Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluebells., evening, landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, spring, Wales on May 16, 2018| 1 Comment »
SAPPHIRE
Evening hills
cracked sapphire.
Gods made them so
in the peace of sure weightlessness.
A north wind, though,
that clears the sky
and will make these shorter nights
moon bright and bitter,
will hold the bowing bluebells
in bud a day or two yet.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evening, light, Poetry, quietness, roses on July 12, 2017| 4 Comments »
Over northern hills ink clouds stain a perfect blue.
They grow dark and slow as the sorrows of others.
The full moon, a young girl in love glowing golden, illuminates all.
Roses dip on warm, motionless thought.
The way the seconds talk, the way the night settles deeper into itself
As if there were nothing else.
The way light turns purple, and the birth of stars.
This house, this little house creaks, its clocks tick on.
One or two slow flies spin the edge of rooms.
Little cat settles at the window; her white paws.
Words disappear.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evening, existence, loch, memory, Poetry, presence, remembering, shore on February 10, 2015| 2 Comments »
WHERE SHALL THESE GHOSTS
Where shall these
Ghosts, oblivious, remain?
Down by the shore
Counting dead-man’s-fingers,
Peeking in mermaid’s purses,
Teasing the mouths of anemones.
A ghost amongst ghosts,
Toes wet and dancing,
Sand-wriggled.
An audience of waves,
A laughter of gulls.
Enchanted
By hedgerow robins
And blackbirds after rain.
A cooling skein of late summer cloud.
Showered and drifting,
The pale washed sky.
Home, then, to warm silence,
A collected, amiable
Gathered-in darkness.
We are scattered, all,
Sown to seed the soil.
Strewn in time and place,
Nourished in small, bright things:
A voice, a scent, a feeling.
Reflected morning on a dew wet web,
As delicate as that, even.
Nothing to be proud of,
Nothing to disdain.
Held together by forgetting
And remembering, bursting
In and out of existence.
By the midgy lochside,
Mountains hidden,
A smudge of cloud.
The lap lap of waters,
The pooling dip of oars
On bright grey water,
The long islands rising
Anchored galleons of rock and green.
Crushed heather, rain wet grass,
The smell of woodsmoke and broth.
—-
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cast out of heaven, evening, fairy dance, fallen, folklore, Freedom, history, house of trees, Illusion, Independence, inspiration, Judgement, landscape, myth, photographs, poem, reality, Scotland, Secret Commonwealth, Sidhe, Skye on January 15, 2013| 4 Comments »
2
Weavers of the Sidhe
Two came at twilight
From the rath,
Cold with curiosity,
Small as children
But with strange eyes
And smiles too old,
Far too old.
To see who it was
Carried the silence
By the shore
That was not the grey heron’s;
To judge the cry of one
Neither curlew nor oystercatcher;
To weigh the harsh throat
Not of the hooded crow
Nor of the raven.
To find the mote
In sunlit attic,
It’s dance to forgotten harp
Dusted earth, dreamt melody –
Dream nerves tied to sing of rock,
To follow the dancing road.
When they speak
Small blue flames flicker
Upon their tongues.
Their eyes –
Corridors of starlight
From distant galaxies.
Their thin fingers
Cat’s cradling
the centuries.
They are the same
Our ancestors knew:
Changeless,
Dissolving in midday light,
Returning at twilight
With shadows dancing.
They belong to place,
But not to time.
They are the rolling,
Rising, blue distance-
Yearned for,
Unattainable.
3
The Secret Commonwealth
Cast out,
Cast down
From Heaven’s brilliance.
Not falling for the passion of rage,
Nor swayed by the unforgiving violence
Of righteousness,
(The simple, clear lie
of polarities, justice, truth).
Condemned by the Most High
For failing to take sides.
Falling down,
Down
Into twilight.
Neither here nor there,
Backwards or forwards.
It is why they flock to song,
Delight in the poet,
To what moves by its stillness,
What reverberates with passion,
Profound ephemera,
Guileless illusion,
Flash of gold,
Uncertain Reality.
Shot-silk seasons
Rich with the Opposite.
Reflection on reflection,
Echoed echoes.
Not dead, nor living
They are the rolling, rising blue distance,
The accumulation of dream,
Repository of yearning,
Perfume of nostalgia.
The processions, the slow
Dance:
Terrestrial constellations
Caught sight of peripherally,
Oblique,
Canny,
Ambivalent,
Unnerving.
Bane of priests,
Defiers of logic.
Snake language – fast
And sparkling.
A danger to mortal dreamers
Who might fade
Into the world,
Feather roots merging,
Knowing and edges blurred
Into the song of presence.
Perhaps returning,
(if at all)
With a fragment of lament,
An air,
A pavan,
A secret wrenched from time,
Lost within time again,
A wonder,
A treasure,
A mystery unholy,
Disengaging from certainty.
simonhlilly 