Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 23 North-Western Wind

NORTH-WESTERN WIND

On the east coast of Australia the winds are in a sense the opposite of Europe. The south wind is cold, the north wind is warm, the east wind is wet from the ocean and the west wind is dry from the desert. This poem is basically build around a metaphor from the New Testament, see Jesus talking to Nicodemus. However, at the same time it is a poem of nature.

CARSE, J. H. Australia, 1819 - 1900

Windy coastal scene, Victoria

1870, Melbourne

oil on canvas

                                  

                           NORTH-WESTERN WIND

North-western wind excites the scene:

it whips white steeds across wide sea;

it drives grey clouds to restless drifting;

it animates dry, grounded leaves

and raises dust to brief and ghostly form;

and sets the red hibiscus nodding;

endows brown grass with rustling life;

and stirs high, gum tree tops to frenzied swaying;

and gives the long, bare strands of wintered willow

a lightly-swaying grace.

Such is its power,

unseen yet everywhere,

for it is breath, not air.

This carries clouds;

this moves the atmosphere;

this sets the surface of the sea

to lift long. rolling waves;

this bears the flying seeds;

this causes leaves to rustle.

A world without wind would be quite dead.

So is this breath like Spirit, it was said.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 22 Cat at Daybreak

CAT AT DAYBREAK

This short poem is one of those written when something you see just strikes you as an image. There is a sense of metaphor to the image but I'm not quite sure what it is, although it has something to do with the mysterious quality of a different awareness in another being, This is a quality that cats have to some degree and it also has some relation to the riddle of the sphinx (itself half-cat that also faces the dawn).

CAT AT DAYBREAK

I see, at break of day when first birds stir,

The cat awake and taking in the scene.

The first light catches on her long, white fur

And shapes her, sphinx-like, from the general green.

And as she sits upon the dew-damp lawn,

With yellow eyes she sees the yellow dawn.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 21 A Flock of Swifts

A FLOCK OF SWIFTS

Birds in far flight can evoke a strong feeling in the heart and imagination. To quote Goethe's Faust (translation ©Mark Scrivener):

Ah! for the spirit's wings have grown so light,
That we've no bodied wing that so behaves.
For still in each one born there's traces
Of feelings lifting upward, up and on.
When he hears, vanishing in far, blue spaces,
The trilling tremble of a skylark's song,
When over steep, spruce-covered height,
Outspread, the eagles hover round.
When over flats and seas, in flight,
The crane strives onward, homeward bound.

This swift breeds in Asia and South Siberia and migrates south to Australia and other southern places during the northern winter. It spends much of its life on the wing, never willingly alighting on the ground and flies very fast and very high. To quote from Wikipedia: The white-throated needletail (Hirundapus caudacutus), also known as needle-tailed swift or spine-tailed swift, is a large swift. It is the fastest-flying bird in flapping flight, with confirmed speeds reaching 111.6b km/h (69.3 mph). It is commonly reputed to reach velocities of up to 170 km/h (105mph), though this has not been verified.

     

         A FLOCK OF SWIFTS

A flock of spine-tailed swifts

swarms and drifts,

distant black wings on the blue,

                         pre-dusk, summer sky.

They glide. They rise so high;

Compatriots of sky.

They roam the boundless realm:

the free, ethereal

empires of air. 

 

Visitants,

voyagers of vastness,

they travel through the far

kingdoms of the winds,

countries of the clouds.

With such a seeming ease,

they soar and sweep,

they wheel and fly.

they skim the sky.

Above the earth’s

set, heavy world,

they live the light,

far in our sight;

they ride world breath-

no passports stamped for them

when they departed from

steep cliffs of China and

far north coasts of Japan.

With wings on wind, they span

the weather’s current world;

they range the airy streams,

the rivers of the heavens…

like thought's far vision,

swift, spirit seeing,

aware of world's vastness, aware

of boundlessness of being.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 20 Starsong

STARSONG

It is widely considered proven in the scientific community that all but the lightest elements, including the carbon and other elements in our bodies, were born in the hearts of stars. I wished to suggest in this poem that we look at this in a broader way and realise that we ourselves are the wonderful "aliens", the star children, who travel with our world and the sun through the galaxy.

Pleiades

         

                   STARSONG

We are

star

children.

Our bodies born of the breath of suns,

our souls move in immensity.

Yet we

forget so easily

we're bathed in stellar light;

given vision

beyond terrestrial dimension.

For we have lost humility.

We are

star

children.

