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All Hallows' Eve

   

Artist unknown
 

 

All-presuming is the night

and thin the treaty with the light
A fitting canvas for the deeds
of those whose witching spirit feeds
on turmoil, grief and proud revenge
Who frequent churchyard, weald and henge
Who pawn their powers to cryptic death
and make a mockery of faith
while comic trickery is wrought
in innocence and youthful sport
which tempts the restless souls beyond
to revel in their loosened bond
Let them hold court in shadowed realms!
Kindle the fire that overwhelms!
Light a candle in the night!
And celebrate such means of light
with song and dance and music merry
with pumpkin, apple, chestnut and berry
Give thanks for autumn’s bounteous store
and show the Saints an open door!

©RosyCole2022


 

Art: Daniel Gerhartz

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Simeon's Farewell






Sacred rite
of pure intention
joy and grief
a sword between them
promise Land

oblation
for the wayward world
lamb's blood is
what wise elders know
of heaven

On this day
two chaste turtle doves
sacrificed
their feathered future
for Love's Light



©RosyCole2022





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Is There Another Way?

 

The Magi - Henry Siddons Mowbray



Epiphany, the Light for the Way, falls just over the threshold of each new year.

As the fatherly advice at the opening of the main story of A House Not Made With Hands goes: "Plough a straight furrow, lad. Fix your eye on the far side and never look back."

Here, Muir's poem is complemented by the work of figurative artist, Daniel Gerhartz. The scenes are quiescent, yet inspiring, charged with an optimism that verges on the sacred and captures the extraordinary in the everyday. His dreamy luminism has the clarity of a vision and becomes almost an experience of life in a timeless parenthesis. Some of his paintings echo those of Joaquin Sorolla.





Friend, I have lost the way.
The way leads on.
Is there another way?
The way is one.
I must retrace the track.
It’s lost and gone.
Back, I must travel back!
None goes there, none.
Then I’ll make here my place,
(The road leads on),
Stand still and set my face,
(The road leaps on),
Stay here, for ever stay.
None stays here, none.
I cannot find the way.
The way leads on.
Oh places I have passed!
That journey’s done.
And what will come at last?
The road leads on.

Edwin Muir, courtesy of the Scottish Poetry Library

first published in The Labyrinth (Faber, 1949) and included in Collected Poems (Faber, 1984)



 

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To be the poet, and the poem


Giving comes easy to some. It’s a natural extension of who they are and it seems to flow from inside of them, without any thought to the act of giving. They simply give and expect nothing in return.

It’s genuine. Authentic. Comes in the weave of ebbing crescendo, gliding in humbly and unassumingly as its own poetry.

So many give: family and friends that are family, lend a hand in the home and garden, organise lunch dates, extend gifts for no reason. Friends spreading good humour that radiates a smile and jigs a giggle, gifting joy without trying or realising.

Giving a road bike to encourage a new cycling path; a chunky musk candle, just because; and flamingo treasures for a bountiful home is a sincerity doubled: the giving of gift, and the giving of thoughtfulness to a love of the gracious pink birds.

Joy and wealth in giving and receiving is not so much in material riches or possessions, but more in esteemed care and compassion. There’s no wish for praise, pride or recognition, no ego at all. It’s not forced and comes of pure heart, without emptying of self, as an unconscious and authentic wave of life. A poetry of life.

The giver is the creator, the poet offering their poetry to any in need. Assisting and helping to protect and empower the vulnerable and those without, those disadvantaged or perishing in poverty, where any inequality exists. The world would not be without such charitable beings.

Givers give with kindness and consideration. Bestowing, bequeathing and honouring in the grace of the most silent and wealthiest of philanthropists … the snow leopard shimmying at dusk.

The local vet and nurses dote on our pooch battling terminal cancer, changing her bandages every second day. In a jungle-green bordering on jade bandage wrapped around her front legs and top half of her black coat, the little miss prances out as a pretty princess in an assemblage of blue and red love hearts and stars, Christmas trees, baubles and presents. One time, it was a blue stencilled Schnooze emblazoned across her bandage. Today she’s decked in a six-pointed red star atop, as the star she is.

Going beyond the servicing transaction, beyond all requirement in free flowing flounce and flare.

I see it in work too, in the sharing of stories and family treasures from long ago that mesh with titbits into astonishing story and rhyme. It’s a universal giving stemming from a utopian world, one that survived on the humanity of generosity and that connects beyond reason or rationale.

Why do people give, why so kind and generous?

A not-so-old, old friend of mine lavished me two of her art pieces recently. I didn’t want her to miss out on sales but she insisted on gifting them to me. She wished to give them to people she likes. This, from a woman who shares a new piece of art with quote of uplift each day on Instagram.

The joy in doing something worthwhile, to give without condition or expectation is a nourishment impossible to measure. When we give, we’re attentive. We’re listening and observing. Acknowledging. Life can seem better and friendlier, more connected and caring. Validated even. It can awaken a lotus flower basking in the sun, and can feel like a friend walking in when the rest of the world has walked out.

It’s giving with grace and compassion. With love. Nurturing in a care that flows without a ripple, in a simple smile or hello in the street. A thank you, a yes or no, a recognition.

It’s as bright as the Milky Way in an outback sky.

Of course there are always the takers, the narrow minded and judgemental, just as there is positive and negative, good and bad. Life is like that, full of polarity.

And yet it’s this polarity that can inspire the poet to create the poem, the poet that is also the embodiment of a beautiful poem.

What a cosmic bang of another kind of poetry when the giving is reciprocated: the giving to someone who gives back.

Copyright

© Image: If you cannot be a poem, be the poet, by vikki_vision on Instagram

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