SEEDS
The seeds of sorrow
and joy
Are always present.
.
Take a little time
To cultivate
The seeds
of joy.
–
Posts Tagged ‘landscape’
Seeds
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, awareness, consciousness, landscape, metaphysics, perception, Poetry, time, Wales on August 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »
In Abergwesyn Commons
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Cambrian Mountains, hills, landscape, Mid Wales, nature, Poetry, transcendence, Wales on July 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »
IN ABERGWESYN COMMONS
There the world shall open out,
Open out beyond the senses.
A wide valley shout with clouds,
A bonny plaid of river grasses,
A brow of grey tumbled crags
And the ravens and kites wheeling there.
The road rides the waves of miles,
Pushed upwards, lean and full of longing.
Free of voices, free from thought,
As if it were a better world
Unsullied, shaped by simple life
And simple death.
Praised by its mist of rain.
Blessed in its silence.
I have told you the road.
And you found it so.
Open-hearted, washed, released
In Abergwesyn.
—
Snow On The Mountain
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Haiku-ish, landscape, metaphysics, Poetry, spring, Wales, weather on June 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »
SNOWON THE MOUNTAIN
Snow on the mountain.
When will fools be silent?
When will the wise speak out?
.
Snow on the mountain.
Raucous sparrows
Wake a fragile sun.
.
Snow on the mountain.
An empty train crosses the valley,
Keeping its promises.
.
Snow on the mountain.
Cold wind knocks on every door
Seeking shelter.
.
Snow on the mountain.
Murmuring flocks
Sheltering the newborn.
.
Snow on the mountain.
The broken tree
Still with new shoots.
.
Snow on the mountain.
The coal-house latch
Burns cold.
.
Snow on the mountain.
It is always the clever ones
That save us, then destroy us.
.
Snow on the mountain.
Blackthorn in the valley.
War is never far enough away.
.
This piece consciously echoes an Early Medieval Welsh poem that begins each stanza with the same line. It also has a flavour of a haiku sequence. It was written in early Spring this year.
Wild Hunt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ancestors, art, bardic, consciousness, Gwyn ap Nudd, landscape, mortality, myth, Poetry, rebirth, souls, transformation, Wales on June 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »
WILD HUNT
I am lost
So I am yours, Gwyn.
Driven mad, worn thin,
By the fickle certainties of man,
The lies of the blood
In the lees of trust.
To slip and wriggle
Into cracks and crevices,
To numb as many seconds
As we may.
Kneel down in the soil
And weep.
You are clay that knows death
And have learnt a mechanical time
So as to watch its coming.
The whispered “This is how it is”.
That is a lie weighed down
By the phantasms of others’ dreams,
Souls worn wan draped in dust.
If we are not reborn
Then where does this yearning come from?
If we are not reborn
Why does music bring so many tears?
If we are not reborn
Whence the joy, whence the sorrow?
If we are not reborn
How do our desires arise?
Whence our dissatisfactions?
If we are not reborn
What purpose does hiraeth serve?
What purpose the stirring of the blood?
The bones of trees
I turn to small hopes.
Collect your souls, Gwyn.
Scatter them into a new Spring.
–
The Minutes Crack (winter dream)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, cold, consciousness, landscape, landscape photography, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, seasons, time, Wales, Winter on May 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »
The minutes crack open and bleed cold.
Breath is chapped and hesitant in semi-quavers, a minor key.
The hawk is ice that hunts unrepentant the mountain heights.
Slay complacent warmth, the fickle needs of small hearts.
The flutter of joy, cackle of crow.
A silent field: whiteness extends to the very mists of deep mind.
Carved walls at the edges of space, words written there:
We are extinguished and free.
—
River Words
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged consciousness, landscape, language, nature, perspective, Poetry, rivers, Wales on April 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »
RIVER WORDS
They do not say
What they sing
For your listening
But for their own joy.
No will of their own
But to find the deepest
And return.
Where streams meet:
A birth of spirals.
By the bridge
The patterns hold steady.
Acquiescence to the way.
We think we know them
By their names we know them.
We know them by their names.
You name the river
‘Destroyer of the children of men’.
I name this river
‘Gentle mother of fields’
The river calls itself:
‘Longing for stillness
In the deep’.
Their Names
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ancestors, art, bardic, cold, consciousness, landscape, landscape photography, metaphysics, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, the numinous, time, Winter on March 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
THEIR NAMES
Their names are the doors they wait behind.
Dreaming, dreaming, they thus dream us.
A silver moon scythes the snow fruit that admits us.
Timeless is the round dance of breath.
There is constant war in heaven, and hunting,
And fast, hot seduction.
How else, otherwise, could it be here?
The stars pour themselves into the hills.
There will be ice upon the marshes.
–
Small Breath
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, consciousness, landscape, landscape photography, nature, photography, Poetry, seasons, time, Wales, weather, Winter on January 30, 2022| 2 Comments »
A small breath of wind lifts the mist ‘til more blows in.
Two days, three days frost, has melted
And the birds are in the leaf litter.
The mountain’s voice says
‘Winter is not over yet’
But here in the valleys there is a small respite.
A day or two, perhaps, of gentler thoughts.
The world revolves around us here.
There is lamentation and the groans of fools from afar.
The waves, perceptible and arcane,
Encroach on the plans of contented futures.
But here, for a day or two,
Will be blue calm and the hope
Of buds and roots.
–
Motif – First Branch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, First Branch, from the hill of Narberth, human nature, landscape, Mabinogi, myth, Poetry, Rhiannon, Wales on January 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »
—
MOTIF – FIRST BRANCH
There is the sound of it:
The distant clip-clop of blossoming time,
A dream whisper, a faint scent,
A breeze, a wish.
.
Still we have not learned much
And rush to question
And rush to hold.
In full armour,
Pierced, weighed down,
Heart-broken.
–
simonhlilly 