Hunter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Hunter

 

The heart is hunting alone and lean

after the things she thinks she has seen;

 

after meat on the doe not the sweetgrass sea

wind-combed in waves to wild-braided streams;

 

after the caterpillar's cuts and devours

not the greenstem-road to wings that it follows.

Her running breath catches at all the wrong times

at the taste of the dove, not the air it can climb.

The heart is hunting and so cannot fly

for that most alive is the thing which must die

 

too heavy to carry

too sought to let lie.

 

But when the hunt falters, breath evens and slows.

When the hunter suddenly unstrings her bow

what was looked for is seen in a stillness of light;

 shining like tears in the last hour of night.

 

 

 

 July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Wild Stillness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Hunter, artist unknown, via internet   Fair Use

Woman in Grass, © Fosco Maraini, via internet Fair Use

Sevenling: Owl In The Night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sevenling: Owl In The Night

Owl in the night

mouse in the grass

wind behind wide wings

like my own heart I feel you fly

my voice a mouse-cry

as wide wings beat the light from

the moon to my eye.

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on sevenlings if you haven't met one before: "The sevenling is a poem of seven lines inspired by the form of [a].. much translated short verse by Anna Akhmatova (1889 - 1966)...The first three lines should contain an element of three - three connected or contrasting statements, or a list of three details, names or possibilities..lines four to six should similarly contain an element of three connected directly or indirectly or not at all..The seventh line should act as a narrative summary or punchline or as an unusual juxtaposition..A sevenling should be titled Sevenling followed by the first few words in parentheses The tone of the sevenling should be mysterious, offbeat or disturbing, giving a feeling that only part of the story is being told.."~Roddy Lumsden

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl and Moon, ©Alan Perry All Rights Reserved Fair Use

birdperson image author unknown via Sunday Muse Fair Use

 

Moon Moth

Moon Moth

I made my home

on a broken world

that I found in the space

between breaths,

golden dark as your eyes

long ago 

fireflies, quenched moons

yellow with light in

the river mist.

Time crawled out

on my veins

like an inchworm and hung,

a floating cocoon

spun from brown autumn's dust.

One dream

in a decade kept a blind sun's vigil

on the soft shape within, and

time's opalescent shell

pledged a constancy malleable

to the formless thing

growing her wings.

All this while

I wandered as a wind

in the tree of bound hours, 

up and down, warm

 in your scent of basil and chai

til the years at last

became harder

than miles

til the earth became still

till the flowers sighed,

waiting for time

to fall or fly.

~February 2020

posted for earthweal's challenge

A Clockwork Green 

Brendan asks us to look at time, the natural world, and many other things this week, out of which I chose : "What happened to time? Spin the clockfaces crazily and get a feel for a present both timesick and solastalgic."

Images: Moth Wing ©Amelia Fletcher   Fair Use

The Lonely Cedar, 1907 ©Tivadar Koszta Csontvary   Public Domain

Homeless Warrior

 

Homeless Warrior

Born refugee in a gypsy's flight

to mismatch love for wherever I might be:

flowers in the pavement, lakes behind brick,

gnomes at a cotillion, cobalt sea spilling

in dunes at the sun's yellow forge

til my heart was rolled flat

to cut out round moons

with a steelsilver punch

so light passes through me

without shadow or reflection.

If tears fall, it's a petaldrop

of old flowers passing, of dust devils, gliding

unimpeded and small through

the moon-shaped holes

where the red warrior glow

of an eon's earth blood is

just a waver in that dark

where the sword falls to rust

and time takes the trowel

from the gardener's hand

whose broken her legs, her back and her heart.

The bowl wants its dust

the wind wants its wildfire

and what I might want is their last desire,

but the heat of the fight, the miles in the eye, 

the pilgrims of roses proclaim what they form--

warcries, or lovesongs still riding the storm.

February 2020

posted for earthweal's weekly challenge

Solastalgia

Images: Trafficking in Human Beings, 1894, by Joaquin Sorolla Public Doman

Joan of Arc kisses the sword of liberation, 1863, by Dante Garbriel Rossetti, Public Domain manipulated.

The Nest

The Nest

In the dark of dreams

the heartbird flew

far and wide till she came to my arms.

I built her a nest of silver and blue

wisps and mirrors and scraps of sky,

lined with the down from my own broken wings;

but she cocked her head, blinked her jet-bead eye

and jumped to my breast.

With head tucked to my chin,

her warmth and mine 

cupped 

and entwined,

together we slept

through the tempest outside

heartbeat to heartbeat

against

the cold tide.

~September 2017

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Images: The Phoenix Bird, 1990, ©Viorel Marginean     Fair Use
Oak Fractured By A Lightning, 1842, Maxim Vorobiev   Public Domain