Poems to share from the Pente Poets.

Poems to share from the Pente Poets.

 

 

Self-heal

Here’s the lichened gate, pale as willow,

and that bare tree, limbs jutting skyward.

Was it here, washed and still

the meadow beckoned:  betony, eyebright, self-heal?

Now even sound has altered.  Oak leaves shifting.

Birdsong unease.  The lane darker, deeper.

Still we seek comfort in small things:

stonecrop, speedwell to send us on our way.

We forget how quickly light changes everything,

how nothing stays the same.

            Lyn Browne

            Gorselands, June 2012

TEN YEARS IS NOT SO LONG                                     

You have not changed.
And winds that bore you from me
like sails of neon men-of-war, full-thrust
against past tides of cities, lit with efflorescent lens
of dew and myriads of time-shined spores
have kept you -
I, the wind-maker.

You have not changed.
And I, the firefly and moth 
of constant dreams and surging sands,these fluxing tides 
of shifting in the glow of ancient keeps, built high 
on wave-strewn coastlines, gusting with the banshee scream
have kept you -
I, the wind maker.

You have not changed.
And clouds that bore you in me
light as dusk on distant forms of stream-swept jade
sweeping past sweet banks on polished sleds of glass
fresh-cut from Chartres’ ancient rose
have kept you -
I, the born-on-wind.

You have not changed.
And youthful blooms of forest depths
lie swimming in the galaxies of starfish, lighting with their fires
the phoenix of never-ashing keep, fanned high 
by winds that bore you to me
sails that kept you -
You, the wind-rider.

Brad Drew © 1976 London   

Balancing act

We step across wide water,
taking our time.  Breathing:
it’s taken most of our life.
You shout and I can’t look back.

Water dark as guinness –
what made us think we could risk it?

Out here in the middle
the river fizzes faster.
Too late to turn back.
Green rocks now,
lank weed stranded,
every one a slippery stretch
and the far bank receding.

Alone together, balancing,
too far apart to clasp.

Lyn Browne