Five Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

 

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/