Raidho-The Journey is the Destination

A favourite rune of mine....

http://runesecrets.com/rune-meanings/raidho


Raidho- Ready

The place is here
And you're already in it.
Thorax split and heart open.
You're ready to fly.
Then Fly.
Simply spread your wings and do it
For there's nothing stopping you.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Making choices

On Parting

"Protect the garden," you say,
"from the wild that might err there."
You hold yourself tight in parting
I give you Brigid's Cross
to help you find your way.

And you show me this painting
Given you once in lovemaking -
A Medieval Maiden on a white horse
its nose close to the canvas, shirking-
The future blank, you say.

You will have to choose
between a Crone's prayer.
and Maiden's aspiration.
You may have to let in the wild, lover.
You may have to let in the wild.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Love

love

I think about your long back and low hips
Your sleek-snake walk.
The slight curve of your shoulders
As you stoop to kiss
Me, dressed in pink rose petals.

Earth's heartbeat pulls you down to core
That blazes up in you and sets me alight.
Petal by petal you swallow
Flames of your own making
Until I am whole again

Inside your belly.
Where I am a circle
And I am healing you
And you are a circle
And you are healing me.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Lus Mor -Foxgloves

Foxgloves.
They grow wild along the highways and byways of Ireland this month- so if you can't get out and about - why not buy one in a garden centre.
Digitalis Purpurea. Heart healer medicine. Biennial. 75 blooms on one stem.
They multiply every year...there's a name for that..
But they are deadly if you eat them.
So children beware.
http://www.wildflowersofireland.=Foxglove


Beware

I picked several once from a stony path.
Fledglings. Some thrived. Most died.
They prefer the wild. But a glimpse of
a cottage garden lush with them, I tried again-
Half reared ones this time.
Lus Mor - big plant, Foxglove, Fairy Thimble.
Your tall spikes rising, your parted lips opening
to a dark spotted throat mouthing
your mute warning to the passer-by


Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Creation

Adam's finger stretched to touch
the hand of God waiting.
The space between pregnant.
The eye of the needle
where all knowledge drops
to a pinpoint.
The space of the blank rune, black sun
The moment of faith & hope & trust
where you leap into the void
with great scissor-like wings
of your own making.
Flight and fall, all contained
in the act of reaching.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

images for Creation

Sharing

To The Man in the Sycamore Tree

I do not want to share my hoard of nuts

But bury them deep

At the bottom of the garden

Beneath the Sycamore

And savour them only

When it is cold

And I am alone

And the wind blows

But the birds may confuse these

With the ones I hang on trees

They may confuse

And find me out.

Solstice

summer solstice

Seapoint Solstice

An arm's stretch
Would take me out
To where the foghorn blows.
Waiting, I walk
Through seaweed and shell.
Rain shifts me lateral
To a red sail
Rising skyward diagonal.
I pocket wood and bone.
Hoping to hone
Something of this drift.
Something that will ring
Out old and new in.
Let the solar year begin!



PS The solar year actually begins in January but hey it's solstice today....

Memory

It edges around the corner of my eye

nudging gently

asking me to allow.

I smile and wonder, what next?

What gift? What fantasy? 

What pain to be addressed 

that I have left too long on simmer; 

Until it has boiled dry and burnt the pot;

Until it sings, blackens, roars, cracks;

Until an angel, happening to pass by, hears it;

Until he comes

Edging around the corner of my eye

nudging gently

asking me to allow.

ABC challenge

Try This One

The ABC CHALLENGE-  A FIVE LINE POEM

The first four lines begin with any continuous sequence of the alphabet, last line begins with any letter. Subject matter is  feelings...

http://www.fanstory.com/index1n.jsp

Here are my attempts....

Love

Makes miracles

Near-seismic shifts

Occur

Within seconds

OR

Dare I say it?

Each time I see you

Far off thunder rolls

Gigantic lightning flashes across my skies

And my heart roars:"Yes, Yes, Yes!"

OR

Another day of listening to

Boring Euro commentators on

Clear

Decisive goals

And I will tune out......

Soul Mates

I am sure that all you Romantics out there are familiar with the Soul Mate-Split Apart theory...
And if you aren't
where have you been???
http://www.eoht.info/page/Soul+mate


This poem is more about refinding the other half....

Split Apart

My hand on my heart
I let it in
This light that is you
Seeping through
Splitting me- open

A split thorax
A heart without a shield
That is me now
Letting in
Letting go

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Etheree

Etheree poetry challenge

This poetry form consists of 10 lines of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 syllables. Or the reverse. Try it!

An example

I

Wonder

If you know

what I think of

the way you spin words

to catch me in your web

of mischief, fun and delight

like a woodlouse wrapt in spider

spittle and spun like a spinning top

twist turn twist turn twist until I give up

On Going Wild

The spring that was welling up in the garden
has been diverted. I spill out, instead,
All over the place. It catches me
unawares.

I need to go wild, you say.

The lawn is newly laid
No growth now 'til spring.

You say you can teach me

Wild, without feeling,
Seed without sun.

And if I could
And if you could
I think the spring might catch us both
unawares.

Non native speakers...

I love talking to people who aren't English native speakers because they think about the words they are using more than I do. It often sounds like poetry to me


English as a foreign Language

In your mouth the word is a thing
of substance. A spade in hand.
You fold it this way and that, testing.
Delve words and spade downward, watching.
Does it contain what you are saying?
You try again, sifting.
Words slide across your blade, shifting.
Drop only when you are done tilting.
Meaning, when it settles on your spade, gleams
For, with you, words are not what they seem.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

On Mothers and Sons

Recently two friends of mine lost their sons.
And a dear friend's son lost her.
A memorial event in the Mournes at the weekend brought it back to me.



For my son

She has lost her son
who did not reach
the age of Christ

While he has lost his mother
a decade short
of three score years and ten

And I -still have you.

So let us enjoy
this time
we have been given.

RUNE- EHWAZ

from Images for Ehwaz

My understanding of this rune when I wrote the poem is not consistent with my current readings on it.
Perhaps I wrote about Ehwaz reversed!
Anyway -here it is calling for delay and caution....

EHWAZ- Protection

You feel all and think nothing
You can't act now
For the mirror is blurred
And you're breathing too fast
And your head's in a spin.

It's time to lie low
It's time to listen
For the warning rustle of sedge grass
Or become like elk with curved horn -
For both keep open the space around you.

http://runesecrets.com/rune-meanings/ehwaz

Remembrance Tokens

It must be the week that's in it...The holiday weather and all.
So here's another... sort of.....love poem...

A Cliff Walk

A continuous knife edge, you called it
And you wanted to hang on with celluloid and tape.
A walk heavily laden with portent.
A stoat diagonal across our track.
A pot of potatoes hitched to a tree
Begging questions for us to hold.

Inside an abandoned workman's hut
You, Sibyl-like, would tell me my fortune.
But instead of the tall dark stranger, you said,
"You've been with a man who smokes a lot."

I told you I wanted no trumpets.
No sliding sideways into that entrance there.
I asked you to teach me
the art of slowness.

And when the cliff edge opened out into a stony beach
you gave me tokens; grey stones with circles
Stones, purple and white marble.
Purple, the colour between us, you said.
But I could find for you
No token to hold.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016










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