inside the gloaming
all shadows flatten
and all pleats are blue
in the pleating, all shadows
are deep and deliberate
and weaving is tender and true
on the twilight horizon
all trees are pointing to heaven
and textured for Earth and for you
how rich is our planet
how pleated, how woven
and in the gloaming, how blue
ii.
Let wood spread
along a beach.
Under the moon-cloud
toetoe will be glowing.
Poem and recording by rachel mcalpine CC BY 4.0.
Toetoe growing in Kaikoura: photo Allan Harris, CC BY-ND 2.0
For the first time, I’ve just recorded a poem for this blog, Poems in the Wild. But it’s not a poem, it’s a song, spoken, so it sounds kind of strange. This is one of the songs in Shaky Places, which will be performed on Saturday 12 November in Auckland by the Auckland Youth Choir. (Yay, by the way!) I can’t rightly record any of the other lyrics in Shaky Places, which is a suite of New Zealand poems set to music by Felicia Edgecombe — they’re wonderful, but not mine own. Luckily, World is what it’s all about.
Now, how do I do this…?
Recording of World, written and read by Rachel McAlpine
Oh, I did it. My iPhone SE, Griffin’s iTalk app, iTunes, and WordPress made that so easy, I may do it again some day. Better, I hope.
We have something
that is called
non-stationarity
Dr Knight said.
The world isn’t stationary
any more
hydrology isn’t
the landscape isn’t.
So why
are we still presuming
the future will look
like the past?
Reclaim the high ground.
Wow, said Donald
water damage
is the worst
photo and found poem by rachel mcalpine cc by 2.0
heart of light
blue light
white fur a shimmer and shelter
dark and dazzle
erupt and jostle
so strong, so long, so longing
benign your spirit
stays and stays
beyond all fair and reason
in a thousand years we’ll get it
serve you, save you
if we can
Do you have better words for this desperate feeling?
When I saw these clouds, they instantly summoned lines from Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur”— I know my words will never come within cooee of his:
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
pic & poem by rachel mcalpine cc-by-4.0
candle for the planet —
let’s keep the flames
in a jam jar
pic and poem by rachel mcalpine cc-by-2.0
and everyone had a sticky
floaty flimsy short-term shadow
trying to lose the sun
poem and photo rachel mcalpine CC BY 2.0
a silky sweet overhead jelly—
yes, they had sky over Beijing
and Delhi, too
poem by rachel mcalpine, photo vicki buck, both CC BY 2.0
a photo of sunshine
see that bright shiny lightness?
that was before your time
photo and poem by rachel mcalpine CC BY 2.0
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 