from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Sunday 30 December 2012

poem: ego as a robin












It’s like an umbilical: I appear
in the kitchen and robin appears
in the puddled courtyard perched
on the drenched picnic bench
(the one we’ve barely used this year
where my spinach, kale and artichoke
plantlets are still in transit) and cocks its
head (no way of knowing if it’s a he or a she), 
tilts a sharp eye my way. Go away I say I’ve fed you
four times this morning and it’s only midday
but it or he or she nods at the window
seems to bow, turns its head
this way and that and hops closer still and closer
and I smile and throw a slew of oats
into the sodden courtyard and think how it is
that, even sated, it’s our desires that keep us alive.
We’re not so dissimilar, robin and I at core:
having everything I need, still I crave more.



© Roselle Angwin 28.12.12


1 comment:

  1. Oh, a parallel world, Roselle - this is how I speak to the dear, bold pheasant who runs up the garden to me each day - not quite feeding out of my hand, but certainly not fearing me - which is just as pleasing.
    And also, this is me...knowing that I have all that I need, still I want more. (Thought I suppose there is a heirarchy of 'needs' - so perhaps not all of mine are met...?)
    My chosen word for this year is 'enrichment'... I want more of that, rather than material wants - acknowleding this helps, in some way, to not end up feeling (quite so) greedy :-)

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