 The Rainbow
It was an ordinary day like any other
With hardly a moment to gaze outside
When just before dusk I opened my door
To a rainbow painting the sky…
She tinted the air and bridged the valley
With a wing of vivid pulsing colour
Like a perfect ethereal butterfly…
I wanted to reach out and dissolve in her beauty
Roll in her light and touch her colour
Or draw her down and keep her forever
Preserve her like nectar
Or sweet summer wine …
But she was already fraying and fading
Ephemeral as dreams
Or the passing of time
Fraying and trailing her tendrils of colour
Like hopes
In the wake of the sky…
 Elemental Woman
I move with the wind with shadows with trees
I dance with the tides and changing seas
My ground is the Earth my guide the Sun
The Moon is my constant companion.
I am Elemental Woman
Mad with wounds of chemical
I hide in caves in stones in streams
My voice is weeping in your dreams
But you will not hear me.
Gaia is my mother, lover, my friend
Her body is mine and mine to defend
Her invisible forms I nurture and tend
But you undo me.
I speak through freak storms,
Through floods, through drought
Disease is my damage coming out
But how much louder must I shout
Before you hear me?
 Surprising
Surprising
This sudden snow
Clothing the mountains
With numinous glow
While here in the valley
Tiny wild blue irises bloom
Searching the sun
And jasmine perfumes my room
Surprising
How my heart is undone
With beauty
When I stop to listen
To a chorus of birds nesting
-Singing and mating-
When I watch
Swallows returning from the warm
-Swooping and gliding-
Surprising
To suddenly become one
With the pulse of the Earth
Part of everything
And everyone
And the solitary winter
Becomes a sad dream
 Osel Ling - A Buddhist Monastery
At the monastery
I turned the prayer wheel
Walking slowly
Feeling the strength
Of a thousand prayers
Behind me
Remembering my father just gone
Tellling me
To keep the prayer wheels turning
At the monastery
I felt my Tibetan self again
And remembered
Vast spaciousness within
Like the wide blue Andalucian skies
Like the silent snow capped mountains
Like the whispering quivering pines
When the cluttered mind stills.
 Meditation
Stillness only stillness returning
With breath of night returning, turning
Inwards with breath
Exploring expanding stillness.
Touched by the Word recurring revolving
With planets with plants with devas turning
Stillness to form from Om creating
Bodies of sun in stillness creating
Worlds of stars of planets revealing
Seas of galaxies revolving
Through form through Earth
Through human's Awakening
Through cell through blood
Through egos burning
Through birth through death
Through breath returning to stillness
Only stillness returning
Miscarriages 
You have always been there
Waiting in the wings
Understudy of my life
But I could never give you birth
Living in the hope that you would
Come through this broken stage
With a perfect body
To be the star of my life
I was so open
To creating your beauty
-Calling repeatedly-
But you always left before time
As if you hadn’t learnt your lines
Easier to dream
Than have a screaming baby
They said
-Those years of sleepless nights-
Easier to dream
Than have those terrible teens
Of secret smoke and deodorant
They said
And it never ends:
The responsibility
They are still borrowing money
At thirty three!
They add indignantly
But I would rather have had all that
Than compensating for a barren life
With you always waiting in the wings
For an abortive performance
Soul Eyes
You take my past
And throw it in the winds
Like so much dust
And you take my patterns of mind
Unwinding them to find which is true
Then it is you
Who breaths life back into me
With sunshine and water
Gifts of vivid colour
From your burnt sienna skirts of earth
You who show me secret soul eyes
In silky skies above the mountains
Steeped in blue light
Conceal your wounds
In black clad widows
Chained barking dogs like prisoners
And scorched parched lands
Where weary hands
Have worked the ochred earth
Through time.
