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 21 March 2018

spring equinox 2018 (poem)




Even in snow

Kwan Yin holds still
in her quiet pool. We visit
to pay our respects to
the open heart
of this green place

and the single pink
floating camellia blossom –
the way it speaks spring
even as it lets go.

This week the snows
have come back –
at first light a barn owl
swept up from our courtyard

on the breath
of this turning world
this white world –
itself a snowflake
hanging in dark space.


Roselle Angwin, March 2018

 



Kwan Yin is the Buddhist goddess of loving-kindness or compassion. The photo comes from a mindfulness walk I led at National Trust Greenway last week.



4 comments:

  1. Love the poem.
    I'm envious of your barn owl. I haven't seen one here for about 35 years.
    Bx

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Belinda. We've a couple here - saw one quartering the field opposite last dusk. Excellent scrubby land for owls to hunt! Rx

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  2. I love this poem, Roselle. And I love your Kwan Yin! I'm very envious of that quiet pool-space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Mo! Not 'mine' though - she lives at Greenway, where I was leading a mindfulness walk. x

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