Green Goddess, Martins, Lotus Vision

Green Goddess

Regally, palms filled with light,

you summon, yet I fear you,

because you command

I abandon defensive posturing.

I step back, terrified

of being issued a one way ticket

to an unknown destination.

 

A perennial refugee, I live as if

I were a hermit in an outpost garrison,

composing poems of exile, my songs

echoing amongst living trees,

but falling silent in their foliage.

 

You enthrall with gleaming presence.

In forests You gaze at me as infants do.

Insects under leaves collect

particles of light; birds chatter

of standstill moments when then

reaches now; rainbows stream

like rivers in the evening sky.

 

I shall no longer thwart

my heart in its calls for beauty,

or my soul of trust in, and thrust to be

an inseparable part of

this emerald world that is our home.

 

Regally, palms filled with green,

you summon, and I,

your fearless forest child, obey.

 

 

Martins

From Africa where tribal drums beat

you précis tales of travel into brisk banter.

You are heralds, impressing

the indefinable with fleeting presence.

 

Growing softer and streamlined

my body shrinks. Extending

feathers and tail, limbering in curving air,

I close gaps between desire and action.

 

With these talents to quarter

the globe, have I acquired the wisdom 

to be free? Am I having a dream or is

the dream having me?

 

Lotus’ vision

Meticulously we have turned clay into pottery

to hold and carry love, that most precious

and universal solvent found at rainbow’s end.

 

Of course, we made our urns water-tight,

sealed and decorated with brilliant glazes.

Yet with continual labour of containing

and transporting, the vessels scuffed.

Eventually we ditched them by river’s bank.

Lapped by currents, investigated by

beaks of birds, rims split, and weeds grew.

But water like love,

being inside at the same time

as outside, knows no containment.

 

As abandoned pots gradually returned to mud,

lilies grew,

that heady with knowing, reached skyward.

 

From this elevation they saw a grand scheme

of ponds, fields, potters and basket-weavers,

the industry of civilizations, all temporary

containers of divine wholeness, creating

and dissolving individual boundaries of being.

 

By Misha Norland