This – Rose Cook

This

For me, I am still at the practice of balance, 

trying to live deeply, 

 

who knew it would not get easier as we get older.

Grateful though. 

 

Five swans flew by the window this morning.

Surely this is enough.

 

 

 

photo Rose Cook

February begins, the threshold ~ Imbolc ~ the stirring of new life

From ‘Fresh Start: A Shepherd’s Calendar’ – Rose Cook

FEBRUARY   

Month of clear light   Imbolc  

Storm moon   Snow moon   hens begin to lay

Moon of the humpback whale, pelagic traveller in search of krill. 

Midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox.

Brigid time of thresholds, her light foretells spring. 

Lambs suckle themselves warm.

Rain soaks soil, beats at window panes. 

Sleet patterns fields where furrows lie.

The birds begin to sing, trees swell their buds. 

Catkins, daffodils, primroses in clumps.

Each day rises rinsed and clear, snowdrops glow whitely.

No sleep in the fretting hours, the birds hunch together in roosts.

Do they dream with eyes closed, drawing on some memory place?

‘Fresh Start: A Shepherd’s Calendar’ (pub Hen Run, Grey Hen Press 2021)

available £4 plus p&p from Rose at rosecook108@gmail.com

photo Rose Cook

The chance of humming…Rumi

A
man
standing on two logs in a river
might do all right floating with the current
while humming in the
now.

Though
if one log is tied to a camel,
who is also heading south along the bank – at the same pace –
all could still be well
with the
world

unless the camel
thinks he forgot something, and
abruptly turns upstream,
then

uh-oh.

Most minds
do not live in the present
and can stick to a reasonable plan; most minds abruptly turn
and undermine the

chance
of
humming.

 

~ Rumi
translation by Daniel Ladinsky
from Love Poems from God

 

 

photograph by Rose Cook

This is just to say…peace to all today on international peace day and every day

 

When They Sleep      by Rolf Jacobsen (English version by Robert Hedin) All people are children when they sleep. there’s no war in them then. They open their hands and breathe in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them. They pucker their lips like small children and open their hands halfway, soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters. The stars stand guard and a haze veils the sky, a few hours when no one will do anybody harm. If only we could speak to one another then when our hearts are half-open flowers. Words like golden bees would drift in. — God, teach me the language of sleep.

photo Rose Cook

 

Thanks to summer

 

Holiday Tuesday

 

 

Thanks for this day, which woke with sun

and rabbits in the field,

thanks for sleep and toast, surf spray, sandy towels,

children running to the sea light-footed,

my family playing in the waves,

all the people loving a wide beach,

the space, warm air,

our baby asleep in the shade.

Thanks for her hand, clenched,

for apples, pitta bread, juicy tomatoes.

Thanks for stones and shells, rock-pools,

blue umbrellas, buckets, joy.

The sand martins fly into their holes,

a plane tugs a banner along the sky.

It should say: Thanks for it all. Thanks.

 

poem and photo Rose Cook