-
the commons: air, water, habitable earth
“take back, like the night,
that which is shared,”
like the cool become cold
under a scattering of wild stars.
like our breath , held
against the now
that explodes on our screens
stealing light from our days
and stars from our night
until no more –
say no more
no more
throw open our windows
our doors – step outside
allow the night cool
to pry breath
like a sigh, like a howl
like a bird from our lips –
watch it take flight
mist swirl breaths in the night
swimming among the stars
becoming air
becoming ours
becoming shared.“take back, like the night,
that which is shared,”
like a thirst, like a longing,
like the river. like soft lips
touching water reflecting fur
and eyes and hooves
and quiver flesh hide –
still. more still than
we have names for
like a sip, like a thirst
like a longing –
like the tree whose branches
flow river catchment from the sky,
like our bodies
holy water
wholly shared“take back, like the night,
that which is shared,”
like soil in our palm
holding seedling green tendril
like a gift, soft
like a home built slowly
like a tree being
both shelter and sheltered
like the earth
that grows our bones
that become the earth
shared.
Quotation from Gary Snyder in The Practice of the Wild.
In response to Brendan at earthweal’s and weekly challenge: THE COMMONS.
Find his excellent essay here.
https://earthweal.com/2022/04/25/earthweal-weekly-challenge-the-commons/
-
the woman who loved a hill
she realised that day, canoe cutting silver through
the dark water that slid quiet strokes,
that she loved that hill.had perhaps always loved the hill,
living mystery with steep up down forest slopes
held in the curve soft arm of a river
where once she had sat, river rocked
singing low, her arms encirlcling the sleeping child
now grown to be woman who loves.or sat still forest floor in the hope that
the kid of doe-bushbuck night killed on the road
had lived beyond the headlights and tripped
little sand indent hoofs into the slope forest to hide –
sat so still for so long as the forest turned to morning
hoping to hear the spot-pelt baby calling,
knees pulled up for warmth on the forest floor,
so still that flufftail, that small bird haunting of these mist forests,
had taken form from the leaf litter –
bustled right past the woman’s feet
on twiggy legs, unknowing.
sat long enough to know the little bushbuck was no moreand though she loved this hill then
as women everyhere love hills –
she did not yet know how she loved her –
even when she had come here often
mornings sometimes
before the campers awoke
taken the steep path to clamber the
granite bones of her
around and over – dew wet
to sit silence on the old sand of the cave floor
mid-slope on the grass valley side of the hill –
sat until their bones hummed together
and the roof of the cave swirled with the wings of 10 000 years
sat until the sitting was done and
she could leave that embrace on grateful feet
that picked her way down to the river.and though she loved this hill then
as women everywhere love hills –
she did not yet know how she loved her –
how the shape of hill lived in the woman
how words would fail her –
tide rocked by the river,
as late sun caught tree-line
and shadow and leaf
in the softening light of an autumn eveninghow words always fail us,
small stones to the expanse of heavens,
in the presence of love. -
we are water
wednesday morning after night rain,
out in the dirt road – spade in hand
trying to redirect the run-off
to rain channels and contour ponds
that will fill overflow, soak to the roots
before, steep hill forest,
it will make its way to the small river, deep valley,
that rushes and roars
pulling dead wood and tangle in its flow,
to join the wide swirl forest meander to estuary
that rises and falls with the tide,
surges forward heavy with rain –
breaches the sand bank to
rush cacophonous
into the salt blue waiting of the sea.there is no stopping this water –
this river that flows full – raking its banks clean
with energy enough to shape our world.
and it does.but here, high in the hills
drizzle morning after big rain –
here the water is trickling, moving slow
hesitant finding flow along the fresh scraped gravel –
every angle cut of spade giving pause –
a tentative rivulet filling the depression –
waiting for more water to gather – fill,
until as one they wash the small soil bank
flow momentum, carve snaking streams
through silt and leaf-fall
until gathering and gathering
they pool swirl spill flow seep
to the stream that becomes river becomes roaring.good people of the earth
humans and more thans
we who are many
we are water
we are one
we are you and meif the door to just living
has been closed to us –
if a wall a fence a blockade
has been built that halts natural flow –if your life and livelihood is threatened –
if the place that has made us of its earth
is being claimed stolen mutilated by another –if your songs have been forgotten
if your words are made unspoken
do not lose courage –
you are the head of the stream
a roaring river follows where you have led.we are many
we are water
unstoppable. -
this too is pilgrimage
easter weekend – before
and after autumn rain
we walked the fern path
the damp underfoot path
the deep tree shade
blue sky raven path
that flows along the river
climbs slowly until the quiet deep
becomes the flow rush through river grass,
marimbas smooth over rocks,
dashes pool to pool
until birdsong becomes the river calling loudly
as it falls white water to dark pools.we have come autumn skin
still holding summer’s warmth
to take the waters.
