fear

new terrain

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stumbling, almost certainly,
dazed and blinded by
new light
the exposure
vast expanse of space
foreboding
joy

steady myself
‘we’re here now’
tend to immediate needs
gentleness, cool water
supplies, details of
beauty

orientate
or fail to
unfamiliarity blurs
vistas to a mist

stay still stay still
come home to yourself
sense on high alert
senses
sensations
sense? sense
stillness reaps,
something moves beneath
the surface
knowing something
knowing nothing

still, longer
tend yourself
attend, wait, let it
grow substance with you
test it
strengthen beyond
an impulse to a
passion

presence of the giants
of fear
ancient guardians
fomenting fury
don’t let go
hold your position
sense
stay still, you are the giant here
let them run
let them hide

a certain
confidence of motion
trust a bedrock
we have been here before
never, often

straighten up, let
your burdens
stabilise your steps
move in

bloom

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Did a bud unfurl
in the garden?

Silence, birdsong,
intermittent conversation
overheard, on phone,
passing by

What was it that
held us
steady against the wind?

Branches trembling
Grasses shimmer
a frisson of petals,
scent

You held peace for us
eyes closed, a prayer?
mine roamed everywhere,
wondering
stealing a peek
at you who had
quite astonishingly
arrived.

Who are you to me?
Who will you be?
What were we doing there?
A beginning, a wish
full or frail?

Is a bud unfurling?
I cannot trust my senses,
hope.

hovering, waiting, writing

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I’m here but not quite there. I can feel the jumble of myself, from working working working. The truths have got entangled. What I know I believe I can’t quite remember, can’t retrieve.

Yesterday an old thought stole into my pondering, as if it had dug its way out of the weary piles of tasks, remnants of the last months, and as if entered by another door, catching me off guard: ‘What if I lived as if the central truth of my romantic life is that I am living an epic love story? Preposterous, if the evidence is assessed, past disappointments lined up, absences annotated.

We are all living an exhaustion it seems, one we didn’t entirely see coming, because even the pessimists did not really predict it.

What if a greater beauty was still left? What if it was our choice of position that will unleash new hope. What if the story was wilder?

The thought had already made itself at home with startling nonchalance. Did I let it stay, or barricade it back out? If it stayed, it was going to require some rearrangements to the inner terrain, the inner furniture.

Do I let myself be vulnerable to hope (again)?

Suddenly, certain glimmering memories, surfaced, becoming fuel for dreaming.

And if I allow the preposterous to become the obvious, how do I then live?

creaking

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Am I trying to 
inhabit a life
that no longer fits

Why do I creak?
Why do I fail to find the once familiar groove,
the seam in which all things
cohere?

I am displaced,
scattered and my senses
fail me.

Where am I trying to come home to?

I creak and hear my own 
groans escaping.
wild sounds that alarm
my younger self.

Am I becoming that?
Am I she who will
fail to meet imagination
with dignity?

I creak and now it is
a home-coming of sorts,

To my bones,
To parts of me long abandoned.

Have mercy.

year of the poem – action

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Hot on the heels of the revelation that the year of the poem arrived of its own accord (‘thoughts‘) was the impetus to take immediate action.

So I did:

* I researched a poetry course
* I asked for poetry course tutor recommendations
* I rang up the poetry centre
* I booked a poetry place
* I ordered the poetry books of the poetry tutors

My lurking fear of my poems being annihilated by the glare of flesh and  blood onlookers seems to have lurked its final lurk.

I may say that this is in no small part due to you, readers of extraplorer, who have performed a fairy godmother-like ting of wand onto my poetry, turning it from ether to real by the mere click of your ‘like’ button.

Thank you.

(The poetry course is not for a few months so I am excited to see what unfolds in the ‘year of the poem’s adventures in the meantime.)