You who take my past
And throw it to the winds
Like so much dust
Show me people
With the warmth of sun in their blood
The pulse of flamenco in their veins
And fierce strong spirits of fire
Here amidst your harsh wild beauty
You meet me in sweet mystery
Revealing your heart
In the gift
Of glittering mountains
The darkness of shadows
Paths of starlight
Night Scented Jasmine
Lady of the night
Your perfume colours my dreams
Softening my scarred broken places
With the scent of tenderness
Dama de la noche
You touch me like a secret lover
Wearing a white lace mantilla
On a sky cloaked in indigo
Bringing the fragrance of stars
To my verandah
Bringing sweetness back to my heart
Al Galan de la Noche
Galan de la noche
Tu perfume colorea mis suenos
Haciendo mas suave
Mis lugares rotos
Con el aroma de ternura
Dama de la noche
Me acaricias como un amante secreto
Llevando una mantilla blanca
En un cielo vestido de anil
Trayendo la fragancia de estrellas
A mi balcon
Volviendo dulzura
A mi corozon
 Flamenco Shoes
Three little girls skipping by the sea
In pink polka dot flamenco shoes
And flared red dresses
As the sun shimmers on the water beyond
And the moon tugs at my heart
And higher up the hills
The sound of hollow animal bells
Ring and echo on rosemary slopes
As goats feed on aromatic smells…
Higher still the first snow has fallen
On the mountains
Dusting crystal on the grey
And reminding me how far away
My spirit sometimes seems
When my heart cries out
For Flamenco
And half forgotten dreams
Winklebury Hill
On a blind spring
The gaunt hawthorn
Bends for water
And sharp winter winds
Blow grasses, chase clouds
Chasing memories as I walk
In summer we would have lain here
Looking into each others eyes
Kissed and dissolved
Into earth, sun and skies
But now we are separated
By more than distance
Only the damp mist
Wishes to know my body
And my heart feels like January
 Door of Life
As the warm Autumn sun caresses my skin
Thoughts break free their cords within
And for a moment
I am held in the vast arms of stillness
And as dark clouds build castles
Over the mountains
And whispering winds rise and sing
Patterns of mind swirl and fall
Like sheaves of leaves quivering
And here comes the rain
Healing the thirsty earth
And setting the sparrows twittering
And I have left my husband and home
To live in this spaciousness alone
This special Self
Which has been quietly
Watching and waiting
While I stood at the door of Life
Not realizing it was always open
|
 Three White Villages
These three villages
Perched like white birds on bony hills
Glow under the gaze of the Sierras
Where frost creeps up steep terraces
Like silver dust
And blue air touches dreams
Here late tourists wander cobbled streets
And drink in pretty squares
Where sudden splashes of geranium
Liven the white
And in shops rows of rugs
The colours of earth sun and sky
Hang in sleepy display
While above flat roofs smoke meanders
Hovering like hopes -
Outside the town
Chestnut and poplar glow copper
And bony goats graze late sparse grasses.
Soon the cold fingers of twilight
Will touch the mountains lilac
And three white birds slip into indigo night
Whirling Dervishes
Your invisible thread
Touches the divine
Spinning in white
Like wind like brine
Your skirt like a sail
Billowing swirling
One hand raised praising
Floating, a greeting
Your feet on the Earth
Holding securing
The white bird of soul
Smoothly swooping
Dissolving the mind
Reeling releasing
Remembering love
The Presence of Being
Returning the spinning
Silky cocoon of Self
To God
The Arab Egyptian Dance Class
Fifty women round and skinny
Dancing their passion dancing their dreams
In bright satins, silks, sequins and veils
Revealing what they may not seem
Arms aflutter hips ashimmy
Exposing midriffs, cleavage, bellies,
Office workers, housewives, mothers
Sensuous goddesses for the hour
Erotic priestesses with power
Dancing their passion dancing their dreams
When the class is over
They walk out buttoned up against winter
Drab in black and grey
Pale under their dancing glow
Homeward they go
Holding themselves a little taller
Carrying scarves and silks
Like packages of summer
Disability
I say I’m so tired
And friends say:
Me too, after an eight hour day
Maybe I’ll stay home and watch T.V.
But for me tired means pole axed
Crawling into bed in the afternoon
Too weak to make a cup of tea
My friends say:
I feel weak after the flu
And it’s so hard
Not knowing what I can do
If only they knew
That’s what it’s like being me
It doesn’t mean the one mile walk
Instead of three!
