Words that sing

Above my firmly planted feet
my slender waist sways
as I turn to show myself
in my full glory.

I tread, as all beauties must
that delicate knife edge -
Seducing those with what I need.
Avoiding those who might hurt.

Youth is achingly short - so I
must seize each sunlit hour.
Before age’s frost can wither
the very life in my veins.

So don’t call me names
or criticise my seductive ways.
Don’t blame me because I
dress in the sexiest colours;

chosen to flaunt, not conceal
my secret parts, which glisten
with the tantalising nectar
so many bees have died for.

This was inspired (rather belatedly) by an old Totally Optional Prompt - to write a poem from the point of view of a flower! Well, what else did you think I was writing about?

Once
just
a dream
quietly
beckoning my heart
towards a dimly seen future

Now
here
heavy
in my arms
all senses announce
that the idea has become flesh

And
smells
more real
more vivid
than I imagined
with the eyes of my hopeful mind.

Strange
gift -
to see
ideas
shape matter - into
a house, a child, or a poem.

I wrote this as a companion poem to “waiting” - which I wrote some time ago for a blog friend and a real-life friend who were both close to having a child. Now both mothers have given birth to wonderful small people, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on humans’ miraculous ability to turn dreams into reality. The poem also responds (HT to readwritepoem) to the beautiful picture above, which is by Rick Mobbs, one of the new fathers - click on the image to see it in greater detail.

This idea also has a lot of resonance for me now, as, in my work, I see the things I have planned start to happen. In many of the jobs I’ve done, the goals were so far off that I moved on before I could see tangible results. So it is a real satisfaction to actually see the results of my decisions!

I was also lucky to come across a new (to me) form today on Nicole Nicholson’s blog Raven’s Wing Poetry. Like hers, this poem is a fib chain - the syllable count in each stanza is 1,1,2,3,5,8. Which seems rather appropriate, as Rick’s picture is called “fibonacci”!

“Ye can stow yer clobber here
And bed down in yon hay
If ye hear summat wail in t’night
It’s just our Rosie – she’s on heat
(Not the sort of behaviour
we encourage here
even in bitches, mark ye!)
So yer a writer, then?
Well, scrawl away. It won’t
put food on yer plate, or mine
but happen it’s harmless enough.”

This was a response to the friday five at poefusion - to write a poem including the words: clobber, wail, encourage, scrawl, and hay.

High in the cold air of the mountains
Where rain and clouds are rarely seen
I sit and dream of lush tropical green,
Hot humidity and refreshing fountains

And next week, I will be longing for a breeze
To freshen the the humid, insect-thick nights
Yearning for the coolness of the heights.
Humans are such hard creatures to please!

This was written for read-write-poem’s prompt - to write about the negative side of “fun in the sun” - check out other poets’ work here.

I am about to travel from high in the Andes (where the tropical sun is weakened by altitude and winter) to Central America, where neither of these cooling influences will apply in summer at sea level! It’s a tempting prospect now, but I have a feeling I will be glad to come back again!

…that the Humanist symposium is up at faith in honest doubt. Some interesting posts, and one of mine!

We grew up together, so naturally
I know her better than any other soul
Passing together through puberty
As adults, discovering how to become whole.

She would argue with me, her words burning
And toward her alone I express bitter rage
With time and practice, we are finally learning
How to avoid this soul-destroying exchange.

And with that understanding, life is good,
For we are never apart. And I advise
Her lovingly, as a best friend should -
Patient with the weaknesses, so clear to my eyes

And proud about the strengths that I see.
For truly my oldest friend… is me.

Inspired by Sunday Scribblings’ prompt to write about “my oldest friend”.

I suppose I have an interesting relationship with doing the impossible. Because a lot of my life I have been aspiring to an impossible degree of perfection. Which can be a dangerous excuse for not doing anything. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good.

For me this is at the heart of what I am drawn to and repelled by in religion and new-agey beliefs. Because they promise beautiful impossibility. As far as I can see. Because they hold out perfection but in practice fall so short. Because they claim to be true and yet so often refuse the examination that might really demonstrate whether they were true or false. And I am drawn to the perfection of this impossibility, but unable to rely on it.

