earth

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.

 

 

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.

Kilauea

lillian12 Comments

Thick viscous red-orange glows
slowly oozes over blackened fissures,
moonlight its only witness.

Pele’s tresses lengthen in waves
undulate, hiss, bubble heat
flow surely, but slowly, angry not.

Ancestral guardian hesitant to erupt
she lives, breathes forward warning
all shall be buried in quiet wakefulness.

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Photo: from our lava walk on the Big Island in Hawaii. We walked on Kilauea — it is still continually and slowly flowing, adding land mass. Pele is the Fire Goddess and considered creater of the Hawaiian Islands. Her flows create her hair, smooth waves of hardened lava. Late to the party — I am postint to Open Link Night at dVerse Poet’s Pub.

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.

Bryce Canyon

lillian17 Comments

Paiutes called them Legend People turned to stone by Coyote. I call them mystical.

Silhouettes evolved from ancient seaway. Columns of ochre and orange-pink. Water, ice and gravity had their way with you. Slot canyons so narrow the head strains up for blue. Shadowed red when sun slants in. Thin rims so high there is nothing but everything beside. We tread in awe among these hoodoo pillars. This place of craggy, sharp-edged, smooth, fantastical shapes.

Rocks eroded tall
time escaped in canyons deep
we like specks of dust.

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It was Haibun Monday at dVerse, the Pub for Poets. Rajani is tending bar and asked us to write about a travel experience. Haibun is “richly woven prose amplified by simple yet profound haiku. In its traditional sense, it connects to nature and travel. Photos from trip to Bryce many years ago. 

What Death Lies Here

lillian26 Comments

The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.
Tombstones crumble, long passed souls embrace
‘neath palmetto fronds, while angels pray unseen.

And one lone cherub, an alabaster figurine
guards still the lad beneath her, quiet in grace.
The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.

The sea nearby crashes waves of aquamarine,
spews salted grits of sand through air to stone efface.
Sacred words, names and years, all but erased
yet bones and dust beneath, feed this earth serene
the tall waving grasses are always green.

Gayle, in dVerse, asked us to create a Rondel: 3 verses (2 quatrains and a quintet). It must have a refrain: Lines 1 & 2 are repeated in lines 7 & 8; and line 1 must also be line 13.  The rhyme scheme must be ABBA   ABthen-line-1-and-line-2   ABBAthen-line-1.  The challenge is to have the form “disappear” within the meaning of the poem.  Photos: from our walk yesterday which included meandering through St. Peter’s cemetery, established in 1854, located atop a hill in St. George’s Bermuda.

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.

…and the waters shall flow

lillian32 Comments

We will cross the bridge tomorrow, following bagpipes and the hearse.

Ancient stones shape two arches and guide the current’s flow. Last week’s storm brought a rush of silt and murky waters. Today the river is clear and calm. I see fish moving in and out among pebble mounds. The sun moves slowly across the scene, leaving shadows in its wake, but I remain on its golden side. My gaze moves to the road beyond. And I know, although I cannot see, the plots are there, just around the bend.

Heron waits, ready to pluck
fish flow ‘neath ancient bridge
life moves through to death.

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Written for dVerse, a Pub for Poets….Haibun Monday #6.  Gabriella Skriver shared several of her photos and asked that we choose one to motivate our writing for today. I loved this bridge one. A haibun begins with short compact prose and concludes with a haiku — the haiku cannot be a duplicate of the prose, but must be complementary. Generally, a haibun in the true sense of the form includes elements of nature and moves to an inimitable truth.

Bermuda Morn

lillian13 Comments

Dark bird shapes in nearby palmetto
chatter loudly as clouds move by,
long fronds ruffle-whisper in ocean breeze.

Across the bay, one by one, lights disappear
grey sky blanket daubed with white blotches
lifts slowly to reveal brilliant blue.

Birds, now distinctly yellow, sing to me
kis-ka-dee, kis-ka-dee
and a Bermuda morning dawns.

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We are in St. George’s, Bermuda till March 29. Arrived yesterday. Photo is view from our deck at dusk last evening. Poem was written very early this morning, sitting on this same deck, listening and watching dawn arrive. Pen in hand….sadly, not the camera. Imagine this same picture, at dawn, with this palmetto home to several Kiskadees! 

Orchard’s Plight

lillian44 Comments

Branches droop, shiny red and ready.
Apples ignored too long, skin once taut
now caved in, ooze on ground below.
Sweet, rot-alicious smell draws gnats
as fruit flies swarm over boot slick ground.
Orchard sulks as farmer tends to corn.

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Written for dVerse Poets’ Pub. The bar is tended by Victoria Slotto today and she urges us to write a poem in the style of Imagism….”the words are pure description.”  Photo Credit: Petra Winkler.