – because the waters are not the same and neither are we. We change, things change. They do not stay the same. Here today and gone tomorrow. Like the flowers our kind neighbor brought us when our kitty cat passed away last week. She, too, was ephemeral. Just like the flowers. Just like us.
Some things leave us with sorrow – our pussy cat was 18 years old, and her passing took away her pain. Yet she still left us sad and grieving. And those 18 years seemed to pass in a dream. Where did they, where did she go? There is sorrow too in memory loss. The days of our lives, once fresh their memories, now filling with a sadness as we try to recall them. Memory loss – one of the great sorrows of aging.
So many things slipping away. Seasons passing. Daylight hours waning then waxing again, just like the moon. Water between fingers. Grains of sand through the hour glass. So many blank faces in the photo album. “Who is that?” “I can’t remember.” More and more of the family names fading away, slipping into the distance. And all too soon, we shall join them, leaving an empty nest, for, as Cervantes once wrote – “No hay pájaros en los nidos de antaño” – there are no birds in last year’s nests.
Carved in Stone
63
Words descend, soft and peaceful.
They brush my mind
with the hushed touch
of a grey jay’s soundless wings.
Yet the grey jays have gone,
vanished along with the grosbeaks,
evening, pine, and rose breasted.
Words can hardly express what I feel
in this diminishing world
when I inhale color and light.
Dawn bursts into bloom,
and the indoor hyacinth starts,
once more, to blossom.
Its immanent beauty
fills me with a warmth
that disperses night’s shadows,
taking away all sense of gloom.
Commentary:
The indoor hyacinth starts, once more, to blossom. Its immanent beauty fills me with a warmth that disperses night’s shadows, taking away all sense of gloom. Indeed it does. Once upon a time, it became infested with little bugs and was reduced to one leaf. Clare worked with it, spoke to it, cajoled it, and bit by bit it came back to life. Now it lives in the front porch in summer and returns to the house, southern aspect, in winter, to flourish when least we expect it.
Hyacinth, Jamaica in Spanish. And nothing more delicious than the miel de jamaica that one is offered in Oaxaca, fruit juice squeezed from the hyacinth flowers. “My wife has gone to the West Indies.” “Jamaica?” “No, she went of her own accord.” Humor flows and the hyacinth flowers, and I spend my winter hours sitting and watching my indoor flowers.
Yet the grey jays have gone, vanished along with the grosbeaks, evening, pine, and rose breasted. They used to flock on the picnic tables but as the weather warmed, they went further north. I remember when 64 mourning doves perched on the power lines. Now, we have two or three who look lonely in the garden and sound even lonelier. Words can hardly express what I feel in this diminishing world when I inhale color and light, but long for the passerines’ morning and evening flight.
But, in spite of all that, sad as it is, the hyacinth’s immanent beauty fills me with a warmth
that disperses night’s shadows, taking away all sense of gloom.
Daffodils
Winter’s chill lingers well into spring.
I buy daffodils to encourage the sun
to return and shine in the kitchen.
Tight-clenched fists their buds,
they sit on the table and I wait
for them to open.
For ten long days the daffodils
endured, bringing to vase and breakfast-
table stored up sunshine and the silky
softness of their golden gift.
Their scent grew stronger as they
gathered strength from the sugar
we placed in their water, but now
they have withered and their day is done.
Dry and shriveled they stand paper-
thin and brown, crisp to the touch.
They hang their heads as their time
runs out and death weighs them down.
Commentary:
A sad poem, really, for a wet, damp, dark, chilly day that begs for some light and warmth. And what warmth and light daffodils bring. Not to mention their delicate scent that lingers long in the nostril, faint, but intoxicating. For ten long days the daffodils endured. This was a joy in itself. Sometimes cut flowers wither so quickly. But ten days … wow! And they do indeed bring to vase and breakfast-table stored up sunshine and the silky softness of their golden gift.
Their scent grew stronger as they gathered strength from the sugar we placed in their water. Indeed it did. And the sugar itself enhanced their ability to linger on. A little Somerset trick that, all the way from Zummer Zet where the cider apples grow. And no, you can’t have real cider without real cider apples from real cider apple trees. But never forget Sally the Sozzled Sow – she got into the storage shed and drank about five gallons of the stuff. It was all over the newspapers. She got loose and knocked the milk churns over and rolled them in the clover. The corn was half cut at the time, and so was she.
Dry and shriveled they stand paper-thin and brown, crisp to the touch. So sad when this starts to happen. Then one day, they just fade away. And then they hang their heads as their time runs out and death weighs them down. Sad, really, as I said at the start – but we must never forget the joy and light and happiness they bring us when they are in their prime.
Sweet Dreams
Amnesia survives in these amniotic waters,
moving in time to the water pump’s heart beat.
I close my eyes and dream. Nothing is the same.
Do I drift dreamily or dreamily drift?
The bath-tub’s rose-petals bring memories –
primroses, bluebells, cowslips, daffodils dancing
beneath the trees in Blackweir Gardens,
or beside Roath Lake, where I biked
on gravel paths so many years ago.
Photos float before me, pictures of moments
I alone recall. Spring in Paris, the trees
breaking into bud along the Champs-Élysées.
Santander in summer, walking the Piquío
as it slumbers beneath the jacarandas.
One winter in Wales, up in Snowdonia,
I ran down a valley between high hills,
on a freezing night, with only the stars
to keep me company, so cold, I nearly froze.
Autumn at the Peace Park in Mactaquac,
with leaves reflected in the head pond.
Or the Beaver Pond with its fall orgy
of gaudily painted trees, leaves drifting down
on this first chill wind, to settle like tiny,
colorful birds in my beloved’s hair.
I remember the look in her eyes when
I caught a falling leaf and put it in
her pocket, telling her to save it,
like a falling star, for a rainy day.
Autumn
and all that jazz
1
Slow last drag of summer’s sad trombone
sliding its airs between stark, naked trees.
Golden memories float face down in tranquil
waters, life and the summer drained away.
A voice, her voice, ripples across the pond,
echoes over drowned and mirrored leaves.
2
Grey the sky, white the birch trees:
Narcissus kneeling, dark waters flooding
Tumble-dried by this autumn sky,
leaf words falling, still her voice echoes.
3
Tintinnabulation: a tin-pan alley of leaves
blown against windscreen and car windows.
I, who a grief ago sat here watching her walk,
now sit here alone, waiting for her return.
4
Here beginneth the gospel of the fall,
the fall of all things finally into deep water.
Fall, fall asleep to the rhythmic leaf beat
that summons us all to our appointed end.
5
I who am nothing know nothing, save that I
am a burnt-out ember, cold, in a grey-ash grate.
Grating of old bones, these hips and knees,
and if I fall, sweet heart, please love me more.
Commentary:
The trees and the grass are all stressed out and we are looking at an early fall this year. So many bright berries on our Mountain Ash and Crab Apple trees. Yet the grass all dry, the hollyhocks brittle, and so many flowers dried up and gone.
Butterflies
Miguel de Unamuno
… butterflies … temporal forms … fluttering …
existing for one sweet day … they perch … spread
their wings … fan us with their beauty … flourish …
catch our attention … then caught by a gust
tear their wings on a thorn … and perish … blink
your eye and they are gone … yet reborn … they
cluster and gather in dusty ditches …
congregate on bees’ balm … smother Black-Eyed
Susan and Cape Daisy … shimmer in shade …
butterflies by day … fireflies by night …
terrestrial stars floating in their forest
firmament … dark tamarack … black oak … bird’s
eye maple … silver birch … impermanence
surrounds us … dances beneath stars … sings with
robins … echoes the owl’s haunting cry …
eternity held briefly in our hands …
then escaping like water or sand … black
words on white paper capturing nothing …
… my dialog … my time … my place … butterflies …
Note: “La poesía da permanencia a las formas temporales del ser / Poetry gives permanence to the temporal forms of the self.” Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)
The temporal forms of the self – and so much today is unsettled, changing, insubstantial. I have often wondered how one makes time stop. Is it even possible to do so? Time and tide wait for no man. And why should they? Fray Luis de León – “Con paso silencioso, el cielo vueltas dando, las horas del vivir le va hurtando.” / With silent step, the ever-turning sky, steals away life’s hours. Or Fancisco de Quevedo – “Que sin saber ni cómo, ni adónde, la edad y la salud se hayan huído. Falta la vida, asiste lo vivido, y no hay calamidad que no me ronde.” Without me knowing how or where, age and health have fled. Life is lacking, past life flew by, and there isn’t a calamity that doesn’t hound me.
Ars longa, vis brevis – art endures, life flies by. My translations are freer than usual today, but I too feel like being creative in my own language. So, if we can’t slow time down, what can we do? We can create – poems, paintings, photos. We can read – and translate from one language to another. We can, like butterflies, perch on flowers and enjoy our brief days in the sun. Mindfulness – we can make the most of each moment by living it thoroughly and well. Carpe diem – we can seize each moment of every day and live it to its full measure. And, above all, we can write and read poetry – because, as Unamuno says – Poetry gives permanence to the temporal forms of the self.
Fall Folly Age
Fall Folly Age aka Fall Foliage is a play on words.
Thank you, Moo, my painter friend, for putting this title
on your painting and allowing me to use it for one of my book covers.
After intense heat
the garden is dusty dry.
The hollyhocks,
stressed out,
bow their heads
and tumble down.
Before the heat,
heavy rain drenched
the flowerbeds.
The yucca subsided
beneath waves of water.
One hollyhock,
regally proud,
stored so much liquid
in its flowery crown
that it bent and broke.
The mountain ash
bears a host of berries.
Bright orange,
they are already turning
to their winter shades.
I see so much stress
in the little world
I inhabit.
I no longer listen
to the news
or watch TV.
So much is beyond
my control.
Yet I can control
the radio and the TV
by turning them off.
The friends I meet
now have white hair.
Like me and my flowers,
they are dried up
and bent, held up
by sticks and canes.
My beloved and I
are growing old together.
We watch each other
with great care
wondering who
will be the first
to topple and fall.
Comment:
It has been a long, long time since I last wrote on my blog. Many things have distracted me, including editing books for friends, working on my own books, journaling, painting, and surfing the web in search of something positive to read. As for my own books, I published four this summer. Clepsydra – Chronotopos I, Carved in Stone – Chronotopos II, Rage Rage – Chronotopos III, and No Dominion – Chronotopos IV. Maybe I will try to post on a regular basis and copy some of those poems here, in my blog.
Comment:
The poetry flows. But if I publish it here, I cannot use it in competitions and there are many around right now.
So, instead of a poem in words – a poem in colors and lines. I have portrayed several of my acquaintances and friends in the flower faces. Luckily, I am such a terrible artist that you will be unable to recognize yourselves! So choose one you like – and pretend that it’s you.
I hope this painting will cheer your day and bring some happiness and sunshine to you wherever you are.
rogermoorepoet 