Yet we

forget so easily

we're of illimitable universe:

we're granted power to be.

Our sun

harmonizes with the round of stars.

The planets ring our journeying.

We feed on trapped sunbeams,

the moon moves our deep seas.

Yet we

forget so easily

a gratefulness for conscious being

and, blind in pettiness,

squabble over nothings.

We are, we belong.

We are star breath, star song.

Yet we

forget so easily.

We are

star children

and we all spiral with the stars through vastness.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 19 Birds At Dawn

BIRDS AT DAWN

butcher bird in song

I was reading an amusing poem Dogs in the Morning Light by the famous Australian poet Bruce Dawe (it can be found on the Internet). It struck me that dawn in the country on the far north coast of NSW is quite different as it is, above all, the birds you hear. Australia actually has many wonderful birds. In fact, there is now strong genetic evidence that it is the origin of all pigeons, parrots and song birds (passerines). See Where Song Began by Tim Low. I chose the rather unusual word cachinnation (loud laughter) for the kookaburra as it sounds a bit like their song.

  

                    BIRDS AT DAWN

Moved by the music of first morning light,

The faint arpeggios of dawn upon

the amphitheatre of the eastern hills,

a multitude of feathered throats catch song

and so proclaim their empires of day.

Even a roost of mournful crows admits

a melancholy contrabass to fit

the tiny bells of flitting finches, floating

from tall and seeded grasses. Magpies weave

a melting middle range from singing trees.

For brass there rises brief but brilliant bursts

of cachinnation from far kookaburras. . .

and now, to seal the symphony of light,

a butcher bird upon a wire adds

his fluting, free, and flowing, single line:

the silver melody of morning shine.

The polyphonic day's begun. The sun

returns as dominant. Air's minstrels,

the sylphs of dawn song, scatter wide, resume

soft, leafy chamber works or solo tunes.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 18 Glow-Worms

GLOW-WORMS

The lines in this poem are made of four feet of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (although the last unstressed syllable is dropped when I have a "male" or single syllable rhyme. This is known as trochaic tetrameter which sounds a bit like a super-villain's assistant. This is one of nature's amazing sights that I was lucky to see on the Gold Coast hinterland in Queensland on Mount Tambourine. Scientifically, it is known as thermoluminescence and is a chemical reaction producing light, in this case to attract small insect prey at night.

GLOW WORMS

(Curtis Falls, Mount Tambourine)

In the darkness, in the damp,

shallow cave beneath the tall

cliffs that conjure waterfall,

each a minute, blue-green lamp

steady on black basalt wall,

crowding glow worms softly gleam

by the moon-touched pool and stream.

Each a star they shine in small

constellations- still, alone

on their sky of night-black stone.

Well I know that there are reasons,

causes for their strange display;

like the glow-worms wonder passes

in the common light of day.

Still, within this silent darkness,
well beyond all explanation,

now I feel the secret-glowing,

soft enchantment of creation.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 17 The January Man

THE JANUARY MAN

This one is a bit of whimsy. I wrote it after hearing Martin Carthy's version of The January Man - a song by Dave Goulder (you can Google it to read his lyrics). Being written in England the seasons in the original song run in a northern hemisphere order in relation to the months of the year. I felt it would be fun (living in Australia) to make a southern hemisphere version. The last line can be taken (for those disinclined to believe, e.g. in reincarnation) as "time" itself.

THE JANUARY MAN

Southern Hemisphere

(With acknowledgement and apologies to Dave Goulder)

The January man takes holidays

And gazes through hot, summer haze,

At sand and foam, white in bright sun,

And thinks the year has just begun.

The February man sweats in the sun,

And sits in cool dusk when day’s done,

And sometimes sees wild, evening storms,

With lightning flash on vast, cloud forms.

The man of March knows summer’s gone,

And cooler autumn’s coming on,

And sees the days of sparkling light,

And days when drizzle dims the sight.

The April man finds summer’s flower

Is ripening to rich fruit now,

And knows the year’s well past its birth

And autumn are the clothes of earth.

The man of May sees light grow less,

As life slows in its autumn dress,

He sees the seed drop to the ground,

Feels winter’s foretaste all around.

The man in June wakes to cold dawn

And sees white frost upon the lawn;

The year goes through its shortest light

And sparkles stars in longest night.

And in July an ice wind blows

From far south lands, all filled with snows,

The year has passed its middle mark-

Night blankets blunt the bite of dark.