to give ourselves to this,
to her – to the deep startling water
that holds starlight by day,and solemn we may be
in the long foot prayers we have spoken
to the waiting earth, but we smile at the sky
full of chit chat and foolery
until one by one and all together
we match our breath to the crashing falls –
plunge the black pool water
live hair water-weed to the silence until
we break the gasping surface
to laugh banshee as the cold-stolen breath
releases the joy we had carried reverent
like river pebbles and hand fulls of nuts –
releases in laughter that rises from the deep
to clatter bright wings to the sky. -
darkness is not always an absence of light
tell me about your holy cows
your gigabyte ram ram mantra
your exponents of exponential growth,
your markets that rise and fall by the whim of small gods
trading the gdp of vast countries in africa and lives lived brutal
in deep tunneled earth for something shiny
with a touchscreen and planned obsolescence.
tell me this is the meaning and purpose of your life
and i will tell you about the stars that live dark sky expanses
sung soft-feather nightjar on nights too big to hold your breath to.
stars that still live by their light alone,
planets that still dance by the warmth of our small sun.and yes – some nights they keep company with the marching apocalypse
of sky junk that draw lines of his and his and his across the sky –
but we are all of the one mother for we all partake of this one breath
and the tides that rise and fall by the sway of the moon, rise and fall for all of us.
and all the billions of the billionaires of this world –
all their pockets full of greed and fists full stolen,
will still be paid to the same ferryman in the endand the stars
and the stars
and the stars
will still live by their light alone –
holy holy as the night. -
dust
morning early
before the rain,
before the sun –
the birds, the birds
are waking the dead,
shaping shadows into light
into lightyesterday an adder
crossed the road
scales aglow and
pungent with lifeand i know how it is
when our deities crawl
from dream to bask a while
in the glory of spring sun –and how we in turn,
like the silent scrape
of dust under scale belly,
we ourselves bask
dust in their presence.and if we slough and slough
stand naked with the trees
does all we are not fall away –fall like empires
fall like the rome
all our roads
still lead tofall to the tide
of our own
beautiful undoing
our own beautiful
becoming.before the fall,
before the rain,
before the sun –
the birds, the birds
have wakened the dead,
shaped shadows into light
into light.
Linking to Open Link Weekend #24 over at Desperate poets.
-
spring tide
Leentjiesklip – photo credit Tanya Russouw – September 2023 and today, and today
cuckooo calls the springlast week
today, sunday
our first life was lost,
in our small coastal town,
to the ocean’s rise.on my phone,
on my screen,
on the front page of
the actual made of paper paper
a picture of a murky wave –
crashing the sea wall – heaving
taller than trees into the air on impact –
charging forward
a disturbed monstrous churningin the foreground a family,
feet already wet,
run towards the camera,
small figures
faces arms hair eyes
trying to outrun the wavethis is not stock footage of a generic wave –
not an ai rendering of some future imperfect
this is the ocean – our ocean swallowing
a vast expanse of beach, breaching the old wall
to claim the shore and all that is built there.this is not the whole picture
but a cropped version of the truth.
it does not show – out of respect
for the living and the dead –
the old woman running from a wave
we all knew was coming – is coming,
the old woman swept down the road
among the floating cars
and wheelie bins – swept away.
the old woman who died moments later.this picture is all of us
running from a wave far bigger
than our collective living memory
allows us to imagine.and even that is not the whole picture.
we live in a small town –
we live in the hills
behind and above
a small coastal townlike a spine like a snake
like a straight line of circuitry
on a microchip of a planet,
a road stretches through town –
stretches 2255 km
from cape town in the south west
along the coast
to the border in the east
before swinging north
to ermelo and the coal mines –
a long, long road
stringing us alongstringing us along
town by hamlet city town
this is an artery – a mainline –
the N2 that trucks goods and fuel
up and down the coast –
a crude drawing of
the edge on the indian ocean.
