Saturday, 20 June 2015
poem for the summer solstice 2015
Last night I stood outside
where the wind had loosened the oaks back into their own quietude
watched Venus Jupiter and the moon slide over the western horizon –
benevolent planets conjunct in the rinsed-blue sky of a midsummer night.
We’re always travelling east following the path of the sun
always seeking new beginnings
I lose track of days time seems so irrelevant –
is it two years or three since we last walked the sacred stones together?
How your smile used to break my heart
as the fullness of summer lanes does now and always –
astringency of meadowsweet enigmatic bells of foxglove
hidden lives of trefoil vetch wild strawberry
What is there to say that is not already being said by the trees to the wind
by the blossom to the light by the animals
burrowing in their intimate darkness in the earth’s skin?
And us – how we spend our days skyjumping out of the paradise
that is here now immanent
then the rest of our lives like Icarus flying towards the sun.
© Roselle Angwin
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A very lovely, tender, poignant poem, Roselle, which seems to reflect so much of my own feelings: of wonder and celebration mingled with grief, the need to lose the awareness of time's passing, the need to find new words when the landscape around speaks for itself and us.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like that 5th stanza where you answer the question – 'What is there to say that is not already said by the trees to the wind' –with the imagery that follows.
But it needs no analysis, it breathes on its own. I think you'll always find the words, Roselle.
It reminds me of the mood I was in after I'd written a farewell poem to my father in summer 2012 just a year after he'd died and a few months after my first Iona, which I associate strongly with him though he never visited as far as I know.
It's hard when the last parent dies. I guess you must be feeling it too, or something like it?
Miriam x
Hi dear Miriam
ReplyDeleteThank you for those kind and affirmative words on my blog. It's always lovely to know when they resonate!
I'm just back from my Exmoor weekend facilitating work with horses - extraordinary, and what a privilege.
Hope all's well with you.
Rx