
Image by Jaye Marie (with the flats removed)
Winter Tree
My beautiful cobnut tree
Dressed down for winter
Empty nest, vacancy
Until Spring when leaves return
Courtships played out
New eggs laid
Life eternal…
Image by Jaye Marie (with the flats removed)
My beautiful cobnut tree
Dressed down for winter
Empty nest, vacancy
Until Spring when leaves return
Courtships played out
New eggs laid
Life eternal…
The mournful sound of Summer dying
Bare trees, one green leaf clinging
With the last of Summers sigh
Autumn slips past too fast
To the cold grip of Winter
Hard ground beneath your feet
Creatures sleeping, waiting
Cupboards fully stocked for snowfall
Bright buttoned snowmen built
Wooden sleighs sliding
Children laughing
Let me turn the clock forward
Bring on the Spring rains
The smile of daffodils
Let the sun shine
so I can feel warm again…
I have seen the devil playing with angels
Until a new soul is born
They split as fast as lightning
Rushing through the universe
To stake their claim
To control the life yet to begin
Who can offer greater temptation?
Whose whispered words can be heard
By this growing soul
Don’t they know we are all born to be angels
and demons in one soul?
Image by scvincent.com
For visually challenged writers, the image shows the dark silhouette of an island in a shimmering lake, surrounded by shadowy hills. The sun is breaking out from behind the clouds in rayed splendour.
Fireflies shimmer
Dancing on the edge of my tongue
Late-night sun, painting dark shadows
lacing white clouds in a world that is not mine
The moon hides her face, is she in mourning?
She holds the answer beneath the pale
incandescent carpet of liquid light
dividing the dark sacred land
Time echoes stories, legends of dragon’s lair
Treasures to be found, the brightest jewel
The best of these is the image you see
In the gold-laced mirror
Don’t hide your light
where sun and moon cannot shine
Let your feet dance
on shining lakes of liquid time…
I want to dance
To swim the warm waters
Run barefoot through fields of yesterday
When you were there
I have lost more than my soul mate
There are no sunsets, no moon rise
The breeze no longer moves through the trees
The leaves are still
You have taken the air from this world
I can no longer breathe without you here
I wait, drifting like a slow-moving river
Until I can walk the path you have taken…
Will
You stay
One more day
Turn on the lights
Vanish the darkness
Don’t take Christmas with you
Words were spoken, yet we mend
Don’t wrap my tears beneath the tree
If you must go, leave the dog, she’s mine
Don’t close the door one last time, stay with me…
Dear friends, in the memory of our dear Hélène from Willow Poetry, Sadje has decided to continue this challenge, and we are delighted to take part…
Thanks to JOHN TOWNER for making this photo available freely on @unsplash 🎁
I have taken the wrong road
The curve ahead looks never ending
The shaft of light through cruel dark leaves
Claws waiting to drag me from my world
The play of light on tarmac, inviting
A voice from the shadows whispering
Turn back, yet my car will not reverse.
I am pulled forward past the light into liquid darkness
A black shroud waving through my headlights
A feeling of having been swallowed.
I wait to hear teeth snap
I close my eyes, no more than a blink
I am back where I started,
the light unchanged, the curve ahead inviting…
Image by Jaye Marie
Day time shadows hold no fear
Midnight shadows curl my toes
Cloud my mind with horror stories remembered
knees pulled up to my chest
under blanket hidden until morning sun
sweeps my room clean
where friendly shadows can again be seen…
This week I have set myself the task of re-editing an old manuscript, one with the old-fashioned straight speech marks. I did try to find a way to remove/replace them with curly ones, with no luck. At least, not on the version of Word I am using.
There must be a way to do this, but the advice I get from googling the problem seems impossible to implement. So, unless someone knows an easy way to do this, I am destined to be doing it by hand for the next six months!
Changing the subject to something a little closer to my heart, I have to report that Autumn is happening rather slowly outside my back door where most of my bonsai trees are taking their sweet time to drop their leaves.
Which turned out for the better really, for me that is, as it gives me more time to clear up after the ones that have obliged. Because it has become so cold out there, I am having to cut my trips outside short as my hands get so painful even with gloves on, which means I am having trouble keeping up with everything.
Normally, my trees drop their leaves quite quickly and I can get them all tidied up and bedded down in one afternoon. But this extremely cold weather is playing havoc with all things garden related.
The grass is getting longer by the minute but cannot be cut as it’s much too wet. There is going to be such a backlog to catch up on come Spring as most of my trees will need repotting by then too.
On one of my lightning trips outside, I happened to notice the state of some of the bonsai shelving. The wood is rotting, the brackets are rusting and the wall these shelves live on desperately needs a coat of paint too, so the list of outstanding jobs is getting longer.
This year, through no fault of my own, I have not been a very good gardener, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it, so next year I have a lot of work to do once the good weather returns…
Image by Jaye Marie
While hitch hiking in the New Forest I took a wrong turn
The trees stood closer together, darker, menacing
My heart pounding as the light changed
I could see a small clearing
There stood a glass temple built in the fashion
of a step pyramid about four feet high
On the lower step sat a very small monk
His head in his hands, I could hear him sobbing
Stepping closer to sit beside him I asked after his sadness
Turning to me with the most beautiful face
Small, round bright blue eyes with bow shaped lips
The kind I knew to be soft to the touch
His voice, a rustle of leaves, full of mystery
Someone has stolen the gold stone
Without it the forest will soon die.
Before finding myself in this strange place
I had bought a few trinkets to take home
I offered the monk my palm sized piece of pyrite
Asking if it would do, in place of the lost stone
He took it in his small hands, saying
It’s a good replacement given with kindness
The forest spirits will be very grateful
He placed it on top, bowed his head
I heard whispered words that meant nothing to me
Thinking he was deep in prayer, I made my way out
of the forest with no wrong turns
Not realising the scene behind me was slowly fading
Disappearing into a realm that had sent it in the first place.
Stopping for a coffee before returning to my car
I asked about the glass temple.
No one knew what I was talking about
On my way out, the elderly man who sat behind me
Stopped to say I had been blessed by the sands of time
That from now on, my life would take the right turns
I watched him walk away, wondering how he knew
About my wrong turn. He made no mention of the glass temple
The words whispered by the monk stayed in my mind
I would try to look them up later…