Posted in Uncategorized, tagged horizon, landscape, light, Poetry, summer, Wales on July 24, 2019| 5 Comments »
The passage of time and the passage of light
And the drift of thought.
Cloud cover comes and goes,
A brightening and a darkening.
Birdsong and other rivers.
A convergence and a dissipation.
They all return to the one horizon,
Led away by song and by the rolling hills.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aurora, horizon, Iceland, light, Poetry, raven, snow, Solstice, time, Winter on April 25, 2012| 3 Comments »
First few notes and ideas from a trip to Iceland last December. Another piece disappeared soon after writing – joys of instant technology – perhaps the giants of the aurora prefer to remain hidden, together with the dragons of the ice….
I
A slight
Misinterpretation…
It was not
“Nevermore”
The raven cried
But
“endless”
Or “forever”…..
That timeless view
only one who sees
The whole horizon
Can utter.
II
The weight of white, cutting wind
Relentless,
Borne over the miles of ice,
Raising ghosts that smoke and snake
Across the black remnant of ice-free ground….
III
At first,
Day on day of snowfields
Aches eye and brain.
Tired of colourless, outstretched miles,
We long for a taste of colour,
A clash of the familiar….
But with the continuing cold
Comes acquiescence:
No longer is this a world you know,
No longer parameters judiciously to be weighed.
IV
The weight of gravity,
Settling white,
remorseless accumulations
Of slow curves.
“We do not care
For your insistent heartbeat.
A fist
Thrown against forever,
A line of footprints smoothed and vanishing…..”
V
“Nevermore”
Was not the raven’s cry-
That
Was a mistranslation.
Understandable, though,
The tones of black
Require a certain bleak vision
Mixed with cold humour:
A perspective of wan horizons,
Endless fields of snow
Punctuated by moments
Of death….
The word
On every raven’s call
Is
“Forever”.
Maybe
It was a gloomy
New England Protestantism,
(Baldur dead forever),
Maybe
A seer’s view….
Try as you like,
Small human,
Whatever weavings and turnings,
Clever, fast, considered,
All shall return to forever,
The dust in my voice,
The iris of this instant.
My name is Horizon.
“Nevermore”
Is the cry of one
Who can never look over the world’s edge,
Never see the sun under the earth,
Night fuse,
Egg of light……
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged distance, earth's core, falling, horizon, Poetry, radius on April 15, 2012| 8 Comments »
FALLING, FALLING
(Opening)
Just a crack,
Just a sliver of light
And the words pour through….
A flock of birds
Noisy, impossible to number,
Impossible to fix the eye
On just one……
A sudden rush,
A pattern, a form
Turning in the clear sky,
Then gone
To the fine horizon…..
——-
(Dream)
It would take (about)
Twenty minutes
To fall to earth
From the furthest, quietest, coldest
Edge of atmosphere,
Where air wisps into void.
Those who know
Say, once acceleration becomes steady
It feels like motionless floating
Watching the round world
In peace,
Glorious and free
Until the horizon begins to close,
To contract,
To speed, simultanteously,
Inwards and outwards
And gravity once more
Becomes velocity….
But if we were not to collide,
If, somehow, on our frozen descent
Matter, mind, breath
Attenuated,
If translucence of the air,
(Somehow),
Replaced the bounded blood,
The nestled organs,
The pumping familiarity,
The jealous identity of flesh…
And we passed through,
Still falling,
Still joyously falling,
The first jolt
Of rock and dirt…
Down in warming,
Dark silence,
New worlds –
Not death-dulled dust,
But a new, rich, atmosphere,
Savoured.
Layers of dance,
Dreams of fire taking form,
Vast equators,
Equations, interactions,
Slidings, scales tipped,
Scales iridescent,
Lands, oceans, airs,
A transparency.
Falling,
Still falling,
As if floating,
As if free,
Then,
(and this is the wonder),
Then it would be,
Give or take,
Two more days,
Two more full days
Of falling
Down towards the heart pull,
(Core and cord),
Of the planet
Before the centre were reached
Before the golden,
Singing, spinning hub,
Before the ringing small sun,
The raison d’etre,
The opening question,
( little human),
Galahad before the Graal, perhaps,
Or simply
A coming home,
An end of falling,
A stillness,
Enfolded,
Matter to matter,
The round simplicity
Of the sound ‘home’.
——
(End Matter)
——-
simonhlilly 