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

Tuesday, 22 September 2020

Poem for the autumn equinox: Migrations



 

Migrations, Autumn Equinox 2020



After the grief and trauma of this strange year
our yesterday was blessed by a young hare
in our garden, and the day before, its parent.

Later a flock of fieldfare sped over the meadow,
visitors from elsewhere, autumn in their wings.
Pumpkins are ripening and the days scented;

September’s slant light brings joy and melancholy
mixed as always, and especially now at the equinox.

Two days ago a cloud of swallows gathered over us

heading south. Night, I stand under the Milky Way,
vast river that carries us onward, look out for
Sirius, the Dog Star, whose time is late summer.

Some believe that our souls take flight starward
on death. How much this light from deceased
stellar bodies means to us, who are also stardust.





© Roselle Angwin

 

 

 

 


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