So mine is a mysticism of the possible. A wonder at what is clearly real. I read in a comment somewhere in the blogosphere that it is arrogance to close our minds to the wonderful mysteries of what I would call weird, unfounded beliefs. But my mind doesn’t feel closed – it feels open to some incredibly wonderful things that have the added advantage of being real. The tiny details of nature. The inconceivably vast depths of space. These are all possible – they are real – and yet for me they hold more wonder than the impossible domestic miracles that are claimed by so many belief systems.

Nor does having a sceptical mind mean that my heart is closed. On the contrary – I have a very open heart, full of love and caring and compassion. Full of wonder and happiness. Delighted by the myths and legends that are part of our rich human mental landscape. Not because they are true in reality, but because they have a deep metaphorical truth.

For me, the wonderful thing about humanity is not that we are in some way more than physics, chemistry and biology. Not that we have a real, immaterial soul. But because out of physics, and chemistry, and biology, arise emergent properties of meaning and soul and beauty. As simple equations can give rise to infinite complexity. I am awed that this is possible. Inspired by the simple ideas that both explain and don’t explain these emergent properties. When so much is possible within natural laws, why look beyond them to some supernatural un-rule-bound sphere where everything and nothing is possible?

I have wandered a long way from the idea of “doing” the impossible. But perhaps I can bring it home again. I once used to wish fervently for divine powers to heal the hurting world I live in. For a miracle of peace and health and compassion to appear in this world. I used to feel that the only solution to the unbelievable amount of pain and suffering in the world was to go beyond the possible. To become a bodhisattva, working with tireless miracle powers to ease and end all suffering. I despised my own human capacity to help – to such an extent that I became unable to help because I was sinking into despair. Because I thought that only a miracle would be enough.

I don’t think that any more. I believe that just doing the possible has to be enough, because the impossible is (of course) impossible. But I also believe in the miracles of the possible. The amazing power of human beings, working in their small way, with their limited powers and circumscribed insight, to achieve change. Emergent miracles. Emergent healing. It is important to distinguish between what is truly impossible and what just seems impossible. Believing in our own capacity to bring about change makes many obstacles melt away. This is how prayer and positive thinking work their placebo magic. But for me that is all within the realm of the possible. Yes, I believe in the miraculous nature of the possible. The simple. The real. The prosaic and everyday that somehow, without divine intervention or mystical force, give birth to the extraordinary.

Which is consoling, because it encourages me not to be daunted by feeling that I need to do the impossible. But to do what I can, to do what is at hand, and accept that I cannot do more than what is possible. To explore the full and amazing richness of the possible.

Photo - one of several stunning images of the mandelbrot set at Wikipedia commons.

Winter feels coldest
When everyone else is
Enjoying summer.

They bask, relaxed on
life’s green lawns, full of summer.
Joy warming their bones.

Blanketed, I shrink.
Sipping comforting hot tea
Waiting for the sun.

This is partly a reflection on what it’s like to keep being prompted to write poems about summer in the southern hemisphere’s winter. It’s also partly a reflection on how other people’s happiness looks when we’re going through more difficult times. Each verse is a senryu/haiku, and while they work together I’ve written them so they can also stand alone.

(I wrote another set of haiku contrasting summer and winter quite some time ago - in rather a different mood!)

Words burn inside me – words of anger
Bitter, twisted words of rage
I don’t want to utter them
For there’s enough hurt in the world
So they scatter

Words reach out from my heart – words of love
Sweet and tender and wry
I want to speak them strong and clear
But there’s no one to hear me
So they scatter

Words tempt me with art – words of beauty
Proud with elegantly flowing passion
But as I reach for their beauty
It seems to fade like the rainbow’s gold
So they scatter

Words weep in my eyes – words of grief
Poignant and mournful and weary
But why share my grief with a world
That already knows it too well
So they scatter.

Words beat at my lips and fingers – words that speak
Words that tell the human story
Yet somehow today is not their day
I hope one day to find a way to share them
So they scatter.

The good bit about bad times is that moment as you start to come out the other side. When you know that the efforts you made in the middle of the darkness have not been as futile as they seemed at the time. When energy returns and things start to become easier.

That feeling I described in a recent poem as “buoyant on dawn-blushed waves, at the end of the kraken night.”