The Great Returning

11 November 2015

Death shall have its dominion
After all is said and done
Year on year we remember more

Clearly as the leaves fall
Between the headstones
Drifting down centuries

Of endless war, as babies drown
On Mediterranean shores
And the rape of Syria

Wearies the world
In its cocoon before climate
Change wakes us all from

The Sleep of Us Undead.
But the woman my humanity
Holds me to be, has hope

Though not in my lifetime
Perchance sometime
A young girl will dance

Where once Death stalked
Will sing where Blood spilt
In Her Life we shall be reborn.

4 June 2015, Cambridgeshire, UK

Well, to start with

We must rescue speaking plants

From dumb nurseries

Then they take charge

Overmuch, methinks, maybe

But follow the clues

The new russet Japanese maple

The pink-blue hydrangea

Debate with ancient yellow irises

Reborn old-fashioned lilac

Recovers beside traditional eternally

Rebirthed fuschsia, what the hell

That wood pigeon is asking for trouble

Hermes the god-cat is watching

Next door’s yellow rose pokes its nose across the border

The white roses shall win again

But close follow up by sweet honeysuckle

And fragrant jasmine

Across the divide of grass that would-be meadow

The ceanothus shouts volumes

Of abuse at anything in its way

The fruit trees run apace

Apricot, fig, apple and cherry

Dear lemon watches from afar, aloof

The Cornish camellias dream deep

As the peonies have their day in the sun

Soon to sleep, aye to sweep up another day

I cannot bear such beauty

But we must, as bees buzz

And blackbirds nest, best of show

from AT HOME IN BELL BUCKLE, Poems by Leona Elen (1996)

(published in Bell Buckle, TN, USA 1996 by The Brideswell Press)

Reprinted here In Memoriam to Jere Hall (d. 2015)

Do you remember, brother, how we knew this land by foot?

Before horses ran among us, before we wore the boot?

The trackways were well-travelled, our villages kept informed

Before forests became timber, before the Circle was malformed

The mounds rose high above us and we entered up with awe

For there the shaman awaited us to tell him what we saw

We ran perfect as one body for from one womb we came

They chose us before our birthtime for mother dreamt our Name

Running As One we wandered this country far and wide

We vowed to run together until the day we died

But I was born a woman and you were born a man

So in the end our lives were run by dictates of The Plan

For though Our Run was paramount, my body blossomed forth

And I was chosen then to mate with a shaman of the North

And in all the lives that I have lived in northern climes apart

I looked to see if I could find my former counterpart

Then I remembered who were were, that night, in the old Cafe

When you touched my wrist and said, you have a runner’s way.

I have my loving brothers, they are all three runners, true

But now our vow is honoured, I have a newfound friend in you.

(click to enlarge)

In between the 24^th and the 27^th

A death and an anniversary

A mother and a marriage

A letting go, a remaking

In the dark time, the fog deep,

The air damp, visibility down,

Smell of earth and decay

Still digesting death

In Memoriam:

Florence Boyd-Graham

Mind clusters, garden roots green and glowing

Thick in my throat, memories of times forward

Fernhill potent, wordstruck, clambering tendrils

Eyepools of happiness, yellow eyed feral beasts

We sing in our chains, claws intact

As animals go extinct, we cry stop no more

Down the long haul, towards all our deaths

We do rage against this night of our making

The fire bright, horns askew, owls call our names

Too many too few too much too little

Too late sings the blackbird deep in my doom

Too soon the summer and then the winter

We shall fall asleep