Life and Death Tree
Found in Triassic era fossils
from 200,000,000 years ago, the yew survived
our planet’s climatic changes. It connects
to those who went before.
Yew wood for spears, spikes, staves,
long bows, sacred carvings, magic wands.
Arrows tipped with yew poison.
Powerful protection against evil, the yew
is the bringer of dreams and other-world journeys,
the source of stillness, herald of death,
of new beginnings, transformation, rebirth.
The tree, once sacred to Hecate,
formed Druid groves, marked blind springs,
and ley line crossings.
Symbol of the afterlife.
The early Christian priests, while denying
the old gods, would yet build their churches
within the Druid's sacred circles.
Waves
Either drowning you in the blood
of patriotism, lifting you on the
upsurge of summer and sun
infusing you with new life,
or taking you downstream
to the freedom of the ocean
of unforeseen horrors
and wonders of the deep.
Life is a contradiction we’ll not
fathom while we resist
the direction of the flow.
The Prophet’s Vision
Wailers and howlers
wolves and hyenas.
A place of rest for the screech owl.
Specter.
Lilith flies by night.
Shaggy beasts take up their abode
in the powerful realm:
And the satyr shall cry to its fellow,
half goat and half man,
and Rome shall fall.
Her nobles shall be no more,
nor shall kings be proclaimed there,
all her princes are gone. Her castles
shall be overgrown with thorns,
her fortresses with thistles and briers.
Snow
It hadn’t snowed at the appointed time.
The peaks of the Pyrenees stood slate grey
and barren. Off-white and shredded,
snow blankets barely covered the lower slopes.
Stringy ghosts, Baqueira’s ski lifts, like clockworks,
moved in their pre-ordained paths, the tiny
seats solemnly nodding only to each other.
Defrauded, those huge stiff boots you’d think
are for the surface of the moon, skis and sticks
leaned with a melancholic air against the
wooden partition between changing rooms.
Some fashionable all-in-ones passed under
the half-open window, heads flicking carefully
coiffed manes, mouths twittering with added
zeal. After all, one was here to be seen.
The bars were full.
What started as a flurried dance that night, not sure
where up was or where down, anon took weight
and clear direction. ‘Down!’ was the inaudible cry,
followed by: ‘Spread out!’. Impossibly white,
cloud-loads of powdery snow descended
and soon camouflaged the world we knew.
When it was over, bar a few stragglers here
or there pirouetting slowly onto an absurdly
pristine shroud, our host said: 'Vamos, amigos!
Dress in your warmest.'
The cold moon, hung in cloudless black,
made our shadows ominous, they snaked
over mounds and into hollows ahead of us
and difficult to follow. That prodigious white stuff
restrained our progress.
Just when we thought we’d rather die
than take another aching step, we had arrived.
And 24 huskies, 12 to each sleigh,
were lying on moonlit and bejewelled white,
harnessed, ready, expectant, keen. Even today
I’d swear they had been grinning.
We cruised across the high plateau at speed,
the dogs, like bullets from a gun,
streamed across the shadowed white.
A spell had spun a web across our words.
The stars had dropped towards us and
we heard their tiny voices peeling
across the void.
Some light years later we returned
and woke from our trance.
The dogs released were calm and
sweated from their tongues, while
the champagne froze quickly in the plastic flutes.
yin and yang
Joyful equilibrium
Connect to your power
Move the world
She, them, their and his
Dance power
Balance life forces
Use the might of a spider yarn
Rose Mary Boehm is
a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of
two novels as well as six poetry collections. Her poetry has been published
widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated
for a Pushcart. DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? has been published by Kelsay
Books in July 2022 and is on Amazon. WISTLING IN THE DARK, just published by
Taj Mahal Publishing House, is also available on Amazon.
https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment