Choosing Living Over Life

works as a psychotherapist and teacher.After the death of his wife, nearly three years ago, poetry began to pour out. He writes in and through nature: birds, especially black birds, are ever present. He attempts to live in this mytho-poetic reality in everyday life.

For Kate

Liminal Scrim

In the morning,
to the deeply resonant sound of the Vedas,
they go looking for prints.
To place their fear.

But no trace can be found.

The night before,
the sound of the wolf,
yards away,
made a tear in the liminal scrim.

Bringing them closer to Her.

The next day,
the foxes grainy bark, grates.
Later that night,
the local dogs sound like wolves.

***

The Owl is Nothing Without its Prey

At the moment of death I am yours.
Without my surrender your claws grasp only the yew.
Without me your hollow screech echoes through the snow blasted pine.
Claim me!
You starving, lonely, bitter huskofabird.

***

Where the Breath Turns

The doe lowers her head to drink at the stream,
giving only her mouth to the water.
The rest of her inhabiting the land all around.

Only sleepy humans see all of her down by the stream.

Doe and wolf already feel her in his belly.

Comments
    1. thanks for you response Robert…….yes my human frailty means I have to discover over an over that this ‘door’, or portal, is there all the time……I simply have to be in the right place (in myself and in relation to nature) to apprehend it.
      Helen Dunmore writes well about this in ‘Ingo’ where she describes the visceral nature of moving from the world of air to water.

  1. As they say. I don’t know much about poetry but I know what I like. And this is good shit.

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