linking rich farmlands
and port and industry
making sure there is food
on the shelves, petrol in our tanks
and an economy tick tick
ticking over.boom
last week today
sunday,
new moon wind driven
storm surge saw the N2 swamped –
vehicles halted clogged
stopped
while the ocean
made her voice heard.built in the seventies
this road pins a
shifting dune and a migrating
river mouth, holding the ocean and river
still – halting their old exuberance,
their crazy tidal dance
their slow embrace –
holding them bridge pillar and
embankment for 50 yearslast week today sunday –
their pounding thrashing music –
their wild lament and awe filled reunion
could be heard all the way up here
in the hills.precarious is it not,
this life we lead
of roads and ports and atm’s
of money in banks and food on shelves,
grown shipped continent to continent
so we cannot hear anymore,
the moans of the hungry far away
above the snarling deaf
of the internal combustion engineprecarious is it not
hearing a music of ocean
we have forgotten how to dance to.today sunday
and every chat and post
and forum tings and pings
notifying of storm warnings
issued by national weather services
more severe than any warning
ever issued before –
more severe than last sunday severe.and all the while
the rain falls gentle
soaking gathering
day after day –
frogs sing a spring’s green
uprising and roots settle deep
and slake their thirst.yesterday – sunday
the storm broke down the coast
unleashing wind and rain – pummeling
severing the N1 and N2 yet again –
alternative routes mud slid and swamped –
and lives lostwe are lost – knee deep
to a future we have no name for –
rescues, mop up operations – assessing damages –
food parcels swung precarious (again)
on lines across swollen rivers
to towns that no longer have bridgesand we are fumbling –
putting one foot in front of the other
hoping for solid ground.on monday we hunker down –
waiting for what might come but does not.on tuesday the sun rises in a clear sky
after a nights solid rain.
the small river
deep in the forest valley
tumbles rock face to pool
and singsand today
and today
cuckoo calls the spring.
Linking to Open Link weekend 23 at Desperate Poets
-
he who lived to see the spring
deep shadow purple
and heavy with dew
i pick morning violets,small water orbs
petal cupped
refracting silver and spring,held by the sweet scent
of every lifetime spent
wet-kneed in the morning,
picking quiet violets
forest edgeit is a lonely sound
the distant hollow thud
of the gravediggers spade
forest edge
in the morning
but death
has always been
lonely –
unwanted, unsummoned
unexpected
even when it is
inevitableyesterday old brannon-pony
died late evening.
used up his time a decade ago
yet lived on
and still he greeted
in his low breath voice
and scoffed his food,
gums squeaking on
toothless green peaches
late summer windfall
on the lawnand still he walked
on his doddering legs
and still he dreamed
in dapple shade
beneath the trees
in the morning
forest edgewe sat with him,
jem and i,
cloud sky opening
to the stars beyond
as night cold
drew closesat with him
where his legs had given way,
where his breath had slowed,
where warm beneath
his winter coat
fingers and palm
listened as the beat
of the great mother drum
in his chest
became the silence
between stars.forest edge
in the morning
i picked violets
and forget-me-nots
as offering to the gods
of little thingsbecause who else,
in the great wild
heaving of the world,
would notice the passing
of small a old pony –
who else would know
the empty space
he leaves benind
in the morning
forest edge.
Linking to Lonely Town over at Desperate Poets.
-
metamorphosis: a record of change
- egg
water dense
and heavy boned –
yet we dream
of flight.- larva
left high and dry
with subsiding rain –
the frog eggs wait
precarious in the face
of a warming windgathering them in a fit of nostalgia she
placed them in the pickle jar older than herself,
filled it with water and pond weed, and waited.the eggs plumped,
became pin prick lives –
black swirls in their little orbs
alone.it took longer than she thought,
the hatching, on her desk at the window
catching afternoon sun and the waning moon
weeks until dark forms began move.tuesday – just before she left for the city
they began, all tail and wiggle
until they hung like stretched
commas along the glass – alive.such odd little things –
gilled grazers of the puddle and pond.i have inherited them for now,
on my desk at the window
learning to swim in afternoon light.
