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Shaping the Landscape

 I am enclosed under a canopy of overhanging shade,

where majestic trees rustle in dappled sunlight. 

I am surrounded by shapes, by twisted fronds 

of birds’ nest ferns and leaf spikes that 

thrust sharply upwards against the light.

 

A spring bubbles through cushions 

of moss. Dark green waters trail 

water lilies; water boatmen 

judder across the surface

of the pond. Softness, 

sharpness, textured

and structured,

mingle together, 

cradling me in 

the shelter

of their

arms.

 

Julia Duke

 

Poetry Theme(s):

Currently Popular Poems:

Change

As  I stand with my feet in the ocean, and look at the setting sun, I think of how many me's, have stood in how many seas, but always stared at the same one. A snapshot of scenes in the movie of me, at various times of my being. A new version of me every single time; the same star I'm always seeing. It fills me with curious wonder, for the places that I may go; And the life that has yet to happen, and the things I have yet to know. Jess
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Abbey Stones

Laboured stones Rough stones Stones of dismay Honest stones Pocketed stones Hidden stones Fractured stones Unstable stones Foundation stones Clumsy stones Ancient stones Split stones Abbey stones Stephanie
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From one frog to humans, or 'Go dig a Pond'

Burnt summer, Another hot summer Without a drop of water I wait It’s only June. With ochre hives And forgotten tones Of emerald green Parched fields and thorny hegderows. A dead speckled wood I’d rather eat fresh Is on the menu today, tomorrow unknown. A bleak summer ahead, Our long forgotten cousins Creep steathily unseen Waiting silently for clouds. A buttercup-yellow Marsh marigold forest Croaked from Floating reeds and choked crispy chickweed. Andrew Toms
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To Shed My Youthful Skin

To Survive Against at the odds of secure authorities And recognised establishments. I shed my youthful skin. I Thrive Against the odds I flourish and prosper Desolate and torn by institutions. The arrogance of the untouchables. Anon.
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Pandemic

Piecing together all our hopes and dreams, joining the broken fragments of our lives, managing the pain of another loss, full of joy when finally together, society’s fabric hangs by a thread. Julia Duke
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Ode to a Tilted Tree

Your body tilted Your leaves wilted Your energy royal, your friendship loyal. But you are discouraged and tired of being sparingly admired. Your head bends steadily towards the water, The by-standers do not seem to bother to listen to the stories you can reveal, Allowing the history and your presence to heal the wounds one carries in her mind; You seem exhausted yet humbly kind. Welcoming strangers with a warm embrace Your wrinkled skin and a weather-beaten face contrasts with a jovial and mischievous grace of the young branches so naive but stable… How much you must be grateful - for these smooth slender arms, With your inner protection nothing harms.   Anon .
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Lockdown My Gran

Behind the window, my gran she clasps onto life in the home with hugs unknown. I peer through the glass, inside she despairs the care assistant stares I think I swear. *****y covid-19 and plastic screens daily visits with my mask and wall of glass. Gran looks paler, the care home her jailor I can't say I love you but kisses I blew. I visited again, on Sunday morning until her death and last gasped breath. No chance to say goodbye, In the bed she did die Undignified end for gran my best friend. I think 'gran' every day, thoughts in my head It's helpful I find to write down my mind.  Susie
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In Her Hands

April sunshine, river-watching: mud-mounds glisten, softness surrendering to shallow water’s imperceptible infiltration within the shifting world of tidal exchanges. Water slips, silent, deepening, bubbles rise from submerging places as if small creatures were emerging - mud and air in intimate conversation. Water seeps, creeps over lunar landscapes, silently leaks, sneaks under wooden jetties, a mud-bound world of weedy edges, ropes and fences. Dinghies up-turned old boats tethered in this liminal land, paint peeling, halyards tapping, tarpaulins flapping, dirty hulls ripple-patterned. Boats will float when waters rise, but when the vagaries of temperature and tide swell the river and take the land, the river will have the upper hand. Our ownership and human plans, the little boats upon the grassy strand, the places where we live and love and hope, will pass into history, become photographs of the past. The wheel is turning. As the neutral fingers of the river find their way through ...
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Becalmed

I can no longer dot the i’s, nor cross the t’s. A pale haze, like Sunday afternoons, pleasant after a glass of wine too many, drifts across my day. I am at peace. I find myself disposed to acquiesce, content to live life at this gentle pace, content, it seems, with how life’s focus, now diminished, takes on the softened blur of evening light. Something sharp is lost. But the time for mourning it is done. The wind that swelled the sails has dropped, the tide recedes, the fierceness of the sun is quenched, leaving the sunshine’s golden glow that speaks the lateness of the hour. A taste of salt upon my lips - no call for worry or regrets - a bitter-sweet recall of what has gone. Julia Duke
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Ballinasloe Station

Flood plains replenished and diminished, a deceiving here-and-there fluidity and the flat statement of stubborn water. Occasionally trackside trees are stranded, littered in swirling pools that soundlessly disappear. On the horizon, tall walls and radio mast mark the far-off asylum neatly screened with its avenue of trees. The people are hidden beyond the town, their tears reaching as far as the railway lines. The train navigates the flood’s edge like logic escaping emotion, trim engineering escaping danger, holding firmly onto the rails. (Ballinasloe was a major mental home in County Galway) Pat Jourdan
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