Still as Forever

Ponies on Bellever
Standing still as the granite
As time
As forever.

Photograph shows Dartmoor ponies near the summit of Bellever Tor, Dartmoor

Lifted On High

The buzzard overhead

And Dartmoor behind

Is a kind

Of experience

I never had before:

What I saw

On that day

Transformed my way

And lifted me on high

That buzzard soaring in the sky.

Devon A Light

On March 18th I will be giving an author afternoon event at The Bookery, Crediton in Devon, UK, where I also volunteer.

I have especially published a new volume of poems called Devon A Light.

Paperback copies are available to purchase via my poetry store here.

Nine Ladies Standing

Nine ladies dancing

Or waiting forever

In granite stand

Staring in bleak weather

At the barren land

In circular movement

My heart, too, dancing in awe

Before this infinite moment.

Photograph: ‘Nine Maidens’ stone circle, Belstone, Devon, UK

I’ll Tell You How The Sun Rose

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –

The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
“That must have been the Sun”!

But how he set – I know not –
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –

Till when they reached the other side –
A Dominie in Gray –
Put gently up the evening Bars –
And led the flock away –

This wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson inspired me when I first read it in my late teens, and it still inspires me today.

The photograph was taken from my village, Morchard Bishop in Devon, looking at Dartmoor in the distance.

Wondering…

The bird on the tree

Sings “I am me”

Unaware of life’s mystery

I sing

“Who am I?”

Always seeking

And wondering why…

Defiant

Through January chills

Your milky whiteness

Nurtures us

Through all our winter ills.

Resilience Each New Year

The snowdrops

Appear

~

As if to remind

Us

~

Of resilience

Each new year.

The journey waits for us all

The journey

Waits for us all

And for each

There is a different way

To encounter

Life’s mysteries

As if no one path

Could ever conclude

The endlessness

Of eternity.

Sparks of Nothingness

Gazing at their brilliance

I think of the miracle of all things

made from nothing

And us, mere sparks of nothingness,

yet blessed by supernatural solicitude

destined like children of light

to shine in a darkened universe.