poetry

Day 6 – Curlew, Sphagnum Moss, Peat

| Sheree

a spongy carpet;

clusters of green stars

holding water

storing carbon

amongst cotton grass

big rosemary and cranberry.

Curlew, Steng Moss Bog

peatland upland graasland.

blue stockinged long long legs

wading curved bill down.

I miss the air

against my skin

flicking hair impressions.

before they breed

the male bubbles a call

high pitched across the greyish mist.

threatened they skim

mudflats and dig for shrimp.

this closeness to nature

of cream of buff

of feather is like love

being ripped out

from the roots and fashioned

to fit the narrow folds of life,

yet still being golden and wild.

Day 2 – The Sycamore Gap Tree

| Sheree

Sycamore, sycamore.

Say your name our loud.

Sycamore, sycamore.

A whisper plays

upon the wind.

A spell to conjure

you to life before me.

Between Milecastle 13 and Crag Lough,

at the end of a cliff, on an outcrop of Whin Sill

sandwiched between the Roman Wall,

Sycamore, Sycamore

I come to you.

Once, one of many,

you stand alone

in your splendour.

I come carrying

Hollywood images

of bows and arrows

and thieves. Fake.

Sycamore, sycamore.

I touch your truck.

Reddy-grey fissured bark

and white tender lichen.

I stretch my neck back

to look up and up

onto your foliage.

Magnificent.

Every shade of green

spreads wide.

Shining out from your

everlasting soul.

Sycamore. Sycamore.

Day 1 – NAPoWriMo – In these troubling times, our way of being comes into sharp focus

| Sheree

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April brings with it the challenge of National Poetry Writing Month. One poem per day for the next 30 days. What better way to kick start my next 100 days of blogging if you take up this challenge. So follow along as for the next 30 days , I’ll be sharing a poem I create, sometimes in response to the prompts posted over here, sometimes from other inspirations. But I’ll be hopefully following the theme of Nature for this body of work.

Day 1 – In these troubling times, our way of being comes into sharp focus

Taking out the rubbish

I’m met by a bully of a bird

on our backyard wall.

 

He doesn’t take his leave.

Indolent, he waiters along the bricks

beady eyeing me.

 

Mum used to say things

must be rough at sea

for seagulls to be so far inland.

 

Today, I don’t think this is the case.

I think people are no longer at sea

forcing these scavengers

 

reliant on the discarded chip

or bit of fish to become urban

into backyards where citizens

 

take their recommended

or is it permitted

daily shot of sun while in lockdown.

 

This seagull surveys the scene.

One foot, two foot, two foot, one.

Head jerking alert, yellow sickle beak,

 

hooking the air with it’s call.

Grey wings once settled now stretched

wide with an inkling to take flight

 

but it decides to stay, close.

Two foot, one foot, one foot two.

A shared landscape it’s always been.

 

Perhaps, now, more obvious

how we all have to adapt

to a new way of being

 

which might have us all eating grass yet.

My Sister, My Wound

| Sheree

While the lockdown has been going on, I’ve been leaning into my creativity. One resource which has been helping me with reading and writing is the Social Distancing Writing Retreat hosted by Amanda P Moore.

Each day, there are four parts to each prompt. First there’s a poem to read followed by an essay on craft. Bearing these two in mind, there’s a writing prompt followed by an outlet, a place to publish your creations recommended.

I’m behind in the prompts but I’ve been finding this retreat a rich oasis of inspiration for my writing.

Here is a piece, I’ve redrafted today after following the readings for Day 6.

My Sister, My Wound after Ross Gay

No matter the mauling.

No matter the removal of face awaits.
There is no coming back
from coming to you.

My body betrays me
offering myself just like that.
With arms furred with pollen
like bright things at your feet;

marigold, opal, purple kale.
Biting my tougue, smile open
singing my insides our like an angel,

for you, to you.

I place my head into your mouth
knowing I’ll lose my head,
just like the sky biting down
into my torn flesh.

Sharing Your Work – 003

| Sheree

“ When women speak truly they speak subversively – they can’t help it: if you’re underneath, if you’re kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experiences as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change.” – Ursula Le Guin

Chuck, bartender

| Sheree

It was late fall and crisp.

Leafless trees were approaching fast.

But a still a few had tongues enough

to whisper; orange, yellow and red jazz

through the swinging door.

Inside the air was close and smoky.

Eyes closed, heads dropping into

their drinks, bodies swayed to the beat.

I blew into the bottom of glasses,

wiped and placed back onto shelves.

I caught her in the mirror, just her back

just as she was leaving the stage.

Her white gown flowing.

Wilted gardenia petals around the mike.

Moving Forward

| Sheree

I’m nearing the end of #100daysof blogging, my first 100 days project of 2020. Last year I managed to knock out three different 100 day projects and I definitely feel the benefit of such daily practice this year. There is more of a flow to my practice; less friction, more ease.

With this in mind, with about two weeks to go on my blogging challenge, I have decided to continue with the blogging for another 100 days. With April just around the corner, National Poetry Writing Month, I think it would be remiss of me to not pick up this challenge and explore my poetry skills here.

So come the beginning of April, get ready to see 30 days of poetry, based around the theme of nature. I’m excited about this as this has been something I’ve been exploring in my personal and professional lives for the past few years. It’s a pity that my access to the outdoors will be limited for the foreseeable future with the Coronavirus but this could be a way to keep the spark alive; the connection with nature alive and present.

I might even bring back in my practice of creating haibuns. But I definitely want to emulate, ‘ The Country Diary of a Black Women’, something I created years ago after being inspired for Edith Holden’s books and made it my own.

Beware of the Trees

| Sheree

Beware the trees, they said. A sure way to your soul, they said. It was far too late for me to listen. The trees had me at their straight green-grey hello. At their bare scrunched heads, balled up waiting for fresh buds. They had me at their mossy sides, their swaying branches and deep, ancient roots.

Beware of the trees, they said. Too late for me to listen. Or to care. The trees have already laid a deep furrowed path through my wild, wild soul.