The August man sees dusk’s light rose,

Around the skyline its shimmer shows

That soon the winter too will go

And spring will bring new warm sun-glow.

September man will greet the spring

And see new shoots in everything,

And now fresh days feel warm and longer,

Impulse of life once more grows stronger.

While white clouds dream on sun-bright sky

And swallows wheel and flit on by,

The smiling October man is resting

Where bushes bud and birds are nesting.

November man views shining days,

All shimmering in rippling haze

Of growing heat and greater sun,

And knows the spring has almost gone.

December man greets summer’s sun

And sees the year’s long race is run.

He tells eleven brothers how

They’re all a little older now.

Once more the January man appears,

Beginning all the turning years,

In every change of life and weather,

Upon a road that runs forever.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 16 A Leaf for Timothy

A LEAF FOR TIMOTHY

Written some time ago when my son was a toddler, this poem wraps some themes around an everyday experience. In that sense it is more than a simple tree poem, though I was privileged to have it included in an ABC radio project about trees and in the book "In their Branches". Besides some full rhymes the poem uses a lot of assonance (similar vowels in words, sometimes called "half rhyme"). This is easier to hear in audio. Audio versions can be found here :

www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/weekendarts/trees-ive-loved/5083294 and

http://www.macjams.com/song/64127

                 A LEAF FOR TIMOTHY

 

I carry home

a leaf for Timothy

from beneath

a tall fig tree,

from below

its canopy,

green spread on blue,

from beneath

its buttress roots

that stretch like giant limbs

into earth.

Smooth, dark-green and veined it is.

I hold it to the winter sun

and see the ever-finer branchings,

intricate beyond my sight.

All life depends upon the light,

warm light that powers the life of leaves,

on weaving nourishment from rain and soil,

and breathing substance of the air.

And thus despite

the wire and the rays,

the concrete and the steel,

our mineral pride,

I know from ancient days,

from some faint utterance that comes

from atavistic and deep time,

from forest aeons of the dream,

that we were born to leaves.

And thus, for little learning eyes,

I hold it up and speak.

And thus, for little learning ears,

I show a word for leaf.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 15 Dolphins Are Flowing

DOLPHINS ARE FLOWING

This poem was originally published in the NSW School Magazine.

Rhythmically it is based on the 4 syllable verse foot known as the Choriamb, that is Long (or stressed) and short (or unstressed) syllables in this pattern: Long short short long. Many of the lines also have an extra short at the end (long short short long short ) like the title. The point of this is that the swing of the poem determines how some lines would be read e.g. Through the blue ocean is meant to be heard as THROUGH the blue OCean or They are at home = THEY are at HOME not They ARE at HOME.

The poem was inspired by occasionally seeing dolphins in the ocean from beaches on the far north coast of NSW Australia. 



 

DOLPHINS ARE FLOWING

Dolphins are flowing
Through the blue ocean;
Glistening, glowing-
Swift is their motion.

Rising and leaping,
Suddenly seen;
Splashing and peeping
From the blue dream
Of the vast ocean-
Gleaming-grey, going
Like laughter flowing,
Swift is their motion.

Where the waves foam
On the wide sea;
Where the gulls roam,
Flying and free;
They are at home-
Where the ships sail
From every quarter;
Where the winds wail
Over wide water.

Where the long waves
Flow and up-well;
Where sunlight plays
On the wide swell-
Dolphins are going,
Gleaming and glowing,
Sliding and flowing,
Through the blue ocean;
Swift is their motion. 

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 14 Minstrel's Prayer

MINSTREL'S PRAYER

Although in one of the "ballad" forms (four line stanzas with each line of four iambic feet) this is more a scene than a story. I am not quite sure how the idea for it came but I guess it tries to say something about the nature of music and poetry. I suppose in that sense it is similar to A Eulogy for Li-Po, although from a different angle.

                            MINSTREL'S PRAYER

The yellow candlelight sinks low,

And cheerful hours grow cold and late;

Departing guests have far to go,

The fire burns out in the grate.

The minstrel's final song is sung

And now his chords no longer call;

For now his melodies have rung

Around each strong and stony wall.

The full moon rides past ragged cloud,

And lights the misty haze on high;

The midnight wind is wild and loud,

And makes the forest groan and sigh.

He lies his lute back in its case,

And silent is the darkening hall;

As sleep drifts slowly through each place,

And off to dream go one and all.

Although the song dies into dark,

The dawn will rise when night has gone;

Although the singer must depart,

Yet song itself shall carry on.