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 19 January 2014

from the rainblack ash (a poem)

From  the Rainblack Ash

In the water gardens the day in their hands
is all scintilla and snakes of water
those coiling ribbons of light –
she needs to lap at it like a dog

down on hands & knees
on the slippy oak walkway
then the enmeshing nets of rain in the cherry
in winter sun; the green day

silhouetting them. It’s too much
naming this November ‘spring’
but they do, and do
again: that green water on her tongue

the light reframing itself
over & over till her head
is awash with a Glassworks pattern
in a minor key, brimming


before the crossroads
& on the blind bend
(the pub – the fire, the soup,

what might have been)
 

the urgent words skeining between them
which is not much of a reason
for the hot press
of their side-by-side bodies, though

their brief private joy is; and the vastness of the world
and winter, and the long lonely night –
and that this day will never
be theirs again –

and the crashing horde just outside the doors
of a war they did not choose, and sudden loss
and deaths that are not theirs, but are;


but still, listen, outside now
that one last thrush unspooling song
from the rainblack ash.






© 2005 Roselle Angwin in Looking for Icarus (bluechrome)



2 comments:

  1. What a beautiful poem Roselle..as they all are.. I appreciate , and am touched by your blog posts and writing, and have found them so profound and inspirational to my own , too long quiet, secret, (sacred?) creative self. You give me the courage, faith, to try at long last to express this other, perceiving (and perceived) self; a way of seeing that can perhaps emerge, more clearly, as a way of being,doing, also, in the world.. .. I think that sounds clunky. it is hard to articulate. Yet there is such huge gratitude in coming across one with such deep powers of observation of the natural, the beautiful, the all too human and above all the implicit divinity, unity..interconnectedness of life, combined with such an ability to transform all of those into language,poetry, that has both depth and lightness, is energetic and yet still. Your work is truly beautiful.
    Thank you Roselle, and may this year be one of deep nourishment and creativity, health and happiness for you

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  2. Dear Anon, I was moved enormously by your lovely words. Thank you SO much. It means a great deal to know that people visit and experience something from the blog - quite awed by our ability to connect electronically with kin across the world.

    I wish for you the courage to let your 'secret creative and too long quiet self' emerge into a light where it is appreciated and honoured.

    We need to join hands, all of us who know that the earth, and our being human, and consciousness, are all precious, fragile and amazing things. Those people, like yourself, who aren't afraid to reach out and say 'Hey - that meant something to me' are so much needed in this cynical self-seeking C21st culture. Blessings on you, as they say.

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