‘Fall’ a poem for the autumn equinox

Fall by Edward Hirsch 

 

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

 

 

Photograph Rose Cook

One Breath by Lisa Kristine

 

One Breath       Lisa Kristine

 

When my mother was dying

We made a agreement that when she passed

I would have to find her in new ways

 

She said,

 

You can find me in the wind

Or in the scent of a rose..

 

You will find me in the decisions you make…

 

Help each other

 

We are all children of the Gods

And we all share one language

And we all share one breath.

 

 

photograph Rose Cook

In Tall Grass- Carl Sandburg

 

Bees and a honeycomb in the dried head of a horse in a pasture corner —a skull in the tall grass and a buzz and a buzz of the yellow honey-hunters.   And I ask no better a winding sheet (over the earth and under the sun.)   Let the bees go honey-hunting with yellow blur of wings in the dome of my head, in the rumbling, singing arch of my skull.   Let there be wings and yellow dust and the drone of dreams of honey— who loses and remembers?—who keeps and forgets?   In a blue sheen of moon over the bones and under the hanging honeycomb the bees come home and the bees sleep.   photo Rose Cook

Announcing – ‘Sightings’ a new book of poems from Rose Cook

 

 

a new, slim volume of poems: Sightings from Rose Cook

published by Grey Hen Press    £4 plus p&p    email info@greyhenpress.com

 

What some have said about the book:

Here are poems “bright as Lord Krishna’s hair’ that take great joy and delight in the wild-life of sea and shore. In an age of cynicism and depression over climate change these poems are a pure celebration of nature; to quote a line from her poem about building a stone wall, they are like “the heartings” that brim with “tumble and lustre”. A truly uplifting collection.

 Gill McEvoy (Rise pub Cinnamon Press)

 

There are poems here delightfully willing to see through the eyes of the creatures involved – whales, dogs, seals, fish, birds – while the human element is aware of itself as the inevitable record of vision.

And there are poems here which speak directly to the hidden in all of us; losses which remain on the inside brought to sight/light by Cook`s tender language and deft crafting.  

With the ‘white sheets’ on the washing line, Cook surrenders to sight, while that ‘single red shirt’ acts as a warning: Look out. And up, and everywhere, all the time, because it`s a good thing. Because it helps.

Sandra Tappenden (Speed pub Salt Modern Poets)

 

 

 

 

 

Present – W.S. Merwin

Present

 

 

As they were leaving the garden

one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

 

I am to give you this

as you are leaving the garden

 

I do not know what it is

or what it is for

what you will do with it

 

you will not be able to keep it

but you will not be able

 

to keep anything

yet they both reached at once

 

for the present

and when their hands met

 

they laughed

 

 

~ W.S. Merwin

from  Garden Time

 

Photograph Rose Cook

Red Onion, Cherries, Boiling Potatoes, Milk by Jane Hirshfield

Red Onion, Cherries, Boiling Potatoes, Milk-

by Jane Hirshfield

Here is a soul, accepting nothing.

Obstinate as a small child

refusing tapioca, peaches, toast.

The cheeks are streaked, but dry.

The mouth is firmly closed in both directions.

Ask, if you like,

if it is merely sulking, or holding out for better.

The soup grows cold in the question.

The ice cream pools in its dish.

Not this, is all it knows. Not this.

As certain cut flowers refuse to drink in the vase.

And the heart, from its great distance, watches, helpless.

(photograph Rose Cook)

awe is what moves us forward

awe is what moves us forward

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous,

Only our eyes are not open to it.

Awe is what moves us forward.

 

Live from your own center.

The divine lives within you.

The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.

Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen,

but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

 

Today the planet is the only proper “in group.”

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows,

but we can choose to live in joy.

 

You must return with the bliss and integrate it.

The return is seeing the radiance is everywhere.

The world is a match for us.

We are a match for the world.

The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

 

Sanctify the place you are in.

Follow your bliss. . . .

 

~ Joseph Campbell

photo Rose Cook