Two Poems by Gifford Savage

 

Aurora 
May 10 2024 
 
Long past midnight, 
staring into the darkness above. 
It seems everyone else in the world 
is enthralled by the lightshow 
right above their heads. 
Illuminating social media, 
with spectacular shimmering ribbons  
of purple, red, blue, violet and green. 
But I stare upwards in envy 
at Nothing / Zilch / Nada / Sweet FA! 
A fruitless waste of time, 
when I could be asleep safe in bed 
dreaming of fickle Northern Lights. 
 
Yet as I contemplate 
this peaceful moonlit sky, 
how blessed it is to be here – 
while elsewhere others live in fear  
of what the night might bring, 
of what fierce light might come, 
of what might fall from dark skies.

Aftermath 
 
Storm Kathleen arrived in spring, 
purifying with terrifying beauty and power. 
Thrashing through trees with wanton abandon, 
threatening to wrench roots from the earth, 
mischievously shaking magpies from their roosts 
hurling them spinning skyward, 
Squirrels clinging tightly rocking 
to unpredictable saxophonic gusts 
that wax and wane, 
whipping through bare limbs, 
as she shakes awake the waiting buds 
singing to them a promise of longer days. 
Graffiti-tagging her name in strewn branches, 
to write her history in the alphabet of twigs 
ripped from fractured trunks, 
falling alone to gather together 
in random windblown-wood pictograms, 
cast down to earth to form esoteric patterns 
conjuring images of Chinese characters, 
tossed like Mimih Spirit Sticks, 
or coppiced Nordic Runes 
magically evoking shamanism and divination, 
winnowed from living boughs 
to join the decomposing teeming leaf-litter. 
But there is beauty too in decay –  
in the secret mysteries of the saproxylic realm 

where death gives birth to new life.

Gifford Savage's poetry has been published in various journals, including The Storms, The Bangor Literary Journal, The New Verse News, Agape Review and previously in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal. He was included in the CAP anthology Across The Threshold and was winner of the Aspects Festival Poetry Slam 2022.