i will release them in a day or two
in a fish free pond
where their chances are good.most will reach puberty
grow lungs and legs
and a taste for the crunch
squish of a long tongue
wrapped around small flesh.they will sing about it
loud at night,
about their crazy years,
their quest for love,
about the rain.will they remember their life
of gill and tail and greens,
or will they believe
they always were
frog.- pupa
late autumn
barred eggarlet moth
takes the sky
lays eggs in the searsia trees –
bundles them tight near the growth tips
flies off on white wings
into the night.in june they hatch –
hardly noticeable at first
in the dark days of winter
a thick green canopy
obscuring their task –by july branches bare of leaf reveal
candyfloss clumps of caterpillars
golden hair catching winter light.they will strip the tree bare
leaf by leaf
cycling nutrients
to the roots below
feeding winter cuckoos
making space in the forest
for light to slip through
while they grow
and grow
and grow.do they know
they will moth –
drop satiated
to the forest floor
build cob cocoons
from their hair and dirtdo they know they will sleep
contained on tree, under rock,
until springgrow wings
take flight
mate, lay eggs
die.do they fear change
would they rather live
caterpillar eternal, forgo flight
for the fear of letting go
what they know
to become
what they areor do they too,
dream of sky.- imago
odd little things
metamorphic formshow will we know
if this is all we are
or if this is
what we lose
on becoming.
For Brendan’s ODD LITTLE THINGS challenge over at Desperate poets.
-
Tipping points
1.
tuesday morning
sunbird sang spring –and we
still deep bundled
in winter sleep stumbled
out the house
half-remembering
his song.2.
on my desk between potted plants
and two birdhouses storm-downed
and in for repair – amidst pencils
and paintbrush and candle and river stones –
six ants are carrying off the wing
of a larger, now clearly flightless, insect –i sip of my water
replace the glass to the side
for a better view
of their lumbering task.i’ve moved wardrobes and fridges
and cumbersome dressers up
and down stairs – even moved the piano
once or twice – i know the idle banter,
the careful negotiation,
the counting-in the lift
that it takes to work together –and at what point do i suspend belief
in our own pinnacle of sentience
and know that these ants
have just made another god-awful
joke about the theory of flight
and told each other to mind their toes
while manoeuvring a path across the desk.by the time these words are written
the ants and severed wing have disappeared
over the edge of my desk as ants do –
muttering and grunting as they went.3.
first week of august
and freesia bud pushes
petal and petal
to the winda deep scented
morning cold breatha promise of the year
that turns.4.
yesterday, a welcome respite
from weeks of cold and rain,
was a good day to trim some goats –
the mid-season faces and tails
and feet trims, guaranteed to have us
smelling like a goat by noon –these are the constansts,
the unchanging of here
first freesias in august cold,
taaibos caterpillars path strewn
gathering winter mud for their cocoons,
narina trogon flitting bare-branched
around the quiet garden,
warm fires, dark mornings
goats.but up the road a tide is pushing
a landscape changing irrevocably
in human time –the first fence enclosed a dam,
a spring, a watersource for the living –
then another fence and another
some trees came down
a subdivision or two
then more fence until a walk up the road
becomes a walk between fences 2m tall
with mowed grass verges.two weeks ago
we found man and machine gathered
at the end of the road – measuring
and marking to pave the road
(well the first bit of it anyway)
it is to have curbstones and gutters
and all the trimmings of suburbia –seems the big shiny cars
that live behind nice high fences
feel out of place in these dirt road
forest hills – seems they have chosen
to make a home here – wild life lovers
who want the birds but not the trees,
the bushbuck but not the forest.they sing the song of digger and chainsaw
and brick until they are comfortable,
making it all pretty
and palatable
and nice.5.
it all weighs
weight
stacks up against and on –
some mornings
six blankets under
it is hard to move – face it all
all the constants and changings
and inevitablitiesand yet
just when we feel
there is no lower we can fall
we find ground beneath us – earth
we find ourselves on our knees,
hands cupped with soil
praying.
our mother
who art the only heaven we have ever known
give us this day.6.
there is a
household insecticide
called doom –
(honest truth)it is very popular –
old ladies(among many many others)
in cardigans and sensible shoes buy it,
put it in their shopping baskets
between their thrift pack of apples,
tin of apricot jam and an all purpose cleaner.and oh the awful irony –
of spraying our homes
with doom and then
hoping we are not home
when the apocalypse comes to call –
when it crashes our shores,
or empties our shelves
or melts or burns or infects –
or does any number of things
an apocalypse does.is that it
is that the tipping point?
the incredible human arrogance
that thinks we can spray our house
with doom
and live.7.
in air bright with cold
the full moon rose
in a clear still skyand the hills and the hills
and the hills
rejoiced.
In response to Brendan at Desperate poets essay entitled tipped – read it here https://desperatepoets.com/2023/07/31/tipped/