And it’s oh so exhausting
Talking to you
Who think you know
But haven’t a clue
What it’s like to live with disability
When you think
You have moral superiority
Because of the gift of energy
It’s hard being invisible
And lonely here
Though I’ve gone way beyond
Hope or despair
All I want now is a hand to hold
When it’s dark outside
And my fingers are cold
Dragonfly
A dragonfly landed on my big toe
His rust red exactly matching my nail varnish.
He must have thought he'd found a mate
Sat so perfectly still with my colours
His silver filigreed wings shimmered as I watched
Spellbound
Blessed by this unexpected ethereal intimacy
Until I felt compelled to twitch my toe
 Storms and Peaks
Last night the wind was wild and high
And ghostly olive trees swayed
Drunken and twisted
Beneath a scarred waxing moon-
But this morning I woke
To calm mountains emerging
From foamy seas of clouds
Like strange frozen dreams from sleep
Bathed in sun and shadow-
And in the creeping warmth that followed
Frothy almond blossom danced
Pink on cerulean blue
Feeding mustard butterflies
And I, thrust low and high
With the changing winds
Can now quietly watch the world go by
 The Olive Tree
This ancient olive is the guardian of my home
With silvery green fingers pointing to the sun
His gnarled grey trunk reaching deep into the earth
With old man’s roots
While bitter black fruits are weathered by winds
And kissed to ripeness by ebbing October sun
In January we will lay green nets
And rake dark fruits to the ground
Liquid gold to feed the coming year
Here I feel the sap rise in Spring
And in summer seek shade from the fierce sun
At night I taste the magic of the moon
Framed in silver leaf
Until at dawn the tree emerges
Like a trusted friend again and again
Through seasons turning
Travellers Children
These children of trucks and vans
Living in the dried up riverbeds of Spain
At one with nature like elementals
At home with drugs and techno
With fortresses of vans and rocks
Playing in forests of muck and metal
Foot sure, streetwise, supple limbed
These crystal children
With knowing eyes in filthy faces
And smiles of chips and sky..
Who will they become?
Will they be gobbled up by cities and info technology
Sanitised and sacrificed to offices and mortgages
Reacting against itinerant lives?..
Or will they be eco-warriors in our collapsing economy
Incorruptible future leaders and peace lovers?
Will these graceful girl fire jugglers
Become neurotic anorexic mothers
Or stable house proud wives
Wild anarchic travellers children
I hope you keep
Your best seeds of freedom
And sow them like gifts
On restricted lives
 To My Mother
You look so frail, broken
A sudden dowagers hump
Making me tower over you
Your incongruous black hair falling
Over your shoulders
Like a strange aged doll.
At last I am the stronger
But the child in me is quaking
Still wanting your love
Still silently begging you
To hear and see me
Before it's too late.
Yet you speak to your husband
As if it was he not I
Who is leaving tomorrow.
While I, who am fifty
Wait for a sign of love - hurting-
Knowing this could be
Our last time together
With so much unsaid
Never to be said
As you, always stoical
Always needing to pretend,
At five and a half stone
Say 'It's O.K. - I'll mend'
But your voice shakes, undermined
As I say goodbye
Choked with ghosts
And dying hopes of closeness
Knowing that it is only I
Who will whisper 'I love you'
As we embrace and say goodbye
Before I drive away
Weeping
Qi Gong Or War
Here I am holding up the sky
While bees busily drink pink almond nectar
A fingers touch away
From my flat Moorish roof
Here I am shooting an arrow for peace
Into clear opal skies
While troops amass arms against Iraq
And distant snow capped peaks
Keep silent vigil
Here I am bridged between heaven and earth
My very breath sucked away by beauty
While fear prepares
To tear the fabric of lives
Missiles of fire cutting the sky
Here I am weeping
With a thousand bereaved mothers
Sharing breath with wounded displaced others
Heaven and earth meeting
Softly on this roof
Well Heeled in Bath
Well heeled in Bath
Woman in a looking glass
Buys accessories
Glances at The Big Issue vendor
Dejected in a doorway
Beneath her
Must be on drugs
She looks away
Nobody needs to be
That poor today
Disgraceful heap cluttering the street
Getting in her way
Well heeled in Bath
Distracted by the perfect scarf
Slips carelessly and falls
Glimpses her own frozen eyes
In the broken mirror of the guy's
Selling mags beside her |
