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

Wednesday 31 August 2016

postcards from France



we come here bent out of shape by our fears
our doubts our jealousies our rage
we think they lean on us   bend us low
but it is we who do the leaning

we forget that we are breathed by something
so much larger than ourselves
we forget that the universe loves
to open its bright wings in our chest

*



bee bends the white-lipped serpolet
green silence rises from the woodpecker's throat
tonight let me fall up through the indigo canopy
to those billion eyes of stars

*


 


how fast the long legs of memory stride away
he said to you once that your side of the hill
was where he wanted to be
and what is left of that now?
the hills between you many and vast
and the ocean

 *


so what says the lizard in its quick-flick-crack-in-the-wall
so what says the eagle in its long slow glide over your head
so what says the Buddha on his stone as old as these mountains
the Buddha who's seen it over and over before
who says loss is an illusion and clinging's an illusion
and death's an illusion

what matters is this here now

*


so dance for the river's loyalty
dance for first light on the aspen leaves
and dance for god   whatever that may be

while you can




© Roselle Angwin 2016

6 comments:

  1. Utterly beautiful, Roselle. Thanks.
    love Marg xx

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  2. Thank you, Marg! I think you've been here?

    Love, Rx

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  3. I have! but not quite so eloquently! xxx

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    Replies
    1. Bet you were just as eloquent in your voice! x

      Delete
  4. 'We forget that we are breathed by something
    so much larger than ourselves'...What a good line...it sometime takes retreating to such a beautiful place as you've photoed to remember you've forgotten! ;-)

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  5. Thanks, Peter! Once again, delighted you visit from time to time.

    Gardoussel, where I run two weeks of writing retreats in late summer, is stunning. It's hard to do it justice in photos, somehow.

    ReplyDelete

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