Nature

Bermudiana Morn

lillian48 Comments

I awake at dawn to sit outside,
watch darkness turn to light,
listen to the fantasia
composed by friends of flight.

Gulls screech, black birds caw,
blend in loud cacophony.
Yellow kiskadees sing their name
kiss-kah-dee atop palmetto tree.

Whistle woo, ee-ooh ee-oohs,
stutter sounds that stop and start.
Nature’s composition,
her ode to sunrise joy.

Sparrows peep and chirp beside me,
ruffle flutter wings then flee
startled by my scratching pen
scoring sounds of brightness in the morn.

Sun warms as notes begin to simmer
overture slowly ends.
Curtain rises on blue skies,
a new Bermuda day.

Thrilled to be guest-hosting dVerse Poetics today! Loving all things fantastical, my poem today uses “fantasia” as it relates to a musical free flow composition. Video from our deck in Bermuda, listening to the dawn. You’ll hear the Kiskadee (yellow bird) quite plainly. And this is one of my many feathered friends who came often to sit with me. Also applying to  NaPoWriMo Day 12.

How Long Can We Ignore?

lillian30 Comments

Alaska weeps daily. Generations of ice, layer upon layer, receding.
Our hush, accompanied by the incessant slow drip of her melting tears.
Like a primal scream from self-inflicted wound, the crack of calving
sends shock waves through our cold.

We turn gingerly, hiking sticks in hand, clamp-ons strapped to boots.
Our quiet retreat is nudged by descending mist. A veil to cover her shards.

Earth dies every day.
We stand on the precipice
blind to her needs.

Glacier melting.

Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse. Prompt is to reach out, write somehow about a silence among us.  Photos from our 2015 trip to Alaska. Chunks of ice as the cruise ship approaches Hubbard Glacier; its shelf looks so small here — in reality it is hugely tall and in the sun, appears as this beautiful color. Other two photos from our 5 mile hike to the toe of Laughton Glacier. The close-up is on the toe, rock debris carried as the glacier slowly moves.  Look closely, about in the middle of the photo, you’ll see the melting. Incessant melting creating glacier streams. We are all too silent, watching the effects of global warming.

 

 

April Cruelty

lillian38 Comments

Crocus seduce, daffodils beam,
we walk lighter, brighter.
Young women shed coats,
bellies concealed in down
bloom pregnant joy.

Temptress Spring,
hips swaying in soft breezes,
sashays to bed budding green.
Wakes at dawn,
cold white kisses shimmer,
laughs flurry at our foolish trust.

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Photo Credits: That’s me, this morning, April 4. On the porch in my bathrobe appalled at this cruel April snow! Crocus  photo by Swirls 71.
Written as a quadrille (44 words) for dVerse using the word “shimmer” and for NaPoWriMo Day 4‘s prompt to write about the cruelest month.

Mountain Gifts

lillian30 Comments

Back permanently bent from years at task,
large calloused hands firm to grasp,
gently assess tendrils amongst the greens.

Red kerchief upon her head, basket nearby
knapsack slung on hunched shoulders
eyes to ground, the healer gathers.

Moon watcher, earth cycles familiar
as her own once were. Old woman
wise in the land, one of generations.

Young girl, the next, hovers quietly
beside rivers, through brambles,
seeks to learn mountain’s gifts.

Veined hands reach, crack dogwood bark
fingers roll to crumble butterfly weed.
Touch, not eye, decides to take or not.

Blue cohash, huckleberry, lady slippers.
Sun fades. Moccasin flower roots,
tomorrow’s liquid for aching throat.

She walks the mountainside pharmacopeia
long Joe-pye-weed from the shores,
reishi mushrooms tucked below trees.

Purple fox glove for Pauni’s heart,
bee balm and peppermint leaves,
hawthorne twigs for ceremonial wreaths.

Harvest complete, they slowly return,
woman healer and one to be.
Stars orbit, complete the cycle
whilst moon waxes and wanes.

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Late for Tuesday Poetics when guest prompter Lynn asked us to write something related to mountains; so posting now at dVerse Open Links Night.  Photo Credit:  Michael and Christa Richert.

Rebirth in the Galaxy

lillian5 Comments

Somewhere, light years away,
what was held in trust
shall revive.

The first one thousand miles
between earth’s implosion
and moons’ forever paths,
churns debris, seeds of possibility,
until a shooting star ignites
and a new land births itself.

Small roots find their way
and those that flower understand,
heritage matters.
The Universe remembers
those who strove but could not save
scorched earth, her favorite son.

And so at Latitude 38
she creates a divine place,
reconfigured in her galaxy.
A quiet place of timbers
where midst aquamarine waters,
her children shall try again.

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Found Poetry: following titles taken from the bookshelf in our Bermuda rental: Held in Trust by The Bermuda National Trust; First One Thousand Miles by Gordon Phillips; The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard; Heritage Matters by Dr. Edward Harris; and Latitude 38 (a magazine). Photo: from a walk along Bermuda’s Old Rail Way Trail. Poem is inspired by Global Warming, something that too many seem to deny.

Before the Dawn

lillian47 Comments

Much has been written about the dawn of a new day. For me, it has always been the moments before that, which stir my soul. When dark shadow clouds and navy blue-black sky meld into india-ink black sea. It is all a scrim, a gauzed blanket that lies above and beyond with no horizon line.

The shoreline blurs, smudges, like a charcoal master piece. There are no browns, only shades of ebony and beginning blue. It is a delicious hush. Before the sun begins its slow ascent from underneath somewhere, slowly tinting edges into floating worlds of pink and violet, revealing solid lines and building shapes. Before that color of pales, there is only the unseen, blurring barely to the discernable. In that moment of suspended darkness, there is the presence of hope.

Clouds before the dawn
shadows undulate with hope
darkness woos my dreams

Written for Dverse Poets’ Pub Haibun Monday — this week Grace asked us to springboard from one of three given quotations.  I used the following: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” – Mary Oliver  A Haibun is prose, followed by haiku and usually underscores nature and some higher truth.

Nature’s Blessings

lillian4 Comments

Mid night rains nurture
palmetto and loquat trees,
pinball through ridges
on Bermudian white roofs,
then steep in afternoon tea.

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Tanka verse form: 5 lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Photos and explanation: Fruit of the loquat tree in Bermuda – ripe when very yellow. Bermuda has no rivers or lakes or island-wide plumbed water supply. Each household must collect and store rainwater. Roofs are treated and always white with ridges that take rain water to each home’s underground water tank. A household that runs out of fresh water must pay to have a company “top off” their tank. And yes, the water is absolutely safe to drink – I do it every day! Photo is taken from hill overlooking St. George’s – the town we are staying in for 2 months. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in 1612, and a British overseas territory, hence the reference to steeping tea. The Kiskadee is a beautiful yellow bird found in Bermuda.

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Sea Glass: Formed by Haiku and Tanka

lillian50 Comments

I
Swallowed by the sea
broken in anger, sharp words
shards of glass now smooth.

II
Shades of green, amber,
some clear. Smooth, mysterious
bits of tumbled glass.
Whose hands held you to their lips?
Touched where? A long time ago.

III
So reluctantly
she gave them up to the sands
sea memories in glass.

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Photos from our walk yesterday to the area outside of St. George’s, Bermuda called Tobacco Bay. Beautiful day to collect sea glass!  Post linked to dVerse Poet’s Pub for Open Link Night. A great virtual gathering place for poets.

Ebb and Flow

lillian47 Comments

Life is a path between the stars.
Tantrums at two were not my youth,
long before those days
cicadas nested in cedar trees.

Old age will not be defined
by creaking limbs and bleached bones.
I will float with abandon,
as myriad shades of liquid blue.

I shall become the ocean wide
waves crashing upon the rocks
seeping in and out,
among the sands of time.

The lunar tug shall continue me
and my waters shall lap the earth.

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Abhra hosts dVerse Poets’ Pub, Tuesday Poetics and asks us to answer the question, what would you like to be reborn as or return as?
Photos: from Bermuda, myriad shades of blue!
Interesting fact: cicadas were dependant on Bermuda Cedar trees for their survival, and when the cedar forests died in the 1940s, the cicadas began to quickly disappear. They